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Refund Policy

Last updated: 5 May 2026Effective from: 5 May 2026

1. Overview & Scope

This Refund Policy (the "Policy") sets out the circumstances in which Banxs Technologies EOOD, trading as Skybyte ("Skybyte", "we", "us"), will issue a refund in respect of a Plan or Top-Up purchased through skybytesim.com (the "Service"), the operational mechanics of how we calculate, approve, and disburse such refunds, and the interaction between this Policy and your statutory rights as a consumer under European Union and Bulgarian law.

This Policy forms part of, and is incorporated by reference into, our Terms of Service; in particular, Section 13 (Refunds & Cancellation) of the Terms summarises the principal refund regime and Section 7 (Purchase, Pricing & Payment) sets out the pre-checkout disclosures relevant to refunds. In the event of any inconsistency between Section 13 of the Terms and this Policy, this Policy controls in respect of refund mechanics; in respect of the Article 16(m) waiver itself, the body of the Terms and this Policy must be read consistently.

This Policy applies to all customers, whether B2C consumers or B2B business customers, but operative differences are highlighted where they arise (chiefly: the Article 16(m) waiver and the 14-day right of withdrawal apply only to B2C consumers; B2B refunds are at our commercial discretion subject to the conformity rules in Section 11).

Nothing in this Policy excludes, restricts, or modifies any mandatory consumer protection right that you have under the law of your country of habitual residence within the EU or EEA. Where a provision of this Policy purports to do so, the provision shall apply only to the maximum extent permitted by law and the remainder of the Policy shall continue in force.

2. Parties & Legal Framework

The merchant of record and refund counterparty is Banxs Technologies EOOD (trading as Skybyte), a single-owner Bulgarian limited liability company registered with the Bulgarian Registry Agency under EIK 206285017, VAT registration BG206285017, with registered office at Blvd. Alexander Malinov 31, Sofia 1000, Bulgaria, represented by its Manager Daniela Georgieva.

Card acceptance, refund settlement, and the technical interaction with the Visa and Mastercard schemes are performed on our behalf by our acquirer PayNovus AD (Bulgaria), a payment institution authorised by the Bulgarian National Bank under the Payment Services and Payment Systems Act and supervised under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (PSD2). Refunds are routed back to the original payment instrument via PayNovus AD; Skybyte does not handle full PAN data and does not maintain its own card-data environment beyond PCI DSS SAQ A scope.

The principal sources of law applicable to this Policy are:

  • Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights, in particular Articles 9–14 (right of withdrawal) and Article 16(m) (digital content exception);
  • Directive (EU) 2019/770 on contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services, in particular Articles 8 (subjective and objective conformity), 11 (liability for non-conformity), 13 (remedies for non-conformity), and 14 (price reduction and termination);
  • Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (PSD2) and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389 on Strong Customer Authentication and common and secure communication;
  • the Bulgarian Consumer Protection Act (Закон за защита на потребителите) and the Act on the Provision of Digital Content and Digital Services and on the Sale of Goods (ZPCCUDPS), as the implementing legislation in Bulgaria; and
  • the operating regulations of Visa Inc. and Mastercard International Incorporated, as in force from time to time, in respect of refund processing and dispute resolution.

3. Digital Service Waiver — Article 16(m) CRD

The general rule. Under Article 9 of Directive 2011/83/EU, a consumer who concludes a distance contract with a trader has, in principle, fourteen (14) days from the conclusion of the contract within which to withdraw without giving any reason and without bearing any cost beyond those expressly provided for in Articles 13(2) and 14 of that Directive.

The Article 16(m) exception. Article 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU provides that the right of withdrawal does not apply to contracts for "the supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium if the performance has begun with the consumer's prior express consent and his acknowledgment that he thereby loses his right of withdrawal." This exception was introduced precisely to address services such as the supply of downloadable software, streaming media, and — by direct extension — the supply of an eSIM profile and an associated mobile-data allocation that begins to perform on activation.

