The Way to Handle Lame Refund Request (Paypal Processor)

Just give the guy a refund

Better to give the refund than start getting into PayPal disputes. This won't hurt you as much as you think, if at all.

Refund and move on.... Don't be an a... About it.....

You need to decide on a refund policy to guide you in the future.

If you don't offer a refund on your sales page then you could just refuse it.

I personally give refunds if customers demand them, even if they are clearly in the wrong, because I don't want to deal with angry stupid people. Especially angry stupid people that would complain to Paypal and maybe get my account punished.

For example, my first refund request I ever got was from a guy who thought my digital ebook was a physical book that would be mailed to him.

Never mind the fact that literally the third sentence on my sales page said that it was not a physical book, just an ebook. Never mind the fact that the payment details do not include his address so there would be no way for me to ship him a physical book even if I wanted to.

I told him he ordered an ebook and he got belligerent and said he was sure he ordered a physical book.

Finally I just refunded him because stupid people are a waste of my time.

Always in every instance take the high road and have the mentality of making a new sale right away. That always cheers me up.

I once had a sales thread about 16 pages of nothing but positive comments it really humbled me. But of course one day I did get a refund faster than the person could have actually read it.

But not just hey you have a no questions asked refund policy and I would like a refund...he had to tell me how my product made no sense....all I could do was smile and issued the refund just as fast as he requested it.

I should mention while using a certain platform you would know back in the day I had a guy that changed the price to one penny then he purchased it! I do remember calling him out on it but I did not want to anger that guy..
Damn evil genius!

Never dwell on those types. I just think about the people who appreciated my hard work and the relationships, partnerships, friendships and awesome opportunities that I was blessed with from great customers.

I agree with what others have said. Give them a refund and don't start a Paypal dispute.

1) Paypal (like every other processors) always stands by the side of the buyer.
2) You will always get refund requests from people that didn't really want to pay for the product, but in my experience that should not be over 5%
3) If you product is good, you will generate sales and make money from it, forget about those 5%

You could also apologize and offer access to your videos

al

A lot of people on this site are accustomed to MMO and affiliate marketing. So they will almost always tell you to refund and move on because that works for them in that niche. However if you have legitimate concerns that the course will get a rep among students as easy to get free by just downloading the ebook and getting an automatic refund then i think your concerns are legitimate and if you think its just an attempt to get something for free and it will have no affect on yours sales I'd say on principle deny the refund. However I will say that if you haven;t already you need to find a better way of presenting all your material that a traditional ebook if you have something very lucrative. converting it to something harder to copy is a better option.

What has happened in the MMO and Im market place these days is that it attracts and keeps the most scammiest of buyers - basically thieves that try to get things for nothing. One of the reasons this will persist and what encourages buyer scamming is the sentiment by a lot of sellers that if someone asks for a refund just give it regardless of circumstance.

so the IM niche just gets scammier and scammier since the knee jerk automatic policy to refund under any situation simply rewards and encourages thieves.

However if you think the buyer could have legitimately confused the two offers then you should refund. Al's suggestion above of offering the video (perhaps at a discount) is a good first step

Don't try to "deflect" - ANSWER it. If you don't offer refunds, say "sorry, no refunds". If you do, refund it. Step up, give the customer an answer and stick to it. If he files a dispute you will win or you won't.

There is no polite way to challenge a paying customer with "prove it" without looking rude yourself so I would strongly advise against that route.

Not sure what "lesson" you would be teaching. If this is a one time thing - solve it and move on. If it's more than once, skim your own sales copy to see if "video access" is mentioned in the copy where someone might misinterpret. Might be a phrase you want to change to avoid misunderstanding in the future.

It's your product - your buyer. Usually comes down to how much time it's worth to you to keep $12.95.

You have two choices here:
1. Give the refund - avoid the time wasted on the PP dispute process
2. Offer access to the videos - are you really losing anything here?

Maybe add strings to the access, like they have to provide a viable review of the product in exchange for access.

McDonald's has a policy of always making the customer happy no matter how bogus their complaint or request may be. If they're there and the bought something, keep them happy. FOOD FOR THOUGHT..

Your words...

So you think no one before now has thought of refunding to get a digital product free?

I would be more concerned with them spreading the news of how you refused to refund a measly $12.95.

Write a strong refund policy up front. There is no rule that you have to offer a refund for a digital product (see FCC rules), although it's good business to do so.

Give the dude his money back and remember that selling anywhere is a gamble. The objective is to ensure that the house wins most of the time, and the odds are in your favor. However, enter into conversation with him because there is ALWAYS an opportunity for a sale, if not now, then later. If not this product, then another.

That's why funnels with a variety of offers are built.

Customer: I thought your offer comes with video training. Since it doesn't, may I have my money back?

Okay, there could be a couple of problems here, one being that he has a reading problem and does better with video training, and the other being that it is becoming customary to provide written, video, and audio presentations as a courtesy, so he may have assumed the vids would be there.

I never consider a customer to be a rotten egg unless he actually stinks to high heaven. Shame there isn't an app that kills the product upon refund. Damn I'd love to see that.

Anyway, be nice, apologize for not having videos for sale, refer him to your YouTubes (which are videos), and ask him if there is anything else you can do for him.

It's called Customer Service.

- Annie

Thanks for all the replies, guys and gals! From different points of view including MMO and IM.

I'm not in the IM niche, by the way, and I do have both premium videos and premium ebooks .

For now I haven't replied to him yet and he hasn't followed up.. still thinking how to handle it taking into consideration your advice..

Welcome to the world of digital marketing. Accept the refund, it's part of doing business online.

However, what you should do is think about it for a second. This person who is wanting a refund has provided very important feedback to you -- he really wants videos as well with what you are offering.

So rather than focusing on the negative, why don't you look at adding videos to your course. Of course when you do that too you can charge more or you can offer it as an upsell.

He's trying to tell you something.

Have a blissful day.

Colleen

You have two clear choices both of them have consequences.
One
you can give the guy a refund can be annoyed at yourself.
Two
you can ignore the guy and then worry that he will report it as a fraudulent action. When he does you will waste a lot of time dealing with it. You may well win in your sense of the word in the sense that you don't have to give him his money back but you will definitely have lost because of the time you've wasted.

Give him a refund and have another look at your refund policy.

One of the best ways to avoid this problem is to offer a LIFETIME recurring subscription; give them some content once a month, like a newsletter and if they ask for their money back they LOSE this forever. This concept dropped my refunds to ZERO as the customer perceives they are getting something forever, and it solved this problem for me.

Sorry if this is a duplicate it seems to have disappeared somewhere

honestly its not worth the trouble give the guy a refund, also send him a polite reply explain the product that he bought was not a video product but you do have a video product available if he is interested and then send him a link to the sales page.

As for people trying it on to get free products, this happens all the time one of my mentors told me a story of a physical printed manual that he sent out to someone and they returned a poor quality photocopy, obviously keeping the original, I guarantee the people who do this will never use the product anyway.

hope that helps

for $12.. it's not worth the time of hassle/drama, you can use that focus on getting more sales.... instead of worrying about it.... I would refund this with no questions asked, if you don't he'll NEVER buy anything from you again, and tell his friends.... At least with a refund he still might buy from you in the future... I've refunded someone for $5k physical product... and because he liked dealing with me (no-headaches) came back to buy 10x more...yearly.