It was. And in the news media and all over the place. Before release people were asking about Ladder start date. The statement from Blizz was that Ladder would start after the stabilized the servers and made sure there were no game breaking bugs. As you have likely seen, the launch certainly had game breaking technical issues that are being resolved.
As they told us before release, Ladder WILL start soon and they will give us a clear date once they are confident the tech is fixed. We were just updated on that even. I see other posters have provided that info.
With regard to a refund, all digital purchases are final, but they do make exceptions if a game has not launched yet or you can’t play at all. Consuming the content (playing) makes you ineligible for a refund exception.
You can always put in a ticket and ask, but expect them to decline.