Have You Requested a Refund? Why?

I've never asked for a refund, the only reason that would cause me to is if the seller didn't provide the product or service.

Thankfully I buy the majority of my stuff from the WSO board and the Warriors for Hire, so everything is top quality.

Anything explicitly promised/guaranteed in the sales page that isn't provided will get a refund request on principle alone. That kind of tactic hurts us all.

The other thing that will virtually assure a refund is forced opt-in practices. You know, where the seller takes your money for something, but then will not give you access to it without first signing up to their email list. If you tell me in the sales page that's a condition of the sale, I'm 100% ok with it. But if you spring it on me after I've paid and you didn't give me any notice on the sales page, then you've changed the condition of the sale and you'll get a prompt refund demand from me.

John

I wouldnt ask for a refund unless it was a product that didnt work (as metioned in the OP).

This reminds me of a sales page I saw (may have been on here in WSO) and contained the best 'Our Money Back Guarantee' box I have ever seen. (Guys help jog my memory here). It was for an information product, a relatively inexpensive one maybe $10 or something.

The guy basically said (and I paraphrase) 'Here's my guarantee. I guarantee you will get something useful from this book. Will I give you a refund if you read it and come back and ask for your money back? Hell no! You dont go to a restaurant and have a meal and take a bag of poop round the next day and expect a refund. You don't buy a gallon of gas, drive around and then go back and expect a refund, so dont expect one here. If you can't live with that, don't buy it'

Classic!

if it's rubbish, I'll ask for a refund, and for a very specific reason:

this way I'm giving the seller feedback that they're not delivering value (note: when I ask for a refund, I will always give them very specific and detailed feedback how and why it didn't work for me).

now, the key is of course "what is rubbish"?

if it's a piece of software that completely destroys my entire twitter following in one fell swoop (like just happened this morning after buying a twitter automation tool here on the forum, that I'm not a happy bunny would be a bit of an understatement), then that's rubbish.

If they make claims in the sales-letter and don't deliver (and that particular thing they claimed it would do for me is THE ONE I was looking for), then that's rubbish. Refund.

an example would be a "monster package"-course I bought a few months ago. In the sales letter/video it came across as this super-fine-tuned course that would take you *step-by-step* from A-Z.

turns out it was *everything* they guy had ever done coarsely divided up into 5 or so categories and you had to wade your way through endless hours of video without any guidance where to start, where to find what. That's rubbish. Refund.

Btw, when I ask for a refund, I ask on the day I buy and look at the product, none of this hang around, wait for 30days and see if by magic it'll turn into gold.

Rubbish doesn't turