Returns & Refunds

Last updated: 24 August 2026

TCG Hamster is a marketplace: the cards are sold by individual collectors and by business sellers, and which of those you bought from changes what you can ask for. This page explains both. It summarises section 8 of our Terms of Service, which is the full version and prevails if the two ever disagree.

1. If the item is faulty or not as described

This applies to every purchase, from every seller. Cards must match their listing — the right card, the stated condition, no undisclosed damage. If what arrives doesn't match, you can raise a dispute and we may refund you, return the cards, or release funds according to the evidence. Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 when goods are faulty or not as described are not affected by anything on this page.

2. Protected deals: failed verification

Where a deal uses our intermediary service, an independent specialist checks the cards before they reach you. If they determine an item doesn't match its listing — wrong item, undisclosed damage, or a materially different condition — the buyer is refunded in full, including the protection fee. You do not need to return anything: the item never reaches you. The seller is charged a return fee of £10.00 plus return postage.

3. Unprotected deals: what we can and can't do

On a deal you choose to complete without our protected service we never see the cards, so our ability to help is limited to the evidence you can show us. We strongly recommend the sender records one continuous, unedited video of packing and sealing the parcel, and the recipient records opening it. Where someone raising a dispute has no such evidence, we may be unable to resolve it in their favour or to refund them. That is a limit on our own dispute service and does not affect any rights you have against the other party.

4. Changing your mind: the 14-day cancellation right

Buying from a business seller — a partner store, or any seller acting in the course of trade — the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give you 14 days from receiving the goods to cancel without giving a reason and receive a refund. To use it, tell the seller (or email us at hello@tcghamster.comand we'll pass it on) within those 14 days, then return the goods unused within 14 days of telling them. Return postage is your cost unless the seller says otherwise.

Factory-sealed products must come back unopened. A sealed product loses most of its value the moment it's opened, and the regulations allow the seller to reduce your refund for handling beyond what a shop would permit.

Buying from a private seller — a collector selling their own spares — this right does not apply. Private sales carry no change-of-mind return. Section 1 above still applies in full: the card must be as described.

Every listing shows whether the seller is a business or a private individual before you buy.

5. Our own paid services

Our services — the intermediary service, optional postage insurance — also carry the 14-day cancellation right, except that once we have fully performed the service the right ends. Cancel part-way and we refund proportionately for what hasn't been performed.

6. Cancelled deals

If a deal is cancelled before completion, any escrowed funds or deposit are refunded in full, including our fee.

7. How to start a return or refund

Email hello@tcghamster.com with your order reference and, where the item is faulty or not as described, photographs. We'll tell you what happens next and, where the seller is the one who owes the return, put you in touch with them. Refunds go back to the original payment method.

Questions about any of this: hello@tcghamster.com.