How Skybyte captures the waiver. Skybyte captures the consumer's prior express consent and the acknowledgement of loss of withdrawal right through two cumulative consent acts:

  1. At checkout, by your acceptance of the Terms of Service (which contain a dedicated checkbox or equivalent affirmative interaction labelled in plain language: "I expressly agree that performance of my eSIM begins on activation and that, on activation, I lose my 14-day right of withdrawal under Article 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU").
  2. At activation, through an in-product consent flow attached to the eSIM installation card. The QR code and the "Mark as activated" action remain disabled until you tick a confirmation that restates the waiver in plain language and (where relevant) confirms that you have been offered the right to download the model withdrawal form before activation.

Audit record. Each waiver event is recorded in our internal audit log under the action key esim_activation_consent. The record contains the order reference, the eSIM identifier, the plan identifier, a flag confirming that the right of withdrawal has been waived, a citation to Article 16(m) CRD, and the version identifier of the consent text presented at the moment of consent. The audit record is retained for the statutory retention periods set out in our Privacy Policy and is available to you on request to contact@banxs.com for the purpose of demonstrating compliance with Article 7(3) GDPR and Article 16(m) CRD.

Effect of the waiver. Once both consent acts have been completed and the eSIM has begun to perform, you have lost the statutory 14-day right of withdrawal in respect of that specific eSIM. You have not lost — and cannot lose — your conformity rights under Directive (EU) 2019/770 (see Section 11) and your right to a refund where we cannot deliver the Service (see Section 4).

Pre-activation withdrawal. Until you activate the eSIM, the Article 16(m) exception does not apply because performance has not begun. You therefore retain the full statutory 14-day right of withdrawal. To exercise it, send us an unequivocal statement of withdrawal (any clear statement is sufficient — you are not required to use a particular form) by email to support@skybytesim.com before the end of the 14-day period. To assist you, a printable model withdrawal form (Annex I(B) to Directive 2011/83/EU) is available at /legal/right-of-withdrawal-form.pdf.

4. Refund Eligibility Matrix

The following matrix sets out the refund treatment of typical scenarios. This matrix is operationalised in our internal support tooling and is the standard against which support decisions are made. Edge cases are escalated to a senior reviewer; a customer who disagrees with a support decision may request escalation in line with Section 12.

(a) Pre-activation, within 14 days of purchase. Full refund, no questions asked, on receipt of a withdrawal notice. Issued to the original payment method in the original payment currency within the statutory 14-day window (Article 13(1) CRD).

(b) Pre-activation, after 14 days but before plan start. Goodwill refund at our discretion (the statutory withdrawal window has expired but the digital service has not yet begun). In normal circumstances we process such requests favourably; we may refuse where the eSIM has been transferred to a third party, where there is evidence of attempted fraud, or where the request is made more than 30 days after purchase.

(c) Post-activation, eSIM never registered with the Host Carrier. Investigation by support, with diagnostic logs requested from the customer (device model, country, attempted dates and times, screenshot of the installation panel) and verification with the upstream Provider that the profile failed to register on the Host Carrier's network. On confirmed provisioning failure, full refund.

(d) Post-activation, partial coverage failure. Where the eSIM registered successfully on the Host Carrier but coverage at the destination was materially below the published coverage information for that destination (for example, the customer was unable to obtain a connection in one of the country's principal cities), partial refund proportionate to the unconsumed allowance and the period affected. The reference framework is Article 14(4)(b)(ii) of Directive 2011/83/EU and Article 14 of Directive (EU) 2019/770 (price reduction proportionate to non-conformity).

(e) Post-activation, full plan consumed (data or time). No refund. The digital service has been fully performed.

(f) Order cancelled by Skybyte. Where we cancel an Order before activation — for example for fraud, sanctions screening, manifest pricing error, or compatibility issue — we issue a full refund automatically to the original payment method, normally within five (5) banking days. No customer action is required, but we will notify you by email.

