Refunds & conversions

A managed coordination service, not a guaranteed outcome

Our current public service has one price, shown in the customer’s selected or detected currency. We prepare the family information, identify the appropriate priestly route and coordinate Hindu rites or observances advised by the relevant priest, with family-register work where relevant. The priest who holds any family Bahi and the priest who performs the rites may be the same person or two different people. The priest remains the custodian of the register and the authority on religious practice: he decides what may be entered and which rites are appropriate. Indian Archive does not independently prescribe religious rites, so we work on a best-efforts basis when identifying the appropriate family-register route and cannot guarantee that every case results in a register update. For agreed rites or observances we arrange the appropriate work, cover the included normal costs and ensure the arranged work is carried out. Where family-register work cannot be completed, you receive a written account of the route followed, who was contacted, what was asked for and what we would suggest next.

Indian Archive does not transport, receive or handle ashes. The ashes do not need to travel to India, and nothing in the current service depends on where the ashes were immersed or scattered.

What the price includes

The price includes the traditional offering or dakshina paid to the priest or register-holding family, our coordination, the fees of our researchers or local representatives, translation of source material where such material is supplied as part of the completed case, and delivery of any supporting material the custodian permits. The agreed service price covers the normal Hindu priest, traditional custodian, ritual-material, local-attendance and coordination costs for the work Indian Archive arranges. Photographs, video, audio and copies of register pages are not standard deliverables and are not guaranteed, because availability depends on the individual priest, record holder and local practice. Where the underlying material is not supplied by the custodian, there is nothing for us to translate and no translation can be promised.

Cancellation, requesting that work begins, and work already undertaken

There are three distinct stages, and your position depends on which one your case has reached:

• Before work begins. If you have paid but coordination, priest contact or field work has not yet started, you can cancel for a full refund of the service fee.
• When you ask us to begin. Because this is a service performed to your instruction, asking us to start coordination — for example by completing the questionnaire and confirming we may approach the priest — is a request for the service to begin immediately. From that point costs may already have been committed on your behalf.
• Work already undertaken. Once coordination or field work has begun, the service fee is non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise or where we are unable to provide the service, and you receive a written account of the work completed.

Nothing here removes any statutory consumer right you have in your own country that cannot be excluded by agreement.

Historical orders

Historical products are no longer available through the current public journey. Existing historical orders remain governed by the terms agreed when they were purchased. Where such an order is already in progress, its assessment may suggest more than one credible register route and the customer may select between one and four centres before payment. The quote shows the first-centre fee and each additional-centre component separately. No centre is included in an order unless the customer selects it and successfully completes payment.

Where a Family History Research order includes the £100 register entry/update component, that component is conditional. It is only used if entry or update work is actually carried out. An earlier historical family entry not being located does not by itself mean that entry or update work cannot be carried out: where the appropriate register can be identified and the custodian confirms that a new entry can properly be made, a new family entry may be established in that existing register, beginning from the family information that can actually be established, and the entry service has then been carried out. If the relevant entry or update work cannot be carried out or cannot be completed, the applicable £100 entry/update component is either refunded to you or — with your approval — applied towards an additional approved centre search. The research fee itself remains non-refundable once research has begun.

If genuinely new information identifies another credible centre or route after work has begun, any later scope expansion must be explained separately and requires the customer’s express approval and payment before that additional work starts.

Who you are contracting with

Archive Heritage Group Ltd — Company number 17322145 (England & Wales).

Registered office: Archive Heritage Group Ltd, Office 4, Acorn Business Centre, Ablewell Street, Walsall, WS1 2EG, United Kingdom.

Questions about a refund should be sent to namaste@indianarchive.com.