I proposed more lenient return, refund, and cancellation policies to various Purism staff members, and the changes are now approved. The new policies are effective 1 August 2025 in your local time zone. You are welcome to review the previous policy vs updated policy.
In summary, returns and refunds were previously prohibited, whereas returns are now accepted within a return window and subject to a restocking fee. It also clarifies what items are not returnable or refundable. This policy only applies to new orders as of 1 August, but it’s hopefully a step toward common expectation as we grow to serve you better.
This was absolutely the right thing to do. Purism has to earn back customer trust that it lost with Refundgate a couple of years ago. This is a step in the right direction.
This is a positive step, but given how long support requests take to be answered, can you comment on what happens if a person requests a return within the first 14 days but Purism doesn’t follow-up and issue a return order until after the 14 days have passed? Will Purism still honor a return?
And as for order cancellations, the terms say it must be requested in writing in 48 hours. Is this to mean that it is still Purism’s policy that if an order is placed and takes weeks or months to ship, the purchaser cannot cancel their order if more than 48 hours has elapsed, even if Purism is unable to ship the ordered product within a reasonable amount of time? And is the support email the place purchasers should request order cancellations? What happens if support doesn’t respond to an order cancellation request?
Good news, JCS, and thank you for effecting this change.
This is funny to me, because where I come from (EU/Netherlands), companies cannot just decide this stuff by themselves, but are bound by law to accepts returns and refund the the customer. When buying online, upon receipt of the product, the customer has the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days without giving any reason and is eligible to a full refund. So not just 14 days after placing the order, but 14 days after receiving the product (and thus being able to see if the product matches expectations IRL).
No such customer protections in the US, I take it?
Purism will respect the date(s) by which a customer reached out to the support team regarding returning their order.
Return validity would still be respected, regardless of a delay on Purism’s responsiveness.
We understand the frustration in this section of the policy, and the team had questioned the policy in the same way. This stipulation is a preventative method to avoid the financial burden from a surge of cancellations where e.g. we are experiencing supplier delays and funds are already tied up in that inventory. Lapdock kits are one example. Once Purism flushes through its order backlog, this policy is most likely to become more lenient. Custom orders such as anti-interdiction, etc, may still include cancellation limitations. “Pre-order” is a historical miscommunication, and policies related to unreleased product will be much clearer going forward.
I invite you to review the policy again, where it states (emphasis my own):
All RMAs must be requested within 14 calendar days from initial date of delivery. Return shipments must then be postmarked within 3 calendar days of RMA receipt.
In the United States, consumer protections are established through a combination of federal and state laws, regulations, and guidelines. The guidelines issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are not laws themselves but are based on existing laws, serving as recommendations for businesses to ensure compliance with the law and promote fair practices. While businesses are not legally required to follow these guidelines, failure to adhere to them can lead to investigations and enforcement actions by the FTC.
Thanks for this improvement. Any suggestions for my situation? My product (Libre 11) arrived unuasable on Oct 30 and since support did not respond to my support requests for 4 days (2 weekend days + 2 business days) Ive requesed a return authorization. Now no one has responded to my return authorizarion request for 3 days. Any way to escalate this? I urgently need my money back!
First of all, 2 business days waiting is nothing. You should at least wait for a full business week at very minimum and that not just here, but for any kind of support. There are some that answer in few hours and some that need the whole week to answer, because they have not the capacities. An exception would be if a company advertises the fast support, which is not the case here. You never know why a company cannot answer fast - sometimes someone is ill or more support requests as usual are made.
Purism support is slow in general as far as I know. No answer in few days is nothing. I do not defend this, just saying what it is.
Next, if mails stay unresponsed, you can write to JCS. He will try to help you. But please, do it if there is really no response and not after two business days. I know no case where people never got the money back, it just took some time in some cases.
Thanks for the update. I was not involved in this, so our support technician either reached your ticket by coincidence or noticed your request here in the forums and prioritized a response. Like Ick mentioned, we do try to provide responses within a couple business days but still have a support ticket backlog we are working through that is reducing in number every day.
