If something is wrong, here is exactly what happens

The principle

You should not be out of pocket for a mistake we made. You also cannot be refunded for a decision somebody else made. Everything below follows from those two sentences.

Before work starts

Cancel any time, full refund. Between paying and our translator beginning work, you can cancel for any reason and we return the whole amount. Email us — no explanation needed.

The readiness check happens before you pay at all, so if your document turns out to be unusable you will not have spent anything.

After work starts

Everything we make — a translation, a business document, a piece of writing — is made specifically to your order and to nobody else's, so there is no general right of cancellation once work has begun, and the cooling-off provisions for mail order do not apply to a bespoke service. What you have instead is a correction right, below, which in practice is worth more.

If we made a mistake

We correct it free, and we do it first. Tell us within 14 days of delivery. That includes:

• a mistranslation, or a meaning that does not match the source;
• a wrong or missing name, date, number, address or municipality;
• a name romanised differently from the spelling you gave us;
• content omitted from the translation that was present in the source;
• a layout error that makes the document confusing to read against the original;
• a missing or incorrect translator certificate where you paid for certification.

We re-deliver the corrected version at no charge, with a correction notice recording what changed and when. If a correction cannot put it right, we refund in full. You do not have to accept an endless series of corrections — after 2 attempts you may simply ask for the refund and we will pay it.

If an authority rejects your document

This is the hardest part of this policy and we would rather be straight with you about it than bury it.

We cannot refund because a receiving authority declined your submission. Acceptance is their decision, and it commonly turns on things that have nothing to do with translation quality — the age of the original, whether the original itself was the right certificate, a notarisation or apostille requirement, a rule that changed, or a requirement particular to one office or one officer.

What we do do, at no charge:

• Look at what the authority actually told you.
• If any part of it points to an error in our translation, that is a correction under the section above — free, and refundable if we cannot fix it.
• If it points to something else, we tell you plainly what we think it is, so you are not guessing.

Before you order we show you what the authority publishes as its requirements, with the date we checked, precisely so this situation is rarer.

Work that nobody has to accept

Everything above is written around a document you are going to hand to somebody. Business translation and copywriting are not that. They are delivered to you and to nobody else, no authority accepts or rejects them, and so that section has nothing to say about them. This one does.

Errors are corrected free, exactly as above. A mistranslation, a meaning that does not match your source, a wrong name, figure, price or date, text left out, a language error — tell us within 14 days of delivery and we put it right at no charge. If a correction cannot put it right, we refund. That is the same right, and it applies to every kind of work we do.

A revision is not an error, and asking for one is not a complaint. Wanting it shorter, warmer, sharper, aimed at a different reader, or simply different from what you first pictured is a normal part of writing, and we would rather you told us. Where your work includes revision rounds, the quote says how many and they are yours to use. If you want more than the quote includes, we price them and tell you before we write anything — never after.

What we cannot refund is a result. We do not promise how a piece will perform: how many people read it, click it, reply to it or buy from it depends on your product, your price, your audience, your timing and your market, and none of those is ours. A piece that says what you asked it to say, in correct language, delivered when we said, has been done — whatever the market then does with it. We will never sell you a number, so we will never refund one.

If we cannot complete your order

Full refund. If we accept an order and then find we cannot do it properly — the document is beyond what we can safely handle, we have no approved template and cannot produce one responsibly, or the work falls outside what we lawfully do — we stop, tell you why, and return everything you paid. We would rather return your money than deliver a document we are not confident in.

How refunds are paid

• Refunds are sent by bank transfer to the account the payment came from. If that account can no longer receive it, tell us and we will send it wherever you ask in writing.
• We start the refund within 3 business days of agreeing it. How quickly it then appears depends on your own bank, typically 3–5 days.
• We refund the full amount you paid, including any certification fee. Where a physical copy was already posted, postage actually incurred may be deducted — we will tell you the figure before we process it.
• Bank transfer fees for an inbound refund, where they apply, are ours to bear, not yours.

Your files after a refund

A refund does not change our retention rules and does not entitle us to keep anything longer. Source files are deleted 14 days after delivery or cancellation, delivered files after 30 days, and the deletion is recorded. If you want your files deleted sooner, ask, and we will do it and confirm — subject only to any record we are legally required to keep.

How to ask

Email hello@polyfetti.com with your order number and what is wrong. A photograph of the authority's response helps if there is one. We reply within 1 business day, and we will tell you which of the paths above your case falls under and why.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, say so — it goes to the operator personally for a second look before it is final. You may also raise a consumer complaint through the Consumer Affairs Agency's multilingual guidance at no-trouble.caa.go.jp, or via the Consumer Hotline on 188.