Legal
Last updated: 20 September 2026
DUNE is a product of Vauxer Enterprises Private Limited. Vauxer operates the service as an intermediary connecting Requesters and Companions, publishes the app, arranges for payments to be collected and disbursed through a third-party payment partner, and is responsible for your data — it is the company you deal with for everything. Every refund on this page is paid by Vauxer, to the payment method you paid with.
| What happened | You get back |
|---|---|
| Your request was not accepted, or lapsed | Everything — you were never charged |
| A confirmed booking is cancelled — by either of you | The amount paid, less DUNE's Platform Fee |
| You do not arrive | Nothing |
| Session ends early by mutual agreement | Nothing |
| An event you joined is cancelled by the host | Reviewed. Cancelled properly → full ticket price less the processing fee. Cancelled badly → the amount paid less DUNE's Platform Fee, or as our team decides |
| You cancel your event seat, before the event starts | The amount paid, less DUNE's Platform Fee |
| You cancel once the event has started | Nothing — the seat is used |
| You turn up and the host does not check you in | Reviewed case by case |
| Something went wrong — a conduct breach, a safety issue | Reviewed case by case |
| DUNE Gold or Elite membership | Nothing — memberships are non-refundable |
| Your account is suspended or closed for a breach | Nothing — see section 11 |
Refunds go back to the original payment method. We don’t offer cash refunds or bank transfers to a different account.
Nothing is charged until you pay. A request that a companion declines, or that lapses because the 10-minute acceptance window or the 5-minute payment window passed, costs you nothing. There’s no refund to process because no money moved.
We retain DUNE’s Platform Fee from the total paid. The remainder is refunded.
This applies whoever cancels — the person who booked, or the companion — and whatever the notice. Three weeks ahead or ten minutes before, the calculation is the same.
DUNE’s Platform Fee is not a fixed percentage and may change — the rate applied to a cancellation is the rate that was in effect when the booking was made, not the rate in effect later, when the cancellation happens. You can check the current rate at any time via the ⓘ icon on your profile, under “How DUNE works.”
The retained Platform Fee covers payment processing, the GST accounted for on it, and the platform cost of holding a companion’s time exclusively for that booking. We absorb the payment processing fee ourselves — the amount we tell you you’ll receive is the amount that reaches you, not that amount minus charges.
The companion receives nothing when a booking is cancelled, whoever cancelled it.
Cancel in the app, on the booking itself. Telling the other person by message doesn’t cancel the booking.
A single cancellation costs you nothing beyond the booking. A pattern of them does.
We count every cancellation made after a booking has been paid for. Where someone repeatedly accepts bookings and then cancels them, we review the account — we don’t wait for anyone to report it, because the record is enough on its own. Reports from the people affected are taken into account where they exist.
Depending on what the review finds, we may take no action, issue a warning, suspend the account for between 3 and 30 days, or ban it permanently. What we weigh is the pattern, the notice given each time, the reasons, and the account’s overall history — not a fixed number of cancellations.
Genuine emergencies happen, and one cancellation is not a problem. Accepting bookings you don’t intend to keep is. If you’re not sure you can make it, decline the request instead — declining costs nobody anything.
There is no strike for cancelling a booking — strikes exist only for hosts who cancel events, and those are set out in section 9.
No refund. The companion set aside that time, may have travelled, and can’t recover it.
The companion is still paid for a booking you don’t turn up to. They did what they agreed to do, so they receive their share of the booking value — less DUNE’s Platform Fee, less Tax Collected at Source (TCS) and any tax deducted at source (TDS) — and we retain the usual Platform Fee.
If you both agree to finish early, the booking is treated as completed and there’s no refund. You booked and held that block of time.
If a session ends early because of a Code of Conduct breach — someone was made uncomfortable, someone pushed for something that wasn’t booked, someone behaved unsafely — that isn’t a cancellation. Report it. We review what happened and decide the refund on the facts, and the outcome can be a full refund with no deduction. What counts as a breach is set out in our Code of Conduct.
Leaving a session early for your own safety will never count against you.
Raise it in the app — on the booking itself, or through Support.
