Cancellation, reversal and refunds

The short version

Until you accept a quote, nothing is binding and you can walk away at no cost. Once you accept a firm quote, the trade is binding on both sides. Once a crypto asset transfer has been broadcast to a network, it cannot be recalled by anyone — not by us, not by the network, not by a court. There is no seven-day cooling-off right on a trade of this kind, and this page explains exactly why not, rather than hiding the point in a clause.

The rest of this document deals with the situations where something goes wrong: the wrong amount, the wrong address, the wrong network, a bank that reverses or holds a payment, and a trade you dispute.

Why there is no seven-day cooling-off right

Section 44 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 gives a consumer the right to cancel certain electronic transactions without reason and without penalty within seven days. Many South African websites promise it. On a crypto asset trade it does not apply, for two independent reasons, and either one alone would be enough.

First: section 42(2)(a) excludes financial services. Chapter VII of ECTA, which contains section 44, does not apply to a transaction for financial services, including investment services, insurance and reinsurance operations, banking services and operations relating to dealings in securities. A crypto asset has been a financial product under the FAIS Act since General Notice 1350 in Government Gazette 47334 of 19 October 2022, and buying and selling one for a client is a licensed intermediary service. The exclusion applies.

Second: section 42(2)(e) excludes prices that depend on financial market fluctuations. Chapter VII also does not apply where the price of the goods or services depends on fluctuations in the financial market which are outside the supplier's control. The rand price of a crypto asset moves continuously and is set by markets we do not control. A cooling-off right on a price like this would be an option on the market at our expense: accept the quote, wait a week, cancel if the price moved against you and keep it if it moved in your favour. No desk can offer that, and one that says it can is either not going to honour it or has priced it into your rate.

The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 does not create a general cooling-off right on a transaction like this either. Its section 16 right applies to direct marketing, and section 44 of ECTA is the provision that would otherwise have been in point.

We say this in the open because a false promise of a cooling-off period is worse than none: it produces a dispute at the exact moment when both sides are already unhappy. What we do offer instead is set out in the next section — an unpressured window before you commit, and a firm rate that we honour even when the market moves against us during it.

The point of irrevocability

Different parts of a trade become irreversible at different moments. Knowing which is which is the whole of this document.

Stage	Can it still be stopped?
Indicative rate on this website	Not an offer at all. Nothing is binding.
Firm quote issued by a trader	Binding on us for the stated validity window. You are free to decline it, and you owe nothing if you do.
You accept the quote in writing	The trade is concluded. Both sides are bound. You may not cancel because the market moved.
Crypto transfer broadcast to the network	Irreversible. A confirmed on-chain transaction cannot be recalled, cancelled or reversed by anyone.
Rand payment released to your bank	Effectively final once cleared. Domestic instant payments are irrevocable on receipt.

Acceptance of the quote is the moment that matters legally; the broadcast is the moment that matters practically. Between them there is usually a short operational window, and if you need to stop a trade, that window is when to say so — immediately, on the same channel where you accepted, and by telephone as well as in writing. We will do what can still be done. Where the trade is already concluded but nothing has moved, we may agree to unwind it, and where we do, the cost of unwinding — the difference between the rate you accepted and the rate at which the position is closed, plus any transaction costs — is for your account. That is the honest position: we can sometimes undo the operation, but we cannot undo the market.

Before you commit: what the free window actually is

Everything on this website, including the calculator and the rate pages, is indicative. It exists so that you can size a transaction. It is not an offer and it cannot be accepted.

A firm quote is given by a named trader, confirmed in writing, and held for an agreed period. During that period the rate is ours to honour and yours to decline. If the market moves against us within the window, that is our exposure, not yours. If it moves in your favour, the quote does not improve — a rate that only ever moves one way is not a quote.

Take the time. Read the amount, the asset, the network, the destination and the net figure. Ask what the total cost is rather than what the rate is. There is no countdown on this site and there will be no pressure from a trader: exaggerated urgency is prohibited by section 14 of the FAIS General Code of Conduct, and it is also a reliable sign of a desk you should not use.

You sent the wrong amount

You sent more than the quoted amount. We settle the trade at the accepted rate for the quoted amount, and the excess is returned to the source wallet or account, net of the network or banking cost of the return. Alternatively, if you tell us before settlement and we agree, the excess can be traded at a fresh quote — a new firm rate for the extra amount. It is not automatically traded at the old rate, because the old rate was priced for a different size.

You sent less than the quoted amount. A partial delivery does not complete the trade. We will contact you with two options: send the shortfall, in which case the original quote may be honoured if the window has not closed, or re-quote the smaller amount at a current rate. Where the deficit means we have to close part of a hedged position, the cost of doing so is for your account, and it will be shown to you as a number before anything is done.

Nothing arrived. A quote that is accepted but not funded within the agreed window lapses. If we hedged against it, the unwind cost may be charged. In practice, tell your trader as soon as you know you cannot fund — a five-minute call almost always costs less than silence.

You sent to the wrong address

If you send a crypto asset to an address that is not the one we gave you, the transaction is final and unrecoverable. There is no reversal mechanism, no support desk in the network, and no legal process that can compel the network to return it. Conexus cannot retrieve funds sent to an address we do not control, and neither can anyone else who tells you they can — recovery services that promise to reverse a blockchain transaction are, without exception, a second fraud aimed at the victim of the first.