(g) Duplicate charge. Where the same Order has been charged more than once due to a technical fault on our side or on our acquirer's side, the duplicate charge is refunded in full within five (5) to ten (10) banking days on confirmation. Where the duplicate has resulted in two eSIMs being provisioned, only one is retained at the customer's choice; the other is cancelled and refunded.

(h) Incompatible device. No refund where compatibility was disclosed at the point of sale and the customer purchased nonetheless. The compatibility checker at /compatibility is provided for the customer's use; failing to consult it does not create a refund right. Where the customer was misled by inaccurate compatibility information published by Skybyte (e.g. an incorrect device entry), full refund.

(i) Top-Up applied to a non-functional base plan. Where a Top-Up is purchased and the underlying base eSIM is itself non-functional in circumstances giving rise to a refund under (c) or (d) above, the Top-Up is refunded together with the underlying base plan to the extent of the unconsumed allowance.

(j) Service termination by Host Carrier. Where a Host Carrier suspends or terminates an eSIM mid-cycle for breach of its own use policy (for example permanent roaming, jurisdictional restrictions on encrypted tunnelling, or use of the eSIM for purposes inconsistent with the consumer-roaming use case), the consequences are governed by the Host Carrier's policy and applicable local law. Refunds in such cases are granted only where the suspension is wrongful or arbitrary; customer breach of the Acceptable Use Policy does not give rise to a refund right.

5. Evidence & Investigation Standards

Refund decisions involving an investigation are made on the balance of probabilities, taking into account: (i) the customer's account of facts and any evidence supplied, (ii) the technical record from our provisioning systems (timestamps, ICCID, plan identifier, activation events), (iii) any data supplied by the upstream Provider on the Host Carrier's response to the eSIM, and (iv) where relevant, public information about network outages, disasters, or political events affecting the destination country at the relevant time.

We may request, but do not require beyond what is reasonable: the device make and model; the version of the device operating system; a screenshot of the device showing the eSIM profile and the cellular settings; screenshots of speed-test results performed at the destination; the dates, times, and approximate locations of attempted use; and any error messages received. We will not request payment-card data, full account credentials, or other information unrelated to the refund investigation.

We will close investigations within seven (7) business days of receiving all reasonably required information for standard cases, and within fourteen (14) business days for cases requiring escalation to the upstream Provider. Where an investigation cannot be completed within these windows, we will provide an interim status update with an expected resolution date.

Burden of proof. The general principle of European consumer law is that, in respect of the conformity of a digital service supplied for a continuous period, any lack of conformity which becomes apparent within the period of supply is presumed to have existed at that time (Article 12(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/770). Skybyte accordingly does not require the customer to prove the cause of a non-conformity; it is sufficient that the customer demonstrates that the eSIM did not perform as advertised at the relevant time and place. Skybyte may rebut the presumption by demonstrating, on the balance of probabilities, that the lack of conformity was caused by factors outside the digital service itself — for example customer-side device misconfiguration, use of a Host Carrier prohibited by the customer's location, or a documented network outage at the destination outside Skybyte's reasonable control.

Confidentiality of investigation evidence. Investigation evidence supplied by the customer is processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy and is retained only for the period necessary to (i) make and document the refund decision, (ii) defend any subsequent chargeback or out-of-court complaint, and (iii) meet our retention obligations under VAT and accounting law. Screenshots containing personal data (e.g. visible contact lists or messages in the background) are redacted on receipt.

Internal escalation. Where a first-line support agent reaches a refusal decision, the case is escalated to a senior reviewer on the customer's request. The senior review is independent of the first-line decision and may either confirm, vary, or overturn the original determination. The senior reviewer's decision is the final internal decision; thereafter the customer may pursue out-of-court redress as set out in Section 12.

Documentation furnished to the customer. The refund decision is communicated to the customer in writing (email) and includes: the order reference; the decision (approve, partial approve, refuse); the basis in this Policy and (where relevant) in statute; the refund amount and the disbursement timeline; and where the decision is a refusal, the steps for escalation and out-of-court redress. The customer may request a copy of the audit record of consent at any time.

