Are Unknown refunds automatic or do I need to request them?

Unknown refunds at Valid Email Checker are completely automatic. There is no claim form, no support ticket, and no admin review queue gating the credit return. The refund runs in the same edge-function pipeline that writes the verification result — the moment the engine concludes that it cannot return a definitive verdict, our refund-credits function fires and the credit lands back in your Pay-As-You-Go balance. By the time you see the Unknown row in your results table, the refund row is already in your Credits History.

What "automatic" actually means in the code

Every verification handler — the single-email endpoint, the bulk verifier, and the API path — calls refund-credits with the user's id and the credit amount whenever the upstream provider returns a status that maps to unknown. The call is made server-side over a service-role JWT, the credit is added through an atomic database RPC that locks the PAYG bucket against races, and a refund row is inserted into credit_transactions. None of that requires any action from you.

When you might still file a refund inquiry

The Unknown auto-refund only covers single-credit returns for Unknown verifications. It does not cover money refunds, subscription disputes, or compensation for unrelated issues. For those, the in-app refund inquiry form is the right place to start. For purely Unknown-related questions, do nothing — the system has already paid you back.

• Unknown verification credit → automatic, no action.
• Whole batch failed mid-run → file a refund inquiry; the engine may have charged for partial results.
• Duplicate Stripe charge → file a refund inquiry; we can issue a money refund.
• Subscription billed after you cancelled → file a refund inquiry; we can review the timing.

The big takeaway: an Unknown result already cost you nothing on Valid Email Checker. Treat Unknown as a free retry signal, not as a billable failure.