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Refunding standard Affirm loans can be done either directly from your Order Management System (OMS) or using your Affirm Merchant Dashboard. However if a customer uses a Virtual Card for the transaction, the refund process differs. In this article, you will learn how to correctly fully or partially refund VCN Loans.
Refunding a Virtual Card (VCN) loan
Affirm Virtual Card payments operate through your credit card processor rather than directly through Affirm. Consequently, to initiate a refund for a VCN transaction, it must be processed through the same card processor used for its registration. You can conduct this action directly via your Point of Sale (POS), just like any other credit card transaction for the specific transaction in question.
When Processing refunds on VCN loan, please note that:
- The customer will be refunded any payments they made, minus interest.
- Refunds are issued back to the original method of payment as they would to any other credit card.
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These transactions can take from 1 to 3 business days to reach us and reflect in the pricing portal.
- If you do not see one, make sure you know how long ago this was attempted.
- If you do not see one, make sure you know how long ago this was attempted.
If your customer is exchanging an item, you can perform a partial refund as follows:
- If the value of the replacement item is less than the value of the original item, you can perform a partial refund of the difference in value. Your customer does not have to submit a new loan application.
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However, if the value of the replacement item is more than the value of the original item, you have two options:
- Refund the original loan entirely and have the customer apply for a new loan with the updated items. There is no guarantee that they will qualify for the new amount.
- Offer them an alternative payment method for the difference. They will still be liable for the original loan.
VCN authorization window
When you apply a refund to a card, Affirm will apply the refund to the customer's loan as soon as the card is finalized (no further authorizations or captures will be made). See this article to learn more about finalizing a card.
If you expect a significant delay in the application of this refund due to a long VCN authorization window - the 30 days period that a card has to process new authorizations placed on it, reach out to our Merchant Care team using the Business Resource Hub support widget to finalize the transactions and apply the refund to the customer's loan sooner.