When a visa or travel service goes wrong, the agency usually points at a clause: fees are non-refundable, or a large percentage is deducted as an administrative charge. Customers often stop there. They should not, because such a clause is not automatically the end of the matter.

Non-refundable for what?

A non-refundable fee is generally defensible where the service was actually delivered. It is far weaker where nothing was performed — where no application was submitted, no booking made, no document lodged. A clause does not entitle a business to keep payment for work it never did, and most consumer protection frameworks say so explicitly.

Deductions must correspond to something

Where an agency deducts a percentage as costs incurred, you are generally entitled to ask what those costs were. Government fees genuinely paid on your behalf are real and evidenced by a receipt. A flat percentage retained with no explanation is a different matter, and asking for the breakdown in writing frequently changes the response.

When the terms appeared matters

Terms presented only after payment, or in a document you were never shown, carry much less weight than terms agreed beforehand. Keep whatever you were shown at the point of purchase — the website page, the quote, the message. If the terms now being cited differ from what you saw then, say so and produce it.

Where consumer law overrides

  • Many jurisdictions treat clauses creating a significant imbalance against the consumer as unfair and unenforceable.
  • Services must generally be performed with reasonable skill and within a reasonable time, whatever the contract says.
  • Misleading statements made before purchase can invalidate reliance on the small print that followed.

How to use this

Write once, factually: what was agreed, what was paid, what was delivered, what you want. Ask for the cost breakdown behind any deduction. Give a reasonable deadline. Then escalate to the licensing or consumer authority and, for card payments, to your issuer. A calm documented request is more effective than an angry one, and it also becomes the evidence pack if the matter goes further.