Payment Policy

Last updated: September 18, 2026

Card or PayPal, charged once when you confirm, and the whole total shown before the button. Nothing further down adds a charge to that sentence; it only explains it: what we accept, what the total is made of, when the charge happens, and what to do about a charge that looks wrong, in that order.

You pay by card through Stripe, or through PayPal

2 processors, 1 checkout, and both bill in US dollars, the only currency the shop prices in. Cards go through Stripe: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover. Apple Pay and Google Pay also run through Stripe when your device and browser offer them, and PayPal takes a PayPal balance or a card held inside your PayPal account. Nothing else is accepted. A method that is not named here cannot be used, and there is no pay-on-delivery.

You see the full total before the button, in US dollars

The bill has 3 lines, and the 3 lines sit on the screen before you confirm.

1. The books, at the price on the product page that day.
2. Shipping, $4.99 or $0 once the books reach $35.
3. Sales tax, at the rate your state sets, on the books only, in every state our checkout carries a rate for.

That is the whole bill. There is no handling line and no packaging line, no payment surcharge, no subscription, no tip. What that screen shows is what reaches your card. A discount code changes line 1 and can change line 2; it never changes the rule. Prices on the site are what we bought the book for plus our margin, so there is no crossed-out "was" price, because there was no earlier price.

You are charged once, when you place the order

The moment you confirm. The charge lands then, not at dispatch, and it lands 1 time. A declined or abandoned payment may show as a pending hold; your bank drops it on its own within 3 to 7 business days. No money leaves.

Where the card number goes. To Stripe's or PayPal's form, on their servers, and never to ours, because card details are typed into a frame the processor controls and the shop cannot read them even by mistake; what our server keeps is the processor's reference for the payment, and every page here is served over HTTPS. We do not describe the checkout as unbreakable, because no shop honestly can. We describe what it does, and it does exactly this.

You email the desk before you phone the bank

Write first. A person answers within 1 business day, and most charge questions close in that 1 reply.

A charge you do not recognize. Send the date and the amount to [email protected]; most of these turn out to be a family member's order or a statement date that differs from the order date.

A duplicate charge. Refunded the same business day we confirm it.

A refund you are owed. Issued in 3 to 5 business days to the card or PayPal account that paid, and the bank takes 3 to 10 more to show it; the terms are in the Refund and Returns Policy.

A payment that will not go through. Check the billing ZIP code and the card's expiry first; then try PayPal; then write, and we look at the processor log.

A chargeback filed first. It is answered with the order record, and the bank decides, which takes the bank 2 to 3 months; the refund route above is faster for you and cheaper for us. 1 email sorts most of this out in a day. Write first.

The bookseller

Ainekay is the trading name of KENNETH COLBAUGH LLC, a limited liability company formed in Tennessee.
Employer ID: 99-4178666
Registered office: 1015 Sneed Rd, Decatur, TN 37322, United States
Email address: [email protected]
Telephone: +1 (615) 809-1356
Message form: ainekay.com/pages/contact
Open: Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM Central Time
You hear back: within 1 business day, from a person