Payment & Security Policy
Payment & Security Policy
A clear, complete explanation of how you can pay us, when your card is charged, how sales tax and cross-border duties work, and exactly how we protect your payment information from the moment you click "Place Order."
256-Bit SSL Encryption
Every page of checkout is encrypted in transit, from your browser to our payment processor.
PCI DSS Compliant Processing
All card payments are handled by PCI DSS-certified payment processors, not stored on our servers.
No Full Card Numbers Stored
We never see or retain your complete card number, CVV, or magnetic-stripe data.
7 Trusted Payment Options
Major cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Purchase Orders for verified schools and institutions.
On This Page
Scope & Who This Policy Applies To
This Payment & Security Policy ("Policy") is issued by HRV Enterprises INC LLC, doing business as MyGradStoles ("MyGradStoles," "we," "us," or "our"), and explains how payments are collected, processed, taxed, secured, and refunded for every order placed through mygradstoles.com — including Graduation Stoles, Custom Graduation Stoles, Religious Stoles, Blank Graduation Stoles, and all Shop-By-Color product pages.
This Policy applies to individual customers, families, student organizations, and school or university institutions ordering from the United States or Canada, since those are currently the only two countries we ship to. It works alongside — and does not replace — our Returns & Refund Policy, Shipping Policy, Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, and our Custom & Personalized Order Policy. Where this Policy addresses payment or security specifically and another policy touches the same topic in general terms, the more specific provision here governs for payment matters.
HRV Enterprises INC LLC is registered in the United States and headquartered in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Our stoles are manufactured through our production partners and shipped to customers exclusively in the United States and Canada. This Policy reflects that cross-border business model, which is why it addresses both U.S. and Canadian payment, tax, and consumer-protection rules in detail.
Accepted Payment Methods
We accept the following payment methods at checkout. Every option is processed through an encrypted, PCI DSS-compliant payment gateway — we never key your card details into an unsecured form.
The badges above represent each network in that network's brand colors for clarity. They are simplified marks rather than the exact registered logos of Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Apple Pay, and PayPal, each of which is a trademark of its respective owner. Swap in the official brand assets from each network's brand-guideline page if you want pixel-exact logos on the live site.
Purchase Orders (Institutional Buyers)
Verified schools, colleges, universities, honor societies, and other educational institutions may pay by Purchase Order (PO) for bulk graduation stole orders, subject to credit approval and net-terms arrangement. See Section 9 for details, or visit our Bulk Order page to get started.
Currency & Currency Conversion
- All prices on mygradstoles.com are listed and charged in U.S. Dollars (USD) unless our checkout explicitly displays a Canadian Dollar (CAD) price at the time you order.
- If you are shopping from Canada and your order is charged in USD, your card issuer or bank — not MyGradStoles — converts the charge to CAD using their own exchange rate at the time of settlement, and may apply a foreign-transaction fee under your cardholder agreement. We do not control or profit from that conversion rate.
- If we enable native CAD checkout pricing in the future, we will clearly disclose the converted amount, the exchange rate source, and any dynamic-currency-conversion fee before you confirm payment, consistent with Canadian truth-in-advertising requirements under the Competition Act.
- Refunds are always issued in the same currency and to the same payment method used for the original charge.
When Your Payment Is Charged
Because most of our products are manufactured specifically for you, our payment-timing model is straightforward and disclosed upfront — no surprise charges after the fact.
Order Placed & Payment Captured Full Amount
For Custom Graduation Stoles, Religious Stoles, and all personalized items, we collect payment in full at checkout — before the digital proof is created — because your order reserves production capacity, materials, and design time. This is standard practice for made-to-order goods and is disclosed here and at checkout.
Digital Proof & Approval
No production begins until you approve your digital proof (see our Custom & Personalized Order Policy). Your card is not charged again for a standard revision within the free-revision allowance.
Blank Stoles & In-Stock Items
Blank Graduation Stoles and other ready-made, non-personalized items are also charged in full at checkout, consistent with standard e-commerce practice, since these ship from existing stock.
Add-On Charges (Rush, Extra Revisions)
Rush production fees, additional-revision fees beyond the free allowance, or any other add-on charge are always disclosed and separately confirmed with you in writing before we charge your payment method a second time.
Institutional Purchase Orders
Verified institutional buyers on approved net terms are invoiced according to the payment schedule in their PO agreement rather than charged at checkout. See Section 9.
Collecting payment at order placement, rather than after proof approval, lets us begin design work immediately and lock in your place in the production queue — which matters most during peak graduation season (March–June). Our 24-hour cancellation window (see our Custom & Personalized Order Policy) gives you a full refund if you change your mind before a proof is sent.
