Refunds & Cancellations

1. Every order is paid in advance

NeighbourCart does not offer cash on delivery. Orders are paid online before the shop begins preparing them, through our payment gateway, using UPI, debit or credit card, net banking or wallet. Some or all of an order may also be paid from a prepaid NeighbourCart credit balance.

This matters for refunds, because money returns the way it arrived. An order paid partly from your balance and partly from your bank comes back the same way — see section 4.

2. Cancelling an order

2.1 Shop orders

You can cancel a shop order yourself at any point until the shop accepts it, from the order screen in the app or on the website. There is no charge, and the full amount is refunded.

Once the shop has accepted, it has started picking and packing your items, and the order can no longer be cancelled from the app. If you still need to stop it, use Help with this order and we will contact the shop.

2.2 Courier bookings

A courier booking can be cancelled until the driver has collected the parcel — including after a driver has been assigned, since nothing has been handed over yet. There is no charge, and the full amount is refunded.

2.3 There is no cancellation fee

We do not charge a cancellation fee at any stage, and we do not keep the delivery fee or the platform fee on a cancelled order. If an order is cancelled, you are refunded in full.

3. When we cancel an order

In each of the cases below the refund starts automatically. You do not need to request it, and you will get a notification when it does.

• The shop turns the order down — usually because something is out of stock. Refunded in full.
• The shop does not respond within 3 minutes — the order is cancelled on your behalf so you are not left waiting. Refunded in full.
• Payment is not completed — an order that is never paid for is cancelled automatically. Nothing was taken from your bank, and any credit balance held against the order is returned.
• A payment arrives after the order has already ended — if money reaches us for an order that has been cancelled, it is refunded rather than kept.

4. How the money comes back, and when

Refunds go back to whatever you paid with. We never convert a card or UPI payment into store credit without asking you.

If an order used both — say ₹100 of credit balance and ₹400 from your bank — the refund is split the same way: ₹400 returns to your bank and ₹100 to your balance. Your order screen shows both amounts separately so you can see where each part went.

The 3–5 working day window is set by your bank, not by us. We start the refund immediately; from that point the timing is the bank's. If a refund has not reached you after 5 working days, contact us with your order number and we will chase it with the payment gateway on your behalf.

5. Something was wrong with an order that arrived

Open the order and tap Help with this order. Tell us what happened and, where you can, add a photo. This covers:

• Items missing from the bag
• The wrong items sent
• Items that arrived damaged, spoiled or past their date
• An order marked delivered that you never received

These are reviewed by a person, not decided automatically. We look at the delivery record — the one-time code the driver collects at the door, and the photo taken where a parcel was left — and we speak to the shop or the driver where we need to. We aim to respond within 24 hours.

A refund here may be full or partial, depending on what went wrong. Two missing items from a large order is a refund for those two items; an order that never arrived is a refund of the whole thing, delivery fee included.

Please raise it within 48 hours of delivery. Fresh items — vegetables, fruit, dairy, meat and fish — should be reported the same day, since we cannot assess their condition afterwards.

6. What we cannot refund

• An order delivered correctly and in good condition, where you have simply changed your mind. Shops are small neighbourhood businesses and cannot resell returned groceries.
• Fresh items reported more than a day after delivery, for the reason in section 5.
• Claims we can show to be untrue — for example, an order confirmed by the delivery code and a photo, reported as never received. Repeated claims of this kind may lead to the account being suspended.

7. Prices and charges (INR)

All prices on NeighbourCart are in Indian Rupees (INR) and are shown in full, including taxes, before you pay. You will never be charged an amount you have not seen. The charges that can appear on an order are:

The delivery fee is passed to the delivery partner in full. Every one of these charges is refunded when an order is cancelled.

8. Who the money sits with

NeighbourCart does not hold, store or transfer your funds. Payments are processed by a licensed payment gateway and settled directly to the shop's and the delivery partner's bank accounts. A refund is issued through that same gateway and returns to your original payment method. This is set out in full in our Terms of Service.

9. Contact us

The quickest route is Help with this order in the app or on the website, because it carries your order details with it. You can also reach us at:

Please include your order number — it begins with NC- and is on the order screen. See also our Contact page.