6. How to Request a Refund

  1. Contact us via in-app support (preferred — it preserves your order context) or by email to support@skybytesim.com.
  2. Provide your order number, the reason for the refund request, and any supporting evidence (see Section 5).
  3. Acknowledgement. We acknowledge requests within one (1) business day.
  4. Decision. We notify you of the outcome within seven (7) business days for standard cases, or within fourteen (14) business days for cases requiring escalation.
  5. Disbursement. Approved refunds are disbursed in line with Section 7.
  6. Escalation. If you disagree with the outcome, you may request escalation to a senior reviewer and, ultimately, pursue out-of-court redress in line with Section 12.

For pre-activation withdrawals under the statutory 14-day right of withdrawal, no investigation is performed: a clear withdrawal statement is sufficient and the refund is processed within 14 days as required by Article 13(1) CRD.

7. Processing, Currency & FX

Method. Approved refunds are issued through our acquirer (PayNovus AD) to the original payment instrument. We do not refund to a different card, to a different person, or to a bank account other than the one underlying the original card. We do not refund in cash, by cheque, or by alternative-payment-method credit balance.

Statutory deadline. Article 13(1) of Directive 2011/83/EU obliges us to reimburse all sums received from the consumer "without undue delay and in any event not later than fourteen (14) days from the day on which we are informed of the consumer's decision to withdraw from the contract." We meet this deadline by initiating the refund through our acquirer within that window; the time taken by the acquirer and the issuer to credit the funds back to the cardholder's available balance is outside Skybyte's control.

Practical timeline. In practice most refunds reach the cardholder's available balance within five (5) to ten (10) banking days from approval. Where the original payment was an account-to-account transfer or an alternative payment method with longer settlement cycles, the practical timeline can extend to fifteen (15) banking days; we will inform you if this applies to your refund.

Currency. Refunds are issued in the same currency as the original payment (EUR, USD, or GBP). Skybyte does not convert refunds to another currency at the customer's request.

Foreign exchange differential. Where your card's billing currency differs from the charge currency, your card issuer applied an exchange rate when the original charge was authorised and will apply a separate (potentially different) exchange rate when the refund is credited. The resulting differential is between you and your card issuer; Skybyte does not compensate for FX differentials between the date of charge and the date of refund.

Partial refunds. Where the refund is partial (Section 4(d) above), the refund amount is calculated on a pro-rata basis using the unconsumed allowance (data or days, whichever is more favourable to the customer in the specific circumstances). The calculation is documented in the refund notification.

Fees. Skybyte does not deduct any fee or charge from the refund amount. Card-scheme interchange and acquirer fees relating to the original transaction are borne by Skybyte and are not passed on to the customer.

8. Chargeback Procedure

A "chargeback" is a payment dispute initiated by the cardholder with their issuing bank under the operating regulations of Visa or Mastercard. Chargebacks are an important consumer protection mechanism but, when used in place of contacting the merchant first, can result in unnecessary cost and delay for both parties.

Please contact us first. If you believe a charge is incorrect, please email support@skybytesim.com before raising a chargeback. In our experience, more than ninety per cent (90%) of disputes are resolved faster by direct contact than through the chargeback process, which can take 45–90 days to complete.

If you raise a chargeback. When the chargeback notification reaches our acquirer, the disputed amount is provisionally debited from our settlement balance and we are required to respond within the time-limits set by the relevant card scheme (typically 7 to 20 calendar days, depending on the dispute reason code). We respond by providing evidence relevant to the dispute, including: the Order Confirmation, the audit record of consent (Section 3 above) where the dispute relates to activation or non-delivery, the upstream provisioning timestamp and ICCID, and any prior support correspondence. The card scheme's representment process adjudicates the dispute and either upholds or reverses the chargeback.

