New refunder record

It'll come back to them ... and you're right to just be amused rather than angry.

I've only ever asked for a refund on maybe two or three items over the many years I have been buying ebooks etc online but the last one I bought (a few weeks ago from this forum), I could have asked for a refund in 7 minutes.

I decided to wait an hour before asking for the refund though because I knew they would think I was being dodgy if I asked for the refund that quick...LOL.

You can usually find a few gems of information from just about every ebook you buy so that is generally my criteria for keeping an ebook or asking for a refund. The rest of the ebook can be total rubbish but if I can find one thing in there that can help then it is worth the money....that's probably why I haven't asked for too many refunds over the years.

that's awful, it obvious there intentions were a free product. i wonder if there is anything paypal plans to do about transactions like these in the future, i'd recommend some type of blocking of paypal disbutes for those filed within the first 10 minutes...but even that has it flaws, sorry you had to go through that

I've had my share of quick refunders. The interesting thing is that they are the only ones that have threatened me with PayPal disputes. Shows you their thinking. You issue the refund and move on.

TomG.

Wait a week and send out an email with your email address in the to box and theirs in the BCC box and send them an update to the product. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

I had somebody want a refund because he knew everything in my guide already. About ten minutes later I get an email from the same guy telling me the guide was never delivered and if I could send it.

I was like, nah I dont think I will send it, you knew everything remember haha

That's the way some people are.. Always looking for a freebie. At least with a license key you can disable it, unlike an ebook

Ah, it's no biggie - I've come to expect a certain proportion of sales will end up in a refund and cater for it accordingly. The first key I deliver via the PayPal sale is basically just a trial extension key (gotta love technology) that's set to expire soon, anyway. So in about 7 days he's probably going to come back and whine that it's stopped working.

The other fun bit was that he claimed the software didn't work for him. I provide a trial. You'd think he'd test it before buying it. But as several people have said, some people just want a freebie.

Perhaps I'll set up a blog - serialrefunders dot com and share some of the more amusing rants from these guys...

I'm not sure I could beat your 7 minute record, but I might come close.

Last year I someone buy a fairly high priced ebook, a few minutes later I get a Clickbank notice she wants a refund, and then within an hour--she orders another of my books. The rest of the story, yup she immediately asked for a refund on that one as well.

Ah, life continues. --Mike

Some people are just freebie seekers.

Karma do happens and they will be paying back in some other ways.

It will be better to use the time to interact with good customers.

Zack

Forgot this type of freebie seeker. They will never make you rich. Refund them and move on!

Focus your energy on the serious buyer.

Dan Kennedy (famous marketing guru) once said that if you are not getting enough refund requests, it means you are not selling hard enough!

Did you ask WHY he/she wanted the refund? Do they give an explanation. That sucks!

~ JIM

I had a similar experience about 2 months ago... on top of that the dude told me it wasn't what he expected and that he could have done a better job

yet for the exact same product I got several emails about how good it was and that I really over delivered... it's bad enough to ask for a refund right away, why make it worse by bashing a product you know nothing about?

...I unsubscribed that guy from my list

I had one of those a few weeks ago... a lady bought my ebook (thru PayPal), then immediately sent me an email saying that she was never asked for her mailing address... she thought she was being scammed so she quickly opened a dispute with PayPal WITHOUT ASKING ME FOR A REFUND.

I was like "hey wait lady... you got your ebook what's the problem? (well not like that... but you know...) and she said that she thought it was a physical book, and would rather a hard/soft cover book to give to her sister, who was not a "computer person".

We cleared everything up and I gave her a refund, but I thought it was funny how she immediately screamed "FOUL!" without giving me a chance to rectify.

Gotta love it...

If it's a digital download product, let them file a complaint on PayPal. If they escalate it to a "dispute", it'll get closed automatically as PayPal will not intervene.

And just out of curiosity ... even for products that ARE covered by PayPal's policies, how long do you have to issue the refund? (hint: how long are disputes left open?)

Did you say anywhere that refund requests will be issued within any particular time-frame? Or just that they can request a refund within some time-frame?

IOW, is there some reason sellers feel compelled to issue "instant refunds" to buyers who request them "instantly"?

Your obligation is to issue a refund. PayPal only says it needs to be done within some time-frame before they'll intervene (if at all). So ... what's the rush?

ALL buyers agree to abide by PayPal's policies when they make a purchase using PayPal, so why don't you stick to them as well?

Just asking....

