Refund policy.

This policy covers Motekai Retriever, licensed by Motekai Limited. It forms part of our terms and licence, and §8 and §9 there say the same things in contract language.

In force from: 30 September 2026.

The short version

• Try it before you pay. The 14-day trial is the complete product, with no card and no account. Almost every refund question is answered better by the trial than by this page.
• You have a 14-day right to change your mind when you buy at a distance — unless you asked us to deliver the licence key immediately and acknowledged that doing so gives that right up. You choose which at checkout.
• If the software is faulty or not as described, your statutory rights apply regardless of anything on this page, and regardless of the trial.
• A refund ends your licence and revokes your key. Read that section. It is the one people do not expect.

1. Your 14-day right to change your mind

As a consumer buying online you generally have 14 days from entering the contract to withdraw from it, without giving a reason, and get your money back. You do not need a fault and you do not need our agreement.

Digital content that is not on a physical medium — which is what a licence key is — has an exception. Where supply begins immediately, with your express prior consent and your acknowledgement that you thereby lose the right of withdrawal, the right does not survive the start of supply. All three limbs have to be there. Consent has to be actively given, not assumed from your silence or pre-ticked for you.

What that means at our checkout

• If you ask for immediate delivery and tick the acknowledgement, your key is sent straight away and the 14-day withdrawal right ends at that point. You still have everything in §2 and §3 below.
• If you do not, we hold the key until the 14 days have passed, and you can withdraw at any point before then for a full refund. Email us and it is done.

We are not going to pretend this is a hard choice for most people: the trial already lets you run the entire product for 14 days without paying, so by the time anyone buys, they have usually decided. The choice is there because it is yours to make, not because we think you need it.

2. If the software is faulty or not as described

Separately from and in addition to §1, digital content has to match its description, be fit for its purpose, and be of satisfactory quality. If Motekai Retriever does not, you are entitled to have it brought into conformity — repaired or updated — and, where that is not possible, not done in reasonable time, or not done without significant inconvenience to you, to a price reduction or a refund.

These rights are statutory. They are not conditional on having used the trial, on how long ago you bought, on whether you asked for immediate delivery, or on anything in this policy. Nothing here limits them and we do not try to.

Practically: tell us what went wrong at hello@motekai.ie. If it is a bug, we would usually rather fix it and keep you as a customer, and updates are free for ever. If it cannot be fixed, you get your money back.

3. Refunds we give because we choose to

Beyond anything the law requires, we will refund a licence within 30 days of purchase if the software is not right for you. No fault needed, no argument.

This is a policy, not a statutory right, and we may change it for future purchases. It cannot and does not reduce §1 or §2. The refund consequence in §5 applies to a goodwill refund exactly as it does to any other.

4. How to ask, and who pays it

Email hello@motekai.ie with the email address you bought with, or your order reference. You do not need a form and there is no particular wording.

The money comes back from Paddle, our merchant of record, because they took the payment and issued the invoice — not from us directly. You can also approach them yourself. Refunds go back to the original payment method. We aim to action a request within 14 days, though how quickly the money appears is a matter for your bank.

5. A refund ends your licence

The reason is simple. The licence is what your money buys. A perpetual licence checked on your own computer would otherwise keep working for ever after the money went back, which would make "refund" mean "free copy". So when the price is returned, the licence goes back with it.

What it does not touch

• Your documents. They are on your computer. We have never had them and cannot reach them.
• Your index and your settings. Untouched. If you buy again later, pasting a new key picks up exactly where you left off.
• The app itself. It stays installed. It stops accepting new questions, the same way an expired trial does — it does not delete itself and it does not quietly give you worse answers.
• Any trial days you had left. If your trial had not run out, you go back to it.

How it actually works

We publish a signed list of revoked licence serials. The app reads it when it checks for updates, and refuses a key named on a list it has verified. Two consequences worth knowing, because we would rather you heard them from us:

• it is not instant — the key stops working the next time that machine successfully fetches the list, not at the moment the refund is processed; and
• it fails open. If the list cannot be reached or does not verify, the app carries on normally rather than locking anyone out. A machine that is never online will not see a revocation.

We built it that way round on purpose. An offline-first product that bricks itself when a server hiccups is a worse product than one that occasionally lets a refunded key run a while longer.

6. Chargebacks are treated differently

If you go to your bank or card issuer instead of to us, that is a chargeback, and we do not handle it like an agreed refund. You have not agreed to end anything; you have made a claim that can go either way and can be reversed. And sometimes the person who raised it is not the customer at all, but someone using their card.

So:

• we will try to reach you at the order email first, where we have one, before touching your key;
• we may revoke the key while the payment remains reversed, which is not the same as revoking it permanently;
• if the payment is reinstated or you settle it, we will take your serial off the list or send you a replacement key, free. The system is deliberately built so a revocation can be undone;
• if you think a chargeback was raised on your card without your knowledge, tell us and we will restore your licence.

One thing we will say honestly: our merchant of record can process a chargeback without consulting us, and may not tell us who raised it. If your key stops working and you do not know why, email us — that is very often what has happened, and it is fixable.

7. What is not refundable

The trial costs nothing, so there is nothing to refund. Separate consultancy engagements are not covered by this policy — those have their own terms.

We do not refund on the basis that you stopped using the software, that your computer changed, or that time has passed. A perpetual licence does not expire and there is no renewal to cancel.

8. If you are not happy with our answer

Tell us. One person reads hello@motekai.ie and it is the fastest route by a distance.

If that does not resolve it, you can raise it with our merchant of record, who took the payment, and an Irish or EU consumer can take it to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission or the European Consumer Centre network. None of that is a condition of any right you have, and going to any of them does not stop you also going to court.