Payment Policy

Gather & Glow takes Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover, both credit and debit, together with PayPal.

That covers the methods nearly every customer already holds, and it means you do not have to open a new account to buy from us. If your card carries one of those four network marks, it will work at the checkout.

We do not take cash on delivery, bank transfer, cheque, crypto-currency or payment on account. Those options either cannot be reconciled automatically or leave the order unsecured, and a small operation cannot absorb that risk.

If you would like to pay by a method we do not list, write to [email protected] before ordering and we will tell you honestly whether it can be arranged.

Payments are handled by Stripe, a payment provider certified to PCI-DSS Level 1, the most stringent standard in the industry.

Using a specialist processor means your card details go into their infrastructure, not ours. Stripe is also the party that carries the compliance obligation for storing and transmitting card data, which is why we are able to keep our own systems simple.

Paying with PayPal works differently: you are redirected to PayPal's own site, authorise the payment there using your balance or a linked card, and return to us with a confirmation. We never see your PayPal password or your linked card number.

Because the processor sits between us and your bank, we can accept a payment without ever holding the information that would make a breach worthwhile.

Your card is authorised when you place the order, and the payment is captured in full at the point the order is dispatched.

A pending authorisation may appear on your statement straight away. That is a hold rather than a completed charge, and it disappears if the order is cancelled before dispatch.

The amount confirmed at checkout is the amount charged. Sales tax is calculated from the delivery address and is already included in the figure you see before you confirm the order.

We do not add handling fees, card surcharges or currency conversion charges on top. If your bank applies a fee for an international transaction, that is set by the bank rather than by us.

All traffic to the site is encrypted in transit, and the payment step itself is served by Stripe over its own secure connection.

We never store full card numbers, security codes or PayPal credentials. What our staff can see is the card brand and the last four digits, which is enough to match a payment to an order and nothing more.

Card payments may be subject to 3-D Secure verification, which is why your bank may ask you to approve a purchase inside its own app before the order is accepted.

If you ever receive an email that appears to be from us asking for card details, treat it as fraudulent and tell us. We will never ask for a full card number by email.

A decline usually means the bank has blocked the transaction, the billing address does not match the one the issuer holds, or the card has reached its limit.

Nothing is charged when a payment is refused. You can retry with another card or with PayPal straight away.

A pending authorisation created by a failed attempt is released by the bank and normally disappears within a few working days. We cannot speed that up, because the hold sits with the issuer rather than with us.

If a decline makes no sense and you would like us to look at the attempt, send the order reference to [email protected] and we will check what the processor reported.

Gather & Glow issues the refund to the original payment method within seven calendar days of the returned item arriving and passing inspection. The bank's own posting time comes after that and sits outside our refund window.

Refunds go to the same method used for the original order. A card payment is refunded to that card, and a PayPal payment is refunded to the PayPal account that funded it.

We cannot refund to a different card, a different account or in cash, because the reversal has to follow the original transaction. This is a rule imposed by the card networks rather than a preference of ours.

Once a refund leaves us, banks and card issuers commonly need another three to five working days to display the credit. We email you at the moment it is released so you know the delay is with the issuer.

Where an order was paid partly with a gift card or store credit, the refund is split in the same proportions as the original payment.

Write to [email protected] with the order reference if something about a payment looks wrong, and include the date and the amount if you have them to hand.

We answer within one working day, Monday to Friday, and will confirm in writing what we have found rather than leaving you to interpret a bank statement on your own.

If a charge has appeared that you do not recognise at all, contact your bank as well as us. The bank can freeze the card while we check what happened on our side.

Disputes are always easier to resolve through a short email than through a formal chargeback, and we would rather hear from you first.