Refund Policy

No Refunds
All purchases made through A’ Design Award & Competition are final and there are no refunds.

We would like to clearly and explicitly state that, we will absolutely not refund any fees and payments. We do not issue refunds regarding nominations especially after results announcement. Please read this section carefully, as there is possibility of issuing “Credits” to understand what “Credits” mean please read Credit Policy below.

• No refunds. All payments or sales are final.
  There are no refunds for nomination fees after or before results announcement.
  
• Entrants are solely responsible for choices made regarding nomination category and entry term. Likewise, entrants are solely responsible for choices made regarding color, size or number of items purchased from our e-shop.
  
• Entrants are expected to carefully evaluate our participation terms and agreements and read the fine prints or any notes to ensure that the conditions are understood clearly.
  
• Entrants cannot allow children or other unauthorized family members or friends to access their credit cards or their account at the payment site to ensure that no one pays for a purchase without their express permission.
  
• Entrants cannot request a refund for winners’ services or kits because the winners’ services or kits are provided free of charge: A’ Design Award & Competition nomination fee only covers the judging of the awarded entries, and any “winners’ services” are provided complimentary to laureates to celebrate their success. This differentiates from other design awards which charge additional further fees for winners’ services, thus no refunds for any winners' services.
  
• Entrants are solely responsible for keeping up with our campaigns, marketing offers and sales discounts. Entrants cannot request a discount, a credit or refund to benefit from current or past offers or discounts after making any payments.
• Explicitly and once again stated: Entrants cannot request refunds for expired nomination tickets. Entrants cannot request a refund because their designs were not declared as an "award winning design". You cannot request a refund if you take part in the competition and if your design was not a winner. You cannot request a refund after results announcement.
• There are no refunds for unused Nomination Tickets, however 75% of the fees can be added as credits within the platform.
• There are no refunds for expired Nomination Tickets, however these can be renewed with a cost indicated in the platform.
• If a participant requests refunds directly from the payment processor (for example instead of asking refunds from A’ Design Awards but rather directly contacting the bank, credit card company, online payment gateway, online payment service provider, payments processors, e-banking, or any other way for withholding or withdrawing payments) instead of communicating with A' Design Award first via email support@adesignaward.com and waiting for 7 business days for processing of inquiry, in this case regardless of what is written in the refunds policy, the A' Design Award and Competition reserves right not to refund any payments.

Exception to European Union Regulations

• Under European Union rules and regulations you would normally have a right to cancel and return your order within 14 days, for any reason and with no justification. We would like to remind that the 14-day "cooling off" period does not apply to your purchases at A’ Design Award since Award Nomination is a service with specific date, and further includes goods made to order or clearly personalised such as your award certificate with your name, the yearbook with your design, and most importantly, A’ Design Award platform is an online digital content and experience that you already utilize; when you nominate a design, you consume a service which you cannot unconsume or refund. This principle of no refunds also applies to all customized items such as duplicate winner kits, certificates, made to order trophies, personalized services and express shipment request. We would like to kindly remind that the 14 day European Union cooling off period and/or return policy do not apply to winner kit and duplicate kit shipments either since these are classified as “goods made to order and/or clearly personalised” and thus not subject to right to cancel and return policy within EU law and is especially noted in the relevant European Union directive.

Exceptions to our No Refund Policy

• Within 7 days after nomination, if a final invoice is not yet issued (we issue invoices, seven days after the end of each month), we have a “no questions asked, full refund” period for nomination payments made via Credit Card and PayPal methods. We will use the existing functionality in our POS – Banking Gateway or Paypal Interface to automatically refund such payments. However if an invoice is already made for your payment or if the design has already been assigned a preliminary score, or if the entry has received a vote, or if the nomination was made after late entry period, we cannot make a refund but apply a credit. We do not provide refunds for designs that have been assigned a preliminary score in order to avoid our scoring mechanism used against us; in case your design got a low preliminary score after the payment you cannot get a refund but you can 1) Most likely improve the entry or its presentation. 2) Update the entry with another design and request a new score, 3) Request nomination cancellation of the entry (additional account services fees apply) so that you could get a nomination ticket that you could use within the next 365 days.
  
• Within 7 days after nomination, if a final invoice is not yet issued, any nomination fee payments made using wire transfer (electronic fund transfer) will also be refunded without any questions asked, however banking fees will be deducted, this fee varies based on your bank and the amount refunded. Likewise for other type of payments, similar transaction fees will be deducted and administrative fees can apply. However if an invoice is already made for your payment, we cannot make a refund but apply a credit.
• If within 7 days, a result status is already set, i.e. if the participant work has been assigned any status (winner, runner-up, participant or disqualified) we cannot make an exception to our no refund policy.

Credits Policy

• Within 365 Days after nomination, before the competition results are announced and before the nominated work is voted by the jury, it could be possible to withdraw the entry. In this case, there could be a possibility of a “Credit” applied to your account at A’ Design Awards. I.e. any fees will not be refunded, but we will add a note in our system to provide services or make a discount equivalent to the “Credit” amount. Any design who has an award status (Withdrawn, Disqualified, Participant, Runner-Up or Winner) cannot request an entry.
  
• If you ordered delivery for a “Winners’ Kit” by paying “Winners’ Kit Shipment Fees” and if any item in your Winners’ Kit is missing or damaged, we will not refund you, however we can “Credit” your account at A’ Design Awards; i.e. a refund will not be made but we will provide services or make a discount equivalent to the “Credit” amount later.
  
• Within 7 days after nomination, if you notice there is a discount or offer that you could have benefitted, you can potentially request Credits applied to your account upon confirmation with our support team.
• If you ordered a Winners' Kit for delivery, but then you change your mind to attend the gala-night, we will not refund your shipment fees, but we will add 75% of the fees you paid as credits to your account.
• If an invoice is made for any purchase, refunds are not possible, instead we will issue credits fully or partially depending on the payment.
• Credits cannot be withdrawn or exchanged for money.
• When we make a refund (and we rarely do) we might not give you back the commissions we paid to transaction services or payment gateways, and we could add these as negative credits to your account.

Bad Faith

• We expect participants to contact us for any refund requests, and wait up to 45 days for an answer. In case a participant contacts their bank or payments processor directly or without waiting for our answer, we will consider this as a sign of bad faith. Furthermore, there will fine you fifty (50) euros plus value added tax, fee for each correspondance or response with you or your bank or your payment processor.

Dire Circumstances

• In case of life-and-death situation you can always put in a request for refund. We refunded many people who had suffered from force majeure such as extraordinary events and circumstances beyond the control of the entrants including wars, strikes, riots, crimes, and act of God such as hurricane, flooding, earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc. as well as death of parents, siblings or loved ones, or in case of bankruptcy. Depending on the situation, we will try our best to do any refunds.

Contact Us
If you have any questions about our Refunds Policy, please contact us using our form.