If the address belongs to another exchange or service provider, there is sometimes a route: contact that provider immediately, with the transaction hash, the timestamp and proof that you sent it. Whether they can help is entirely their decision.

The controls that prevent this are boring and they work. Deposit addresses are confirmed on a verified channel, not sent unsolicited. Verify every address against what your trader confirmed, character by character at the start and the end, and be aware of clipboard-hijacking malware that silently swaps an address after you copy it. Send a small test transaction first on any new address, every time, for any material amount. Before any large transfer, check that you are talking to us at all on the verified channels page. We will never send you new banking or wallet details by unsolicited message, and a change of details announced out of the blue is fraud until proven otherwise.

You sent on the wrong network

USDT and USDC exist on several networks. TRC-20, ERC-20, BEP-20 and Solana are different rails, and an address on one is not an address on another. Sending USDT on BEP-20 to a TRC-20 address is the most common expensive mistake in this business.

What can be done depends on the case:

• Wrong network, address format not valid on the receiving chain — the funds generally never leave, or are lost at the destination. Usually unrecoverable.
• Wrong network, but the same address exists on both chains and we control it — recovery is often technically possible, may require key operations that carry their own risk, and is done at our discretion and at your cost. It is never certain, and it is never fast.
• An asset we do not support sent to one of our addresses — treated the same way. Recovery is attempted where it is safe to do so and charged at cost.

Where recovery is attempted, we will quote you the cost in advance and will not begin until you accept it. Where it is not possible, we will say so directly rather than keep the matter open. The trader confirms the network in writing before you send precisely so that this conversation is rare.

A bank reverses, holds or recalls a payment

A payment to us is reversed or recalled after we have settled. If a rand payment is reversed, recalled or dishonoured after we have delivered the crypto leg, you owe us the value delivered. We will contact you first, because the cause is very often innocent: a bank fraud filter, a limit, a duplicated instruction. Where it is not resolved, we will pursue the debt, and we will report the matter where the FIC Act requires us to.

Your bank holds an incoming payment from us. South African banks run their own fraud and compliance rules, and an unusually large or unusually shaped credit can be held for review. We cannot release it, override it or accelerate it — that is your bank's decision on your account. What we can do is provide the proof of payment, the reference, the source of the funds and a letter setting out the nature of the transaction, and we will do that on the same day you ask. Telling your bank in advance that a large credit is coming and where it came from is the single most effective thing you can do to prevent the hold in the first place.

Your account is frozen by the bank. That is between you and the bank. We will supply documentation and we will keep our own records available for as long as the law requires, but we have no standing to instruct another institution about your account.

We hold a payment. Where we delay a settlement for compliance reasons, we will tell you that there is a delay. We may not be able to tell you why — section 29(3) of the FIC Act makes it an offence to disclose that a report has been made or is contemplated. We will not invent a different reason to fill the silence.

When we cancel

We may cancel a trade before settlement where a quote was issued as a result of a manifest error — a mistyped figure, a stale feed, an obvious mispricing that any reasonable person would recognise as wrong. We will tell you immediately, we will not settle a manifest error against you, and we will re-quote at a correct rate which you are free to refuse.

We may also cancel where due diligence cannot be completed, where screening produces a result we cannot resolve, where the transaction falls within our prohibited use policy, or where completing it would put us in breach of the law. In those cases, funds already received are returned to their verified source, in the same asset or the same currency, net of the cost of returning them — unless the law requires the property to be frozen, in which case it is frozen and we may not be permitted to explain.

What we will not do is hold a completed position and re-price it because the market moved after we committed. A firm quote is firm on both sides.

Refunds: how a return is actually made

Where an amount is returnable, four rules apply without exception:

1. Same source. Crypto is returned to the wallet it came from; rand is returned to the bank account it came from, in the client's own name. We do not return to a different address, a different account or a different person, whatever the reason given.
2. Same asset. A returned crypto amount is returned in the asset received, not converted to rand, and not converted back at a later rate.
3. Net of cost. Network fees and banking charges incurred in making the return are deducted. We do not add a margin to a return.
4. Documented. You receive a written confirmation showing the amount returned, the destination, the fee deducted and the transaction reference.

Returns are processed on the same business day where the compliance position is clear, and where it is not, as soon as it becomes clear.

A disputed trade: the process

If you believe a trade was executed at the wrong rate, in the wrong amount, in the wrong direction, or without your instruction, the sequence is:

1. Immediately — tell your trader on the channel you used, and by telephone. Do not wait to see whether the market recovers. Timing is the single biggest factor in what can be done.
2. Within 24 hours — put it in writing to support@conexus-crypto.com with the quote reference, the date and time, the amounts, the asset, and what you say should have happened.
3. We reconstruct the trade — from the written quote, the acceptance, the timestamps, the settlement records and the on-chain data. All of it is retained for five years under sections 22 and 23 of the FIC Act, which is why a dispute here is a question of record rather than of recollection.
4. We respond in writing with the finding and the evidence behind it. Where we made the error, we correct it and bear the cost.
5. If you disagree, the matter moves into the formal complaints procedure, which has fixed day counts, an internal review stage, and an external escalation route.

A dispute does not suspend a settled obligation, and raising one does not affect how you are treated. Retaliation of any kind for lodging a complaint is prohibited by our own policy.