Standard dispute reason codes encountered. The principal reason codes encountered for digital eSIM services are Visa 13.1 / Mastercard 4853 ("Services not rendered"), Visa 13.7 / Mastercard 4853 ("Cancelled merchandise/services" or "Credit not processed"), and fraud reason codes (Visa 10.4 / Mastercard 4837). The merchant defence in respect of "services not rendered" or "cancelled services" claims for activated eSIMs relies on the audit record of consent under Article 16(m) CRD.

Unfounded chargebacks. A chargeback raised without first contacting Skybyte, where the dispute is subsequently determined by the card scheme to be unfounded (i.e. the chargeback is reversed and the funds are returned to Skybyte), may result in (i) suspension of the customer's account pending review, (ii) recovery of any dispute-handling fees imposed by the acquirer or the card scheme on Skybyte through legal means where appropriate, and (iii) refusal of future Orders from the same customer. Skybyte does not pursue criminal or civil action for unfounded chargebacks save in cases of clear bad faith.

Friendly fraud. Where the customer has consumed the digital service (e.g. used the data allowance) and then raises a fraud chargeback, the chargeback is defended on the merits with reference to the provisioning record, the data-usage telemetry from the upstream Provider, and the audit record of consent.

9. Top-Ups & Recurring Charges

A Top-Up is a discretionary purchase of additional data allowance applied to an existing, active eSIM. Top-Ups are applied immediately on payment and constitute a fully performed digital service on application; they are not subject to the 14-day right of withdrawal because the customer expressly requests immediate performance and activation in the same step.

No recurring charges. Skybyte does not operate any recurring billing, automatic renewal, or merchant-initiated transaction model. Each Order and each Top-Up is a discrete, customer-initiated transaction. We do not store cards on file for the purpose of automatic re-charge; any "saved card" feature, where present, stores a tokenised reference under the cardholder's control and requires the cardholder's affirmative action to charge.

No subscriptions. Skybyte does not offer subscription products. Plans are sold as single, finite allocations of data over a finite validity period. There is no auto-renewal, no continuous-supply contract within the meaning of Article 9(3) CRD, and no need for the consumer to take any action to "cancel" a Plan: it ends automatically at the end of the validity period or when the data allowance is exhausted, whichever happens first.

Bundles and promotional codes. Where a Plan is purchased with a promotional code, a discount voucher, or as part of a bundle, the refund (if any) is calculated on the price actually paid by the customer (i.e. the discounted price), not on the face value of the underlying Plan. Promotional codes themselves are not refundable and are not redeemable for cash; their use is governed by the terms communicated at the point of issue.

Refunds for Top-Ups. Refunds for Top-Ups follow the matrix in Section 4. A Top-Up applied to a non-functional base plan that itself qualifies for refund is refunded together with the base plan to the extent of the unconsumed allowance.

Gifted or transferred eSIMs. Where a Plan or Top-Up has been purchased as a gift or otherwise transferred to a person other than the original cardholder, refund requests must originate from the original cardholder; the recipient has no independent refund right against Skybyte because the recipient is not the contractual counterparty. The original cardholder may, by written authorisation, ask us to coordinate the investigation with the recipient directly; the refund itself is nonetheless issued only to the original payment instrument.

Account closure during a refund. Closure of the customer's Skybyte account does not extinguish a pending refund. Where the underlying card is no longer valid (for example, the card has been cancelled or replaced by the issuer), the refund is nevertheless routed to the original card on file at the acquirer; in the great majority of cases the issuer credits the cardholder's current account regardless of card status, in line with card-scheme regulations. Where the issuer cannot credit the funds, the acquirer returns them to Skybyte and we contact the customer to arrange an alternative settlement route consistent with anti-money-laundering rules.

Refund of partial Top-Up. Where a Top-Up adds an allowance that has been only partly consumed at the time of an eligible refund event, the refund of the Top-Up is calculated as the proportion of the Top-Up allowance unconsumed at the time of the refund event, applied to the price actually paid for the Top-Up. The calculation methodology and inputs are documented in the refund notification.

