What we accept

Debit and credit cards	Visa, Visa Debit, Mastercard, Maestro and American Express
Digital wallets	Apple Pay and Google Pay
Currency	Pounds sterling only. Prices shown include UK VAT where it applies.
Not accepted	Cheques, bank transfers, cash on delivery and gift vouchers from other retailers

No surcharges

We do not add a fee for paying by card, whichever card you use. Charging consumers extra for using a debit or credit card has been prohibited in the UK since January 2018, and we apply that to every payment method we take, including American Express and the digital wallets.

The price you see at checkout is the price that leaves your account. Delivery is a flat £5 and is shown as a separate line before you pay.

When we take the money

Payment is taken in full when you place your order, not when it ships. Your bank may show the amount as pending for a short period before it settles.

Placing an order is an offer to buy rather than a completed contract. If we cannot fulfil your order, we cancel it and refund you in full, usually within one working day.

Security

Card details are entered on a page served by our payment provider and are encrypted in transit. They pass through our checkout but are never stored on our servers, and nobody at GiftBox Britain can see your full card number.

Our provider is certified to PCI DSS, the security standard the card schemes require of anyone handling card data.

Strong Customer Authentication

Most card payments in the UK need an extra identity check, so your bank may ask you to approve the payment in its app or by a one-time code. This is a legal requirement rather than something we have chosen to add, and your order will not complete until that check passes.

If a payment is declined

A declined payment is a decision made by your bank, not by us, and we are not told the reason. The usual causes are an incorrect billing address, insufficient funds, an expired card, or a bank's fraud check being triggered by a new merchant.

• Check that the billing address you entered matches the one your bank holds, exactly
• Try a different card or a digital wallet
• If your bank has blocked the payment, approving it in their app usually clears it

A declined payment sometimes leaves a pending authorisation on your statement. It is not a charge, and your bank releases it within three to five working days without us doing anything.

Pricing errors

If a product is listed at an obviously wrong price, we will contact you before dispatching and give you the choice of paying the correct price or cancelling for a full refund. We will not charge the higher amount without your agreement.

Refunds

Refunds always go back to the card or wallet used for the original payment. We cannot send a refund to a different card, to a bank account, or as store credit, because that route is closed to us by the card schemes.

We process within	14 days of receiving your return, or your proof of postage
Your bank then takes	3 to 5 working days to show it on your statement
Amount refunded	The price of the goods plus the £5 delivery charge you paid
If your card has expired	The refund still reaches the account behind it. Contact your bank if it does not appear.

Full details of when you are entitled to a refund are set out on our returns and refunds page.

Disputes and chargebacks

If you think a payment is wrong, email us before raising a chargeback with your bank. We can almost always resolve it faster ourselves, and a chargeback ties up the amount for weeks while it is investigated.

Where we believe a chargeback has been raised in error, we will respond to the bank with the order record, the delivery confirmation and any correspondence.

Fraud

We may cancel an order and refund it if a payment fails our provider's fraud checks, if the billing and delivery details do not match in a way we cannot verify, or if we are contacted by a cardholder about an order they did not place. We do not charge for cancelling in these circumstances.

Business and bulk orders

For corporate, wedding or bulk orders we can invoice against a purchase order with payment on standard terms. Email contact@giftboxbritain.com with what you need and we will set it up.