Client Agreement

By booking any light setting, altar work service, reading or consultation, you are signifying that you have read, understood, and accepted the site Terms of Service, of which the following Client Agreement is an extension.

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I have a Code of Ethics to which I adhere. It outlines my general ethical stance and delineates some specific things you can expect of me if you retain my services. In turn, I expect that clients booking my services will uphold their end of an ethical and mutually beneficial client-worker relationship.

I do not lie to my clients or deliberately omit important information. I expect the same in turn.

I do not take financial advantage of my clients (for instance, by pressuring them to order the most expensive items or choose the most expensive options), and I expect they will not take financial advantage of me (for instance, by constantly wheedling for discounts or freebies).*

I do not spring surprise additional costs or hidden fees on my clients beyond what is delineated in a service listing or client contract. I expect that my clients will not spring surprise additional requests and requirements after they have booked a service.

I do not pester or harass my clients or use nasty or threatening language in communicating with them. I expect the same in turn.

I respect my clients' privacy and I do not display or divulge confidential information shared in the course of performing spiritual services. I expect the same respect in turn.**

I do not misrepresent my training and qualifications or attempt to offer services that I'm not qualified to provide, such as legal advice, medical diagnosis, or therapy/counseling. I expect that clients will recognize that I am not their therapist, doctor, or legal advisor and will not try to rely on me for such services.

I accept client cases and bookings in good faith and assume that they are acting with goodwill. I expect that clients will read and abide by my terms and policies and assume that I am acting in good faith and with goodwill as well. For instance, I expect that clients will not freak out, assume I don't intend to perform the booked service, and put in claims and disputes with payment processors, nor will they leave negative feedback, comments, or ratings because they didn't read item listings and policies and/or did not follow instructions.

Start and End Dates: Limit of Guarantee

Services do not come with a guarantee that they will start on a certain day/time unless this is discussed and agreed upon in writing *before* the service is booked. If you must have your service begin on a certain day/time, this usually requires a formal custom written contract.

Services will be performed as soon as I can prepare them, and it would be unusual for it to take me longer than 5 business days from receiving all necessary info/materials to begin, but it's possible that another client's work is taking up an entire altar for that week, for instance, or I have an unusual number of vigil lights set on the same altar for the next few days. And you should certainly expect that it could take a few days for me to set it up, gather any special materials, prepare any concerns/pakets/effigies etc., and perform the work. So do not assume I can or will begin the work on a certain day or time without getting that guarantee from me in writing, in advance.

Services do not come with a guaranteed delivery date for photos/reports unless this is discussed and agreed upon in writing *before* the service is booked. You should expect that it could take me several days beyond the work's conclusion to prepare and send photos and reports, and remember the work is not concluded until ritual remains are properly disposed of. In some cases that requires travel and/or the weather cooperating.

Readings and consultations done via email or asynchronous chat are on a first-come, first-served basis, for the most part. By booking, you are reserving your spot in line. I cannot tell you exactly when your service will be complete, and if I give an estimate, it's an estimate and not a guarantee. If you want to know how the queue looks, you can always check the Current Services Queue at the blog. If you must have a report or consultation completed by a certain date, you need to get that guarantee in writing before booking the service.

Once work has begun on your service, including time spent running natal charts, answering emails, taking notes, and reading backstories, no cancellations or refunds are possible, so please ask any questions you have before booking.

As outlined in the Refunds and Cancellations policy, chargebacks are considered theft and will result in collections action and reporting to professional organizations with which I am affiliated, so that my colleagues can be forewarned about clients behaving badly and take appropriate precautions should they be contacted for services by such clients.

Frequency/Amount of Communication: Limits

I cannot do play-by-plays or on-the-fly updates during the preparation or performance of the work. The fee for services covers the cost of my time, the dedicated space on my altars, and the cost of materials consumed in the performance of the service. That time includes the time it takes me to provide the responses/emails outlined in the service description or client contract, but nothing beyond that. So please do not expect any responses or emails beyond what is covered in the listing or contract explaining how it works (which is usually an update or report with one or more photos after the work is completed).

Additional emails sent to ask "just wondering when you might start" or "just curious how it's going" take up my time typing when I could be spending that time at my altars doing your work. If you send those kinds of emails, you will get a form letter response reminding you of the Terms of Service here that you agreed to when you booked. You'll also get a mental note, and possibly a written one in your client record, indicating that you probably don't read instructions carefully. That doesn't bode well for the success of our work together and it makes it less likely that I would take your case in the future.

Repeat offenders / chronic naggers usually get banned.

Refusal of Service, Cancellations, and Refunds

I reserve the right to refuse service and refund purchase price (minus costs incurred in accepting the booking and transaction) at my sole discretion. I might do this for one of the reasons outlined on the Common Types of Altar Work page, or if I become concerned about one of the issues I list in my Code of Ethics. I might do it if something happens that screws my schedule all up and I don't feel I can perform the service in any kind of reasonable timeframe. Or I might do it if I just get the impression we aren't the best fit for working together and one or both of us would be happier if you booked services with someone else instead.