(I once had a guy file a complaint before he contacted me. PP's policies say they should try to resolve the problem with the seller FIRST. I responded to the complaint asking him to post into the complaint panel the emails he had sent me previously. He said he had not. I said he's free to close the dispute and contact me directly if he wants timely resolution, or it can just sit as a dispute as long as PP will leave it open. He posted some nasty stuff on the complaint thread. I called PayPal, and they said I can escalate it to a dispute and it'll get closed instantly, but I said to just leave it there. After a while the guy closed the complaint and contacted me directly. Contrary to popular belief, these people do NOT have us by the short-hairs!)

Oh my, I really feel with you.
However, you have the right attitude about it - and people like that you don't want on your team anyway.
Cheers, Lasse

I like the trial lisence key idea. Perhaps this will reduce the number of scammers. I sure hope so. Perhaps you can give a time limit of one day or even seven.

What is your refund policy?

~Dexx

Well now I feel guilty about asking for a couple of refunds. It works both ways here guys. Part of the problem and I'm not saying this is the case of the people who have commented here, but sometimes the sales letter is very compelling but doesn't give all the facts. I've recently bought 2 products which I had refunded in a short time.

Both products over promised and under delivered. Since one was a digital product I assume it doesn't work any more because all software runs off and checks for current registration - there's also a thread here and most people seem to have got refunds. The other purchase got off to a bad start and the full product wasn't available even 10 days after paying - so I got a refund. Both times I feel fully justified in my refund request.

I can see the problem with e-books though, once it's downloaded the 'customer' has it and there isn't much you can do about it. It's a dishonest world out there.

For the honest people - people like me who want to buy good products and are happy to pay (I don't get everything refunded - some e-books and software I'm really happy with) - an honest review/sales page would go a long way IMHO to cutting down on the return rate. Almost none of the sales pages have a link to an email to ask a question before buying - I probably wouldn't buy a lipstick before asking a question and it really annoys me that some people seem to think that giving a lot of hype and almost no real information is a good sales tactic. I have to buy the product to see if it does I want. It's a real pain to ask for a refund it takes a week for the money to come back.

I'm now of the opinion that if you short change me on information then you can refund me if your product doesn't live up to expectations.

There's a difference between people who say, "I'd like a refund because your sales letter led me to believe..." or "... because this or that doesn't work as advertised" versus "This isn't what I was expecting. Please refund." within 2 minutes.

Sales pages do tend to have a lot of "fluff", and sometimes they'll talk "around" the product more than they'll talk "about" the product. I find this particularly common for PLR products -- they tend to focus on all the supporting stuff you get, the subject, the market, and don't say squat about the PLR material itself, like how long is the ebook, the TOC, the type size, are there illustrations, etc.

Selling on eBay for a while taught me that the best way to reduce refunds and make customers happy was to do a good job of setting up buyer expectations.

Refunds are lowest when people get what they were expecting.

What annoys me is selling a product that says it's Windows software and someone asks for a refund saying they thought it was for a Mac. (It's HAPPENED!)

Thats nothing.

I had someone email to let me know they where going to purchase and asked me to refund it when I get the notice per my "No questions asked" gaurantee.:p

I just issue the refund in that case. I hate when people play games with my business though. Especially when it costs me money, as refunds do, since I process credit cards with a merchant account. Not fun. You should've just pirated my stuff if you were going to rip me off.

It happens and all you should do is take a deep breath, give that sucker a refund and blacklist his paypal email in your database.

and then you simply move on

yeah thats bad form and extremely annoying, however, it's far easier to just issue the refund and move on. There will always be people around like this wanting something for nothing.

I can't beat the 7 mins...but it took one guy 9 mins after buying my stuff to notify paypal of "unauthorised access" to his account. Paypal investigated and issued the refund. At least send me an email if you're going to play games...geez...

Is there any kind of black list people can make so that you could automatically ban users if they pull this kind of stuff?

I've sold both e-books and downloadable programs. The ebook I currently have out doesn't offer a refund and (weird as it sounds) nobody has complained to get one. When I did have a refundable e-book priced at $97 each, I think the 18-20% refund request via Paypal is accurate for that particular product. I always refunded without hassle, but seriously considered dropping the guarantee.

The software offers a 30-day guarantee, and not a lot of people request one, probably because it's a monthly membership, and they can cancel anytime. The number one refund requests come from Mac users. It's a PC software, but we do have some customers use it on a Mac w/ Parallels.

I just beat that record time by 5 minutes lol

Accidentally ordered a wso a second time.

My bad.

James