Collauth holds your payment and the item's proof certificate until a sale is confirmed complete. That is what makes the rules below possible: until confirmation, nothing has been handed over irreversibly, and money can still be returned.
Cancelling an order
As a buyer, you can cancel an order for 60 minutes after you pay — or until the seller dispatches it, whichever happens first. No reason is needed. You are refunded in full: item, postage, and the service fee. If the seller has already bought a postage label, the window closes early, because they have already spent money on your order.
As a seller, you can cancel any order you have not yet dispatched. The buyer is refunded in full and the certificate returns to you. Cancelling orders you could have fulfilled is recorded and counts against your seller record — it is an exit for genuine problems, not a way to back out of a price you regret.
After that, an order can only be unwound through a dispute.
Changing your mind
There is no general right of return on Collauth. Once the cancellation window closes, a completed purchase is final unless the item is not what was sold.
This is deliberate. Every item traded here has been authenticated and graded before it could be listed, and its condition is documented in its certificate — so you are not buying blind, and sellers are not underwriting the cost of returns for buyers who simply changed their mind.
Nothing on this page affects rights you have under Australian Consumer Law that cannot be excluded by agreement.
When the item isn't what was sold
You can report a problem at any time before the sale is confirmed complete — including after the parcel arrives. Doing so freezes the order: no money is released to the seller and no certificate is released to you while it is open.
Report a problem if the item:
- does not match its listing or its certificate,
- arrived damaged,
- never arrived, or
- appears to be counterfeit.
You will be asked for a short explanation and, where it applies, a photo. The photo is usually the most important part — please include one if you can.
How long you have
An order confirms automatically if you do nothing:
- 7 days after the seller marks it dispatched, or
- 3 days after the carrier reports it delivered, whichever comes first.
You will be reminded before that happens. Confirming receipt yourself — or reporting a problem — stops the clock. Once an order is confirmed, the payment is released to the seller and the certificate is released to you, and it can no longer be disputed on Collauth.
Collected in person? The handover is confirmed by both people scanning at the meeting, and you should inspect the item before you scan. You can report a problem right up until you do.
How a dispute is decided
A member of the Collauth team reviews what you filed alongside the order's record — tracking, the certificate, the listing, and the seller's response.
The seller is shown what you filed — your reason, your description and your photo — and has 72 hours to respond. If they don't respond in time, the decision is made on the record without them.
There are three outcomes:
Full refund. You are refunded the item price, the postage and the service fee, and the certificate returns to the seller. Where the item has already reached you, you may be asked to return it.
Partial refund. You keep the item and are refunded part of what you paid. This is the usual outcome where an item is genuine and broadly as described but arrived in worse condition than the listing showed. The refund comes out of the seller's payout.
No refund. Where the evidence does not support the claim, the sale completes normally and the seller is paid.
You will be told the outcome either way. If you disagree with it, contact us before going to your card issuer — a chargeback takes the decision out of our hands and typically ends with the same evidence being reviewed by someone with less context.
Refund timing
Refunds are returned to the card you paid with. Collauth issues them immediately on a decision; your bank decides when the money appears, which is usually 5–10 business days.