If it seems that you are just going to be a general pain in my butt by not reading instructions, not following directions, and/or pestering me about dates/times, I may refuse service and refund purchase price (minus costs incurred in accepting the booking and processing the payment). Alternately, I might determine that you are ineligible for normal altar work rates, and thus any work will have a PITA surcharge applied unless/until you have expressed an understanding of what is and isn't a reasonable expectation of communication.

All sales and bookings are final, so please ask any questions before booking. Candle burning and ritual maneuvering of symbolic items are spiritual services and reading/interpreting the results is an art. You are paying for the cost of materials, the dedicated space on my altars, and for my time, so no refunds, adjustments, or cancellations are possible once I've devoted any time to your service, including reading all the information in your email or case file and taking notes. I'm more than happy to answer your questions before you book, though, so please ask questions first.

Personal Concerns, Ritual Items, Photos

If you are sending me personal concerns, you must let me know to expect them and you must follow the rules. Personal concerns will not be returned.

Ritual implements I create remain my property unless/until they are released to client custody upon shipment or pickup. If you abandon materia magica used in your altar work, meaning you do not make a decision whether to receive it in shipment, to continue working it, or to ritually dispose of it, it will be deactivated and disassembled and the components disposed of no earlier than one week and no later than four weeks upon completion of contracted altar work unless prior alternative arrangements have been made.

I may use photos of your altar work on my website and/or social media platforms. See Client Privacy section below for privacy guarantees and limits.

Client Privacy: Guarantees and Limits

Client privacy is of the utmost importance, and none of your identifying information will ever be publicly associated with any particular service or spiritual work without your consent. If a photograph of your altar work is used on a website or other property of Karma Zain or Seraphin Station, it would be edited to obscure any means of identifying you. This is part of the Code of Ethics to which I adhere.

However, clients should be aware of the following:

My acceptance of your booking and performance of consultation and/or altar work services does not constitute a clergy/church member relationship and does not fall under confessional privilege. In the event that I am called as a witness because you or your close associate did something hare-brained or horrible, I will not invoke the confidentiality privilege (and it wouldn't do me any good to try).

If you violate the Terms of Service (for instance by initiating a chargeback), you invalidate my responsibilities under the TOS as well, including your guarantee of privacy. I still wouldn't publish what your altar work was and where you live on my blog, but your name and account info would be made available to my colleagues, so they can protect themselves from a similar problem if they so choose, and to the appropriate entities, be they legal, financial, or spiritual, for the purposes of debt recovery.

Confidentiality may be broken if it becomes clear that you intend to do serious harm to yourself or others.

Your booking of a service indicates your understanding and acceptance of the Terms of Service, to include the following:

Readings, consultations, divination, light settings, and other altar workings are of a spiritual/metaphysical nature and are based on the ancient teachings of the aforementioned traditions. In keeping with the principles of metaphysics, all information of a spiritual nature is meant to be a guide to assist you in making a more informed decision on matters affecting your life.

Karma Zain is a professional reader, rootworker, and spiritual coach as well as an ordained minister and consecrated bishop, but she is not a lawyer, doctor, psychologist, or financial advisor. Thus any advice or discussion offered falls under spiritual/metaphysical guidance and should not be interpreted as medical, financial, legal, or mental health advice. No spiritual consultation or spiritual work is intended to replace the advice or services of medical, financial, legal, or mental health professionals.

If she becomes convinced that success in your goals can best be attained through your pursuing measures such as entering counseling, seeking legal aid, or obtaining medical treatment in addition to your spiritual work together, she will say so and may decline to work further with you if you are unwilling to undertake these “mundane” measures. This policy is in the interest of treating clients and their cases holistically and following the surest path for clients to meet their goals.

By contracting spiritual services, you are affirming that you have an informed belief in spiritual work and its traditional practices and wish to engage the services of a rootworker to perform traditional hoodoo rootwork as part of an attempt to resolve certain life issues. Karma Zain guarantees that the work will be performed as contracted and to the best of her ability, and that if obstacles are divined during the course of the work, she will relay them and make suggestions for appropriate remedies. You acknowledge that, due to the nature of spiritual folk magic, Karma Zain and Seraphin Station make no guarantees that the work will result in the desired outcome within the desired timeframe or at all.

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* Hard times happen. I do offer some discounted and pro bono services, and I have a generous loyalty/rewards program that can help clients who are short on cash get some discounts. It's fine to mention that you're having financial difficulty and it's fine to ask if there are any alternative options available. I'm referring to people who seem to think this is the flea market and/or evince no respect for my time and energy by constantly wanting to order from the steak menu but only ever being willing to pay Kids Meal prices.

** See Client Privacy section for legal limits on guarantee of confidentiality.

last update: 071122