Last updated 9 September 2026
This Policy explains when and how a refund may be available for payments made toward the 1:1 cybersecurity mentorship programme operated by Sarath G (“Mentor”, “I”, “me”) through Folio. It applies to every student, regardless of which fee arrangement they are on, and is a separate, independent document from the Terms & Conditions and the Mentorship Service & Enrolment Agreement.
This Policy explains when and how a refund may be available for payments made toward the 1:1 cybersecurity mentorship programme (“Programme”) operated by Sarath G (“Mentor”, “I”, “me”) through Folio. It applies to every Student, regardless of which Fee Arrangement they are on.
2.1 Fees paid for Sessions actually delivered, or Hour Balance actually consumed, are non-refundable in all cases. Any refund is always limited to the genuinely unused portion of what was paid; delivered Sessions and consumed hours are deducted before any refund is calculated, regardless of which section below applies.
2.2 A Student's Hour Balance is added to their account only once a corresponding payment is actually received (see the Mentorship Service & Enrolment Agreement, Section 4.2). Because of this, a refund request before any Hour Balance has been consumed will generally not need to account for delivered value at all; the calculation in Section 6 below still applies, but the deduction for consumed hours will often be zero.
3.1 A Monthly Retainer is priced for a recurring, open-ended monthly entitlement, not a fixed one-time deliverable.
3.2 A refund of any unused Hour Balance from a retainer period is at the Mentor's reasonable discretion, assessed case by case (for example, where the Mentor is unable to continue providing Sessions).
3.3 Hour Balance that has lapsed under the hour-expiry rule (one month plus a 15-day grace period from the date it was credited) is not refundable, since it represents entitlement the Student did not use within the agreed validity window, not a service failure by the Mentor.
3.4 Ending a Monthly Retainer does not itself trigger a refund of the current month's already-paid fee; it stops future months from being billed.
4.1 A Fixed-Term Package is a bounded engagement with one total fee, which may be invoiced to the Student across several instalments over the life of the package.
4.2 Cooling-off window. If the Student requests a refund within 15 days of the first payment made toward that Fixed-Term Package, the Mentor will refund the unused portion without requiring a reason, calculated per Section 6 below. This 15-day window is measured once, from the date of the package's first payment; it does not restart with each later instalment paid toward the same package.
4.3 After the cooling-off window. Any refund request made after that 15-day window is considered at the Mentor's reasonable discretion, on a case-by-case basis, and is not guaranteed. In deciding, the Mentor may take into account how much of the package's total hours have already been delivered or scheduled, and how much notice the Student has given.
5.1 A custom, one-off invoice that the Mentor has marked as counting toward the Student's Hour Balance is treated, for refund purposes, as part of whichever Fee Arrangement it was paid under (Section 3 or 4 above), based on the hours it added.
5.2 A custom, one-off invoice that the Mentor has marked as not counting toward Hour Balance (for example, a pass-through of a third-party lab-platform cost) is refundable only if the underlying item or access it paid for was not actually provided to the Student; once provided, it is non-refundable.
5.3 A top-up payment (minimum ₹1,000) converts to Hour Balance at the Student's agreed rate once paid, and is refundable on the same basis as unused Hour Balance under Section 3 or 4, according to which Fee Arrangement the Student is on at the time.
Where a refund is due or agreed under Section 3 or 4, it is calculated as:
the amount paid, less the value of every Session already held or hour already consumed (including any Session or hour treated as consumed under the 48-hour cancellation rule, see Section 7), less any payment-gateway or transaction fees actually incurred by the Mentor in processing the original payment and the refund.
7.1 If a Student cancels or reschedules a Session with 48 hours' notice or more, no Hour Balance is deducted, and no refund question arises for that Session.
7.2 If a Student cancels, reschedules, or does not attend with less than 48 hours' notice, the full Session's hours are deducted from the Student's balance as normal; this is not treated as an unused portion for refund purposes, since the time was reserved and could not reasonably be reallocated. The Mentor may, at their sole discretion, waive this deduction for a specific Session, which then also removes it from any later refund calculation.
7.3 If the Mentor needs to reschedule a Session, no hours are deducted and no refund question arises.
If the Mentor is unable to deliver a scheduled Session or a portion of an agreed engagement (for reasons other than the Student's own cancellation), the Mentor will, at their discretion, either offer a make-good Session at a mutually workable time or include the affected hours as unused in a refund calculated under Section 6, whichever is more appropriate to the circumstances.
9.1 Send a refund request to sarathg.alp@gmail.com, stating the invoice(s) or payment(s) concerned and the reason (where one is required under Section 4.3). Where the Student is a minor, the request must come from the parent or legal guardian who is the contracting party under the Mentorship Service & Enrolment Agreement, since any refund is payable to them as the party who made the original payment.
9.2 The Mentor will acknowledge the request and, where a refund is due or agreed, aim to confirm the calculated amount within a reasonable time.
Where a refund is agreed, the related invoice is voided on Folio, and the refund is processed through Razorpay to the Student's original payment method, in accordance with Razorpay's own processing timelines.
The Mentor may update this Policy to reflect changes in the Programme or applicable law, and will notify active Students by email or through Folio before a material change takes effect. A change does not affect a refund request already made before it took effect.
This Policy is governed by the laws of India. Subject to any statutory consumer protection rights the Student may have, the courts at Alappuzha, Kerala, India have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from this Policy.
Questions about this Policy: sarathg.alp@gmail.com.