Refund Policy
Sound Guide (Pty) Ltd ("Sound Guide," "we," "us")
Registration number: 2023/225720/07
Last updated: 31 July 2026
This policy explains how refunds, cancellations, and disputes are handled for tickets purchased through the Sound Guide app and website (soundguide.co), and reflects your rights under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008 ("the CPA").
1. Your right to cancel
Under Section 17 of the CPA, you have the right to cancel an advance booking, reservation, or order — which includes an event ticket — at any time before the event. Sound Guide, as the platform facilitating your purchase on behalf of the event organiser, may charge a reasonable cancellation fee rather than refuse a refund outright.
Given the nature of live events — where an organiser's costs (venue, artists, production) are committed well in advance and unsold capacity generally cannot be recovered once an event has passed — we structure how you exercise this cancellation right as follows:
1.1 Transfer or resale (no fee)
If you can no longer attend, you may:
- Transfer your ticket to someone else for free via the app, or
- Resell your ticket through the app's built-in resale feature, at a price fixed at your original purchase price (Sound Guide does not permit price gouging on resale)
This is offered as a genuine, no-cost way to recover the value of your ticket, and is the primary route we provide for exercising your cancellation right without loss.
1.2 Cash refund from Sound Guide
If you'd prefer a direct refund rather than transferring or reselling, or if you've purchased Resale Protection (see Section 3), contact us at [support email]. Where a direct refund applies:
- The Sound Guide service fee is retained as our reasonable cancellation charge under Section 17(3), reflecting the payment processing and administrative costs already incurred on your order
- The remaining ticket price is refunded to your original payment method
- Refunds are typically processed within 3-5 business days of approval, though your bank or card issuer may take longer to reflect it
[Clay: the CPA requires any cancellation fee to be "reasonable" (Section 17(4)) — factors include the notice period given, the nature of the event, and whether we could reasonably find another buyer. Retaining only the service fee, while offering free resale/transfer as the primary alternative, is a defensible position, but this is exactly the kind of judgment call worth a lawyer's sign-off given money is actually at stake here.]
1.3 No cancellation fee — death or hospitalisation
Under Section 17(5) of the CPA, no cancellation fee may be charged — meaning a full refund, including the service fee — if you are unable to attend because of your own death, or the death or hospitalisation of the person the ticket was purchased for. Contact us at admin@soundguide.co with supporting documentation to process this.
2. Event cancellation or postponement by the organiser
2.1 Event cancellation
If an event is cancelled outright by the organiser, you're entitled to a full refund of the ticket price, including the service fee, since this is not a cancellation initiated by you.
- Refunds are triggered automatically once the organiser marks the event as cancelled — you do not need to request it
- Any active peer-to-peer transfer or resale listing on your ticket is automatically cancelled, and the refund goes to whoever holds the ticket at the time
- Typical processing time: 3-5 business days
2.2 Postponement or rescheduling
If an event is postponed to a new date, your ticket automatically remains valid for the new date. If you can't attend the new date, this is treated as a cancellation under Section 1 of this policy (transfer, resale, or refund request within [X] days of the new date being announced).
[Clay: some legal commentary treats postponement more like cancellation, entitling a fee-free refund similar to Section 1.3 — worth checking with a lawyer if you want to be conservative here rather than treating it as a standard Section 1 cancellation.]
3. Resale Protection (optional add-on)
If you purchased Resale Protection at checkout, you're entitled to [a refund of X% of your ticket price / a guaranteed resale] if you're unable to attend and cannot resell your ticket through the app before the event, subject to:
- [Claim must be submitted at least 48 hours before the event]
- [Other specific conditions]
[Clay: this is the section that most needs your actual numbers — I can see the claim-refund mechanism exists in your system, but not the percentage or conditions it promises. Get this exactly right, since it's a paid product making a specific commitment to customers.]
4. What's not covered
- The Sound Guide service fee is non-refundable except under Section 1.3 (death/hospitalisation) or Section 2.1 (organiser cancellation)
- Tickets purchased through unauthorised third parties or outside the Sound Guide app/website
- Duplicate/erroneous charges are covered separately — see Section 5
5. Duplicate or erroneous charges
If you were charged more than once for the same order, or an incorrect amount, due to a technical error, contact us at admin@soundguide.co and we'll investigate and refund the difference — this isn't subject to any cancellation fee, since it isn't a cancellation.
6. How refunds are processed
- All refunds are processed through our payment partner, Peach Payments, back to your original payment method
- We can't process refunds to a different card, account, or via cash/EFT
- Processing time from our side is typically 3-5 business days; your bank may take additional time to reflect it
7. Disputes and chargebacks
If you believe you're owed a refund and haven't received one, contact us at admin@soundguide.co before filing a chargeback with your bank. Chargebacks filed without contacting us first may delay resolution and could result in your account being flagged for review.
8. Organiser responsibility
Sound Guide is a ticketing platform. Ticket revenue belongs to the event organiser; Sound Guide collects a service fee for facilitating the transaction. Where an event is cancelled, postponed, or otherwise doesn't meet expectations, the organiser is responsible for the event itself. Sound Guide will action refunds per this policy but is not the organiser or promoter of any event listed on the platform.
9. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. Changes are reflected here with an updated "Last updated" date.
10. Contact us
Email: admin@soundguide.co
Sound Guide (Pty) Ltd
Registration number: 2023/225720/07
This policy reflects our understanding of the Consumer Protection Act, 2008, but is not a substitute for legal advice. It does not limit any statutory rights you may have. We recommend this policy be reviewed by a South African attorney before publication, particularly Sections 1.2 and 3, where specific numbers and judgment calls about "reasonableness" carry real legal and financial weight.