Tax treatment of refunds. A refund issued in respect of an invoiced supply triggers issuance of a credit note (известие за намаление) in accordance with Article 115 of the Bulgarian VAT Act (ZDDS) and Article 219 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC. The credit note is made available in the customer's Account at /account/orders and bears a sequential, gap-free identifier reserved at the moment the refund is approved. For B2C consumers the credit note has no further tax consequence. For B2B customers the credit note is the document on which any input-VAT adjustment in their own VAT return is based; the customer is solely responsible for that adjustment.

Record-keeping. A record of every refund — including date, amount, currency, original Order reference, original payment-instrument reference (last four digits and token only), and the documented basis of decision — is retained for the period required by Bulgarian VAT and accounting law (presently ten (10) years from the end of the relevant fiscal year), in addition to the audit-log retention set out in our Privacy Policy. Refund records are produced on request to the customer, the issuing bank (in the context of a chargeback), or competent regulatory authorities (in the context of a supervisory request).

10. Fraud, Sanctions & Cancelled Orders

Every Order is screened in real time against EU consolidated sanctions lists, the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, and our acquirer's risk rules (which include velocity, geolocation, and device-fingerprinting heuristics). Orders that match a sanctions designation, or that exceed our risk thresholds, are declined or held for manual review.

Where authorisation has been taken but settlement has not. The authorisation is reversed; no settlement is captured; no refund is required because no money has been collected. The reserved amount on the cardholder's account is released by the issuer in accordance with the issuer's policy (typically 5–10 banking days).

Where settlement has been taken before the issue is identified. Settlement is reversed by issuing a refund to the original payment method. No eSIM is provisioned or, if already provisioned, it is deactivated.

Manifest pricing error. Where an Order has been placed at a price that is, on any reasonable assessment, manifestly incorrect (e.g. a misplaced decimal, an incorrect currency conversion, or a missing VAT calculation), Skybyte reserves the right to cancel the Order and refund the amount paid in full. We will notify the customer of the cancellation and offer to repurchase at the correct price.

11. Statutory Conformity Rights

Independently of the Article 16(m) waiver and of this Policy, B2C consumers benefit from the statutory conformity guarantee under Articles 8 and 11 of Directive (EU) 2019/770 (and its Bulgarian transposition, ZPCCUDPS). The conformity guarantee applies for the entire period during which the digital service is supplied — that is, for the validity period of each Plan — and obliges Skybyte to supply a service that meets the subjective and objective conformity criteria set out in those provisions.

Remedies for non-conformity. Where a lack of conformity is identified during the validity period, you have the right under Article 14 of Directive (EU) 2019/770 to:

  • require performance of the Service in conformity with the contract (where reasonably possible — e.g. re-provisioning the eSIM, switching to a different Host Carrier where supported);
  • obtain a price reduction proportionate to the period and extent of non-conformity; or
  • terminate the contract and obtain a refund proportionate to the period of non-conformity, where the non-conformity is not minor.

Where you exercise statutory conformity remedies, the remedies are administered through the same operational process as a refund request under this Policy (Section 6). The Article 16(m) waiver does not — and cannot — extinguish your statutory conformity rights.

12. Contact & Out-of-Court Redress

For all refund matters, please contact customer support at support@skybytesim.com. For data-protection matters arising from a refund (for example, the audit record of consent), please contact contact@banxs.com. Postal correspondence may be addressed to:

Banxs Technologies EOOD
Blvd. Alexander Malinov 31
Sofia 1000, Bulgaria
EIK: 206285017 · VAT: BG206285017

Out-of-court redress. Where a complaint cannot be resolved through our internal process, B2C consumers may pursue out-of-court redress through:

  • the Bulgarian Commission for Consumer Protection (KZP), the competent ADR body in Bulgaria; and
  • the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

Pursuing out-of-court redress is a right, not an obligation. It does not affect your right to bring proceedings before the courts of your country of habitual residence in the EU under Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 (Brussels I bis).

Need a signed PDF copy? Email contact@banxs.com.