Declined, Failed & Pre-Authorized Payments
If Your Card Is Declined
If your payment method is declined at checkout, no order is created and no charge is placed — you will be prompted to retry with the same or a different payment method. Common causes include insufficient funds, an expired card, or your bank flagging the transaction for extra verification.
Pre-Authorization Holds
Some banks place a temporary pre-authorization ("pending") hold to confirm your card is valid before the final charge posts. This is initiated by your card network, not an extra charge from us, and typically clears from your statement within 1–5 business days if it does not convert into a completed payment.
In the rare case a previously successful payment is later reversed by your bank before production is complete, we will contact you to arrange an alternate payment method before proceeding to manufacturing. We will never begin production on an order without a successfully settled payment.
Fraud Screening & Order Verification
To protect both our customers and our business from payment fraud, every order passes through automated screening before it enters production.
- We use standard card-network tools, including Address Verification Service (AVS) and CVV/CVC verification, to confirm the billing details you provide match the card issuer's records.
- Orders that trigger our fraud-risk screening (for example, a large mismatch between billing and shipping address, or an unusually high-value first-time order) may be placed on a short manual review hold, and we may contact you by phone or email to confirm the order before production begins.
- We reserve the right to cancel and fully refund any order we reasonably believe to be fraudulent, unauthorized, or made with a stolen payment method, and to report suspected fraud to the relevant card network or law enforcement.
- If your legitimate order is delayed by a fraud-review hold, we will always tell you why and work with you to verify it as quickly as possible — usually within one business day.
Pricing Errors & Corrections
We work hard to keep every price on mygradstoles.com accurate, but on rare occasions a technical glitch, mis-typed price, or shipping-calculation error can display an incorrect amount.
If a product is listed at an obviously incorrect price (for example, due to a typographical or technical error) and we accept your order before catching the mistake, we will contact you before doing anything else. You will always be offered the choice to pay the corrected, correct price and proceed, or to cancel the order for a full refund with no charge to you. We will never silently charge a corrected amount without your consent.
All prices, including any applicable personalization, rush, or shipping fees, are shown to you in full before you complete checkout, consistent with FTC guidance on clear and conspicuous pricing disclosure and Google Shopping's accurate-pricing requirements.
Promotions, Discount Codes & Stacking
- Unless a specific promotion states otherwise, only one discount code may be applied per order — discount codes do not stack with each other or with automatically applied bulk/wholesale pricing.
- Each promotion has a stated expiration date or quantity limit, honored based on the terms in effect at the moment you check out; a code that has expired or reached its redemption limit will be rejected at checkout with a clear message.
- Discounts and promotional pricing apply only to orders placed while the offer is active; we do not retroactively apply a new discount, or refund the difference, to an order placed before a promotion began.
- We honor our advertised lowest-price guarantee and bulk/wholesale pricing tiers exactly as shown on the site at the time your order is placed.
- We reserve the right to cancel a redeemed promo code and adjust an order's total if we identify a code was used fraudulently, generated by an unauthorized third-party coupon site, or shared in violation of that promotion's stated terms — you will be notified and given the chance to pay the corrected total or cancel for a refund.
Purchase Orders & Institutional Payment
Schools, colleges, universities, and other verified educational institutions ordering in bulk can pay by Purchase Order (PO) instead of card or PayPal at checkout.
- Contact us at contact@mygradstoles.com or +1 (361) 228-4910, or visit our Bulk Order page, to request PO or net-terms payment for a bulk institutional order.
- PO and invoiced payment terms are offered at our discretion, generally to verified public or accredited educational institutions, and may require a signed order confirmation, a tax-exemption certificate where applicable, and credit review before approval.
- Unless your PO agreement states otherwise, an invoice is issued once your digital proof is approved and production is authorized, with payment due according to the net terms confirmed in writing (for example, Net 30).
- All other sections of this Policy — including sales tax, security, and refund terms — apply equally to institutional PO orders.
Payment Security & PCI DSS Compliance
Protecting your payment information is not an afterthought at MyGradStoles — it is built into how our checkout is designed and who is allowed to touch your card data.
Encrypted Checkout (SSL/TLS)
Every page of mygradstoles.com, including checkout, is served over an encrypted HTTPS/SSL connection. This scrambles your personal and payment information as it travels between your browser and our servers, so it cannot be read if intercepted in transit.
PCI DSS-Certified Processors
Card payments are processed by third-party payment processors that are independently certified as compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) — the security standard maintained by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and JCB. Your card details are entered directly into the processor's secure, tokenized fields.
