Are catch-all results eligible for refund?

Catch-All results are not eligible for refund on Valid Email Checker. The credit was deducted because the verifier did the full job — SMTP handshake, recipient probe, MX record lookup, and the test that confirms the domain returns 250 OK for every mailbox we probe. The result is informational and valuable, even though it is less definitive than a Safe or Invalid verdict.

What Catch-All actually means

A catch-all domain is one whose mail server accepts every incoming message regardless of the local part. anything@catchalldomain.com and another@catchalldomain.com both return 250 OK during the SMTP probe. The engine cannot tell whether the specific address you submitted is real or fictitious — only that the domain will not bounce it. See what is a catch-all domain for the full mechanic.

Why the work still costs a credit

Detecting a catch-all takes the same SMTP probes as detecting any other verdict. VEC runs the upstream provider call, pays the provider for the lookup, and runs the catch-all detector that decides the verdict. The catch-all status is a real piece of information you can use to segment, downgrade in priority, or send to with a slow ramp. From a billing standpoint the credit covers all of that.

How to handle catch-all addresses in a campaign

• Segment them out of cold outreach. Catch-all bounces are silent — the server takes the message but may never deliver. Risky for sender reputation.
• Keep them in warm re-engagement campaigns. If the address came from a known customer, the catch-all behaviour is irrelevant to deliverability.
• Use the rest of the metadata. VEC returns role-account flags, disposable flags, and other signals alongside the catch-all verdict; combine them when deciding whether to send.

See should I drop or keep catch-all results before sending for a deeper take on the campaign question.

When a catch-all result could lead to a refund

Only in one narrow case: if our detector misfires and labels a non-catch-all domain as catch-all in a way you can demonstrate (e.g. the same domain returns Safe for some addresses and Catch-All for others in the same batch under stable conditions). That is a service-failure case and goes through the refund inquiry form. Outside of detector errors, the credit stays spent.