When a customer invokes Thailand’s 7-day cancellation right and a seller replies “sure, send it back” and leaves it there, three rules in the same law usually go unmentioned: the refund is due within 15 days, not “as soon as we can get to it,” a penalty applies if it’s late, and a product the customer only opened to try isn’t automatically a lost sale.
The 15-day clock starts before the parcel does
Section 36 of the Direct Sales and Direct Marketing Act B.E. 2545 states that once a business receives a customer’s cancellation notice, it must refund the full amount paid “within a period of fifteen days from the date of receiving the notice of intent to cancel the contract” (ภายในกำหนดเวลาสิบห้าวันนับแต่วันที่ได้รับหนังสือแสดงเจตนาเลิกสัญญา). Refund late or short, and the seller owes the customer “a penalty at the rate the Committee announces” (เบี้ยปรับตามอัตราที่คณะกรรมการประกาศกำหนด) — the Act’s text is reproduced section by section at legardy.com. That 15-day clock starts the day the cancellation notice arrives — in a chat business, that’s the day the “ขอคืนสินค้า” message lands in the inbox — not the day a parcel physically makes it back to the shop. This picks up where the 7-day return right itself leaves off: knowing the right exists is only the first half of the obligation.
What “already opened” actually costs the customer
Two more sections of the same Act, 34 and 35, cover the dispute that follows right after: what the customer has to send back, and who pays for a box that’s already open. If the product is a consumable item, the customer only has to return what’s left unused — not the whole package. And damage “that normally occurs from opening, assembling, or combining the goods or service for use” doesn’t count against the customer; only damage beyond that does. A seller who refuses a return because “the box is open,” or who bills full price for something opened just to check it works, is going further than the statute allows.
Set up in 1CS
Build the label before the next cancellation message arrives, not mid-conversation with a customer already waiting. Open AI > Automation Rules (เงื่อนไขอัตโนมัติ) and add a rule: set the event to “Message created,” add a condition for “message contains” the words customers actually type — ขอคืนสินค้า, เลิกสัญญา, คืนเงิน 7 วัน — then set the action to “add Label” (for example, “Return-7day”) plus “assign to Agent or team.” Name the rule clearly, then save it. The label makes a return case easy to find later, but it doesn’t count the legal 15 days for you — note the date the cancellation message arrived somewhere the team will see it; an order note works. Then add a Reply Template with a shortcode like /return7 that already states the 15-day refund commitment, so every agent gives the same answer. Both sit inside 1CS’s unified inbox; the Thai help center walks through the same screens, in Thai, at Automation rules and Reply Templates.
A message and a checklist to copy
Confirm the return and the deadline in the same message, so nobody has to ask twice:
Hi [customer name], got your return request for order [order number]. If it’s a consumable item, just send back what’s left unused — no need to return the whole package. We’ll refund the full amount within 15 days of today, as required by law, and update you here once it’s sent.
Checklist for whoever handles the case:
- Note today’s date — that’s day one of the 15-day refund clock, not the day the parcel arrives back at the shop.
- Check whether the product is consumable; if so, only the unused portion needs to come back.
- Separate normal wear from opening or testing the product from damage beyond that, before billing for either.
- Label the case and set your own reminder for day 15 — the system tracks the case, not the legal date.
- Refund in full, on time. A late refund carries a statutory penalty, not just an unhappy customer — the same instinct behind writing an escalation rule around the words customers actually use rather than the category “refund.”