Tokenization
Instead of storing your actual card number, our systems and payment processor use a randomly generated "token" to reference your payment method for that transaction. Even if our systems were compromised, that token cannot be reverse-engineered into a usable card number.
Limited Internal Access
Only staff who genuinely need it to process, ship, or resolve an order can view the limited order and billing information (such as the last 4 digits of a card and transaction status) that our payment processor makes visible to us — never the full card number or CVV.
When you pay with PayPal or Apple Pay, your full card or bank details are never shared with MyGradStoles at all — those transactions are authenticated and processed entirely within PayPal's or Apple's own secure systems, and we only receive confirmation that payment succeeded.
What We Never Store
To keep your information as safe as possible, MyGradStoles does not store the following on our own servers, in our email inboxes, or in any internal spreadsheet, under any circumstances:
- Full, unmasked credit or debit card numbers (Primary Account Number / PAN)
- Card verification codes (CVV/CVC/CID), under any circumstance, after authorization completes
- Magnetic-stripe or chip data
- Card PINs
- Bank account or routing numbers submitted for direct payment, beyond what our processor needs to complete a transaction
If you ever need to request a refund or ask about a charge, please do not send your full card number or CVV by email, text, or live chat — we will never ask for it that way, and we cannot process a refund using it even if you do. Refunds are always issued back through the original payment processor. For more on how we handle your personal information generally, see our Privacy Policy.
U.S. Sales Tax
Sales tax on U.S. orders is calculated automatically at checkout based on your shipping address and the tax rules in effect at the time of your purchase — never estimated or added after the fact.
Economic Nexus & State-by-State Tax Reference
Most states set their economic nexus threshold at $100,000 in annual sales or 200 separate transactions delivered into the state, whichever comes first, though a handful of states use different figures or have removed the transaction-count test entirely. The base statewide rate below is provided for general reference only — your actual checkout total also reflects any county, city, or district tax that applies to your specific address, and is always calculated in real time. Five states do not impose a statewide general sales tax at all.
| State | Base Statewide Rate* | Custom-Order Note |
|---|
*Approximate base statewide rates for general informational transparency only — not legal or tax advice, and not a guarantee of the exact rate shown at your checkout, which includes applicable local add-on taxes and reflects the law in effect on your order date. Rates are set by each state legislature and change periodically; consult your state department of revenue for the current, authoritative rate.
Canada — GST, HST & PST
Canada applies a federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 5%, which in several provinces is combined with the provincial sales tax into a single Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). Other provinces apply GST plus a separate Provincial Sales Tax (PST/RST/QST).
MyGradStoles / HRV Enterprises INC LLC is a U.S.-registered seller. Unless and until we register as a non-resident vendor with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), we do not collect GST/HST or provincial sales tax at checkout on Canadian orders. Instead, applicable Canadian GST/HST (and, where relevant, provincial sales tax and duty) is assessed by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) when your order is imported — see Section 16. Please verify and update this registration status if MyGradStoles has since registered to collect Canadian tax at checkout, so this section can be corrected to match.
If MyGradStoles becomes registered to collect GST/HST/PST directly at checkout for Canadian orders, this section will be updated to show the exact tax itemized on your order, calculated automatically based on your shipping province or territory, consistent with CRA and provincial requirements for online sellers.
Canada Province & Territory Tax Reference
| Province / Territory | Tax Type & Approx. Combined Rate* | Import Note |
|---|---|---|
| Alberta | GST only — 5% | No provincial sales tax; 5% GST generally assessed by CBSA on import |
| British Columbia | GST 5% + PST 7% (~12%) | GST assessed by CBSA on import; PST is a provincial retail tax, generally not collected by CBSA on personal imports |
| Manitoba | GST 5% + RST 7% (~12%) | GST assessed by CBSA on import; RST is a provincial retail tax |
| New Brunswick | HST — 15% | Full HST generally assessed by CBSA on import |
| Newfoundland & Labrador | HST — 15% | Full HST generally assessed by CBSA on import |
| Nova Scotia | HST — 14% | Full HST generally assessed by CBSA on import |
| Ontario | HST — 13% | Full HST generally assessed by CBSA on import |
| Prince Edward Island | HST — 15% | Full HST generally assessed by CBSA on import |
| Québec | GST 5% + QST 9.975% (~14.975%) | GST assessed by CBSA on import; QST is a provincial retail tax administered by Revenu Québec |
| Saskatchewan | GST 5% + PST 6% (~11%) | GST assessed by CBSA on import; PST is a provincial retail tax |
| Northwest Territories | GST only — 5% | No territorial sales tax |
| Nunavut | GST only — 5% | No territorial sales tax |
| Yukon | GST only — 5% | No territorial sales tax |
*Rates shown are general public reference figures as of this Policy's effective date and are not legal or tax advice. Provincial and federal tax rates are set by the relevant legislature and are subject to change; consult the Canada Revenue Agency or your provincial revenue authority for the current, authoritative rate. See Section 16 for how these amounts are actually assessed on an imported order.