This is why we recommend keeping location on. It’s not required and your session works without it — but if there’s a disagreement about whether a meeting happened, being able to show you were there puts you in a much stronger position. What we do with that record is set out in our Privacy Policy.
If something’s gone wrong, tell us first. We can usually resolve it faster than your bank can.
Raising a chargeback without contacting us may result in your account being suspended while it’s investigated. Where a chargeback is raised on a session our records show was completed, we’ll submit those records — PIN verifications, timings and location data — as evidence.
Events work a little differently, because a host commits to a venue and a headcount in advance.
Every event has a start time and an end time, set by the host when they list it. An event runs for at least 30 minutes and at most 6 hours, and may offer at most 10 seats.
When you join and pay, you’re given a 4-digit check-in PIN. At the event, you show it to the host, and the host enters it to check you in. There is no check-out PIN — the event ends at the time it was listed to end.
Check-in opens at the event’s start time. A PIN entered before then is rejected — if the event starts at 6pm, the first check-in the host can record is at 6pm.
Never give your PIN to anyone before you are physically at the event. It is the proof that you turned up. Sending it ahead over chat, or to anyone who isn’t the host in front of you, means someone can mark you present at an event you never attended.
We retain DUNE’s Platform Fee. You get the remainder back. Same as a booking, and the same whenever you cancel — three weeks ahead or ten minutes before, as long as it’s before the listed start time.
We absorb the payment processing fee — the amount we tell you you’ll receive is the amount that reaches you.
You cannot cancel after the listed start time, and there is no refund. The host committed to a venue and a headcount on the strength of your seat, and it can’t be given to anyone else once the event is under way.
The cut-off is the start time, not your check-in. Whether or not the host got round to entering your PIN doesn’t change what you can cancel — check-in records that you attended; it isn’t what closes the refund window.
The one exception: if more than half the attendees who checked in report the event or the host, we review it. Where that review finds the event was misrepresented, unsafe, or not delivered as listed, everyone who checked in is refunded in full.
That threshold exists because a genuinely bad event produces complaints from many people, not one. A single report is still handled as a report — we investigate the host and act on it — but it doesn’t by itself reverse the payment.
If you feel unsafe at an event, leave. Report it, and we’ll review it whether or not anyone else does. Your safety is never conditional on other people agreeing with you.
Tell us within 2 hours of the event’s end time and we’ll review it. There’s no automatic outcome here, because there are two very different situations behind the same missing check-in: a host who turned people away or couldn’t be bothered, and an attendee who never came. We look at the event record, your location record if you had location on, what other attendees reported, and the host’s history.
Where the review finds you were turned away or the host simply failed to check you in, you’re refunded in full and the host takes a strike under the rules set out below.
This is the one place where having location switched on matters most. With no check-in and no location, there is very little to distinguish you from someone who didn’t attend.
Reporting a denied check-in that didn’t happen is a serious violation. An upheld report refunds you in full and puts a strike on the host, so a false one takes money and standing from someone who did nothing wrong. We review these individually, we look at the whole event and not just your seat, and repeated unfounded reports will cost you your account.
Every host cancellation is reviewed by our team before any money moves. We look at when the host cancelled and what they told you — the notice given, the reason, and whether they messaged everyone who had a seat.
| What the review finds | You get back |
|---|---|
| The host cancelled properly — reasonable notice, and they told attendees what was happening | The full ticket price, less the payment processing fee |
| The host cancelled badly — no notice, no explanation, or attendees left to find out for themselves | The amount paid less DUNE's Platform Fee, or another amount our team decides on the facts |
Where ten people had seats, all ten are refunded on the same basis.
We review the host’s messages to attendees to make this decision. That is one of the purposes for which we may read conversation content, and it is set out in our Privacy Policy.
Reviews are completed within 3 business days of the cancellation, and we’ll tell you the outcome. If you disagree with it, you can appeal — see section 13.
The host also receives a strike, separately from the refund decision. Listing an event, taking payment from people who arranged their evening around it, and then cancelling is the most damaging thing a host can do on DUNE.
There is no automatic suspension, and no fixed number of strikes.
We record strikes — for cancelling an event, for failing to check in attendees who turned up, and for upheld reports. But a strike does not by itself trigger anything. Our team reviews the whole picture and decides:
One event carries at most one strike, however many attendees it affected. A genuine emergency, reviewed and accepted by our team, carries none at all.
