contract-law consumer-protection
Be reimbursed after pay on the Internet
<p>In February, I paid for a Lavabit account. I "bought" an email account that cost $15, I can see these $15 on my account but I never got my email account.
Lavabit is an honest company so it's probably not a swindle. I sent four mails to their support address but I haven't any answer.</p>

<p>Is there any way to be either reimbursed or to have what I paid for?
I don't know if they have to reimburse me according to the Law.</p>

<p>If you live in the US and paid for it via credit card, then you can dispute the charge with your credit card company - since you did not receive the product you paid for. Just retain all communication to show that you tried to resolve the issue with the company first before disputing. </p>

<p>Regardless of how you paid or where you live and focusing on the question "what does the law say", they offered you a service and you accepted (even paid), so you have a presumably valid contract (i.e. assuming you aren't confused about what they offered). They are required, therefore, to provide the contracted service, so they would appear to be in breach of that contract. The legal remedy is to sue them for damages, and assuming they are found liable, the court could order them to make good on the agreement, or to compensate you, which would certainly include the cost that you paid.</p>

<p>In this particular case, you may have a problem regarding what you bought. Owing to their problems with the US government and having been shut down, it is not clear to me that they are actually in breach – it looks to me like they are selling half-price reservations for future subscriptions, and have not promised to make the service immediately available. Their (findable) web pages do not seem to actually articulate anything resembling a sales agreement; they do say that (as of the January limited release) it is a limited release, which allowed existing customers to migrate their credentials. So one further analysis of the situation is that they were actually offering a future right to a service, and you believed that you were receiving an immediate service. There was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistake_(contract_law)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">mistake</a>, maybe meaning that there was no agreement (contract) in the first place. In which case, the company would have no contractual right to your money: the contract might be cancelled.</p>

<p>However, it is not sufficient to say "But I thought...", since otherwise no contracts would ever be valid. The question would be whether the seller knew or should have known that your belief was mistaken. You would need professional legal advice, to evaluate the case that the seller has any responsibility in this instance, but insofar as it seems reasonably clear that they are not actually offering current email service, then "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor" rel="nofollow noreferrer">caveat emptor</a>" would work against you: you <em>should</em> have known that you weren't getting immediate service.</p>

<p>If you are in some other country, such a France, then there might be specific country-specific <a href="https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/N10515" rel="nofollow noreferrer">consumer protection laws</a>.</p>