Cross-Border Duties & Import Fees (Canadian Orders)
Because MyGradStoles ships Canadian orders from the United States, your package clears customs when it enters Canada, and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) may assess charges directly to you at that point, separate from what you paid us at checkout.
What May Be Charged at the Border
Depending on your order value and the applicable trade rules in effect on your delivery date, CBSA may assess GST (and, in HST provinces, the full HST), any applicable customs duty, and a brokerage or handling fee charged by the courier that clears your package. These amounts are paid by you directly to CBSA or the courier, not to MyGradStoles.
Why We Can't Guarantee a Fixed Amount
Duty rates, low-value shipment thresholds, and courier brokerage fees are set by the Canadian government and by individual couriers, and can change with little notice. Because of this, we cannot promise an exact import cost in advance — see our Shipping Policy for the most current guidance available at the time you order.
We flag this potential import cost on our Shipping Policy and at checkout for Canadian addresses so that you are not caught off guard by a request for payment from your courier at the door. Import GST/duty and brokerage fees are the customer's responsibility and are separate from, and not refundable by, MyGradStoles.
Refunds & How They're Processed
When you're entitled to a refund — whether under our 24-hour cancellation window, for a manufacturing error, or for any other reason described in our Returns & Refund Policy — here's exactly how it works from a payment standpoint.
- Refunds are always issued to the original payment method used for the purchase — we cannot issue a refund to a different card, a different PayPal account, or as a cash/check payment.
- Once a refund is issued on our end, it typically takes 5–10 business days to appear on your statement, depending on your bank, card issuer, or PayPal's own processing times, which are outside our control.
- If your original card has since expired or been closed, most card networks automatically route the refund to the replacement card linked to the same account; contact your bank if you do not see it within 10 business days.
- Any sales tax collected on a refunded item is refunded along with the item price; U.S. state and Canadian import taxes already assessed by a taxing authority (rather than collected by us) are handled per that authority's own refund process, which we are not able to control.
- For institutional Purchase Orders, an approved refund is applied as a credit or adjustment to the relevant invoice rather than a card refund.
Full details on eligibility, timelines, and what qualifies for a refund or exchange are in our Returns & Refund Policy.
Chargebacks & Payment Disputes
We would always rather resolve a problem with you directly than have your bank reverse a charge, so please contact us first if something isn't right — we can typically move faster than a formal dispute process.
Talk to Us First
Contact contact@mygradstoles.com or +1 (361) 228-4910 with your order number before filing a dispute with your bank. Most concerns — a missing revision, a shipping delay, or a manufacturing question — can be resolved within 1 business day without involving your card issuer.
If a Chargeback Is Filed
If a chargeback is opened, we respond with the order record available to us, including the approved digital proof, shipping confirmation, and any communications — this is standard evidence card networks request in a dispute and helps resolve it accurately and fairly for both sides.
Nothing in this Policy limits your right under the Fair Credit Billing Act, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, or your card network's own rules to dispute a charge you believe is unauthorized or billed in error. See Sections 19 and 20 for how those protections apply.
U.S. Consumer Payment Protections
Your payment on mygradstoles.com is protected by more than just our own policies — federal law provides specific rights depending on how you pay.
Canadian Consumer Payment Protections
Data Privacy & Your Payment Information
The billing information you provide at checkout (name, billing address, and the limited transaction details our payment processor shares with us) is used solely to process your order, prevent fraud, calculate applicable tax, and provide customer support — never sold to third parties or used for unrelated marketing without your consent.
For a full explanation of what information we collect, how long we keep it, and your rights over it — including under applicable U.S. state privacy laws and Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) — see our Privacy Policy.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our payment processors, tax obligations, or legal requirements. The "Last Updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. Material changes will not be applied retroactively to reduce the protections available to an order already placed.
Questions About Payment or Security?
Our team is happy to walk you through payment options, tax questions, or how we protect your information before you order.
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We aim to respond to every inquiry within 1 business day.
HRV Enterprises INC LLC · 1105 W Cottonwood Ln, Apt 15F, Mount Prospect, IL 60056, United States