The outcomes available to us:
| Outcome | What it means |
|---|---|
| No action | The pattern does not warrant it |
| Warning | Recorded, and taken into account if it happens again |
| Hosting suspended | Cannot create events for between 3 and 30 days. Where in that range is decided on the facts — there is no standard length |
| Hosting removed | Cannot host events again. Reserved for serious or repeated cases |
A suspension runs from 3 days to 30 days. Nothing longer is a suspension — beyond that we either take no further action or remove hosting access altogether, and we’ll tell you which.
Losing hosting access is not losing your account. If we remove or suspend your ability to host, you can still use DUNE as a companion and as a requester — book, be booked, attend other people’s events. Your membership continues, your payouts are unaffected, and nothing you have paid is forfeited. Section 11 deals with account suspension, which is a different and more serious thing.
You’ll be told which rule is in question and given a chance to respond, except where that would compromise a safety investigation, and you can appeal. A different person reviews the appeal from the one who made the decision.
If the host doesn’t appear, the venue is wrong, or the event is materially different from its listing, report it and you’ll be refunded in full — no deduction of any kind. This is decided on review.
If the host never checked anyone in, that is itself strong evidence the event didn’t happen, and we don’t need you to prove it.
We retain DUNE’s Platform Fee from each seat sold, at the rate in effect when the seat was booked. Payouts to hosts, like all Companion payouts, are processed through Razorpay.
A 2-hour dispute window follows the event’s listed end time — the same window that applies to bookings. If no issue is raised, the balance is settled to the host T+2 business days after that window closes, excluding bank holidays and other holidays. Two things can hold it past that point:
A host is paid for the seats they checked in, less DUNE’s Platform Fee and less TCS and TDS. If you don’t collect PINs, you have no record that anybody came, and the payout has nothing to rest on. The terms a companion or host is paid under are set out in the Companion Agreement.
Membership fees are non-refundable. That means:
What you can do: cancel at any time in the app. Cancellation stops the next renewal — it doesn’t end the current period. You keep Gold or Elite benefits until the period you’ve paid for runs out, and you’re not charged again.
If we change the price or the benefits, we’ll tell you at least 30 days beforehand, and you can cancel before the change takes effect.
If you were charged in error — a duplicate charge, or a charge after you cancelled — tell us and we’ll refund it in full.
If you subscribed through Google Play, your payment was processed by Google. Google’s own refund policies apply to that payment, and Google may grant a refund independently of this policy. To cancel or request a refund on a Google Play subscription, use the Google Play Store or Google’s support. We can’t process or reverse a Google Play refund on your behalf.
Photo privacy is a separate monthly subscription — currently ₹249 a month — that covers your face or eyes in the photos other people see. It is not part of Membership: buying Gold or Elite does not include it, and cancelling one does not touch the other.
A temporary suspension and a permanent closure are different, and only one of them costs you money.
If your account is suspended for a period (3 to 30 days):
If we close your account permanently because you breached our Terms of Service or Community Guidelines:
Suspension versus closure. A temporary suspension pauses your access. Your membership keeps running while you’re suspended — the time isn’t added back, and it isn’t refunded. A permanent closure ends the membership outright. Closing your account yourself is a different thing again — see deleting your account.
Two things we will still do.
Money you have already earned is still paid. If you have completed sessions and are owed a payout, we pay it, less any amounts properly deducted. The exception is where those earnings arise from the breach itself — fabricated bookings, fraud, or payments obtained dishonestly — in which case they are withheld and investigated.
You can appeal. Write to support@dunexplore.com. A different person reviews it from the one who made the original decision. If we got it wrong, we reinstate your account and refund anything that shouldn’t have been forfeited.
Nothing here limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 or other applicable Indian law. Where the law gives you more than this policy does, the law wins.
Vauxer Enterprises Private Limited · CIN U46901OD2023PTC044064 · Office 14, Ground Floor, Tower A, Startup Odisha (O-HUB), SEZ Road, Chandaka Industrial Estate, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751024 · support@dunexplore.com
Questions about this page? Write to support@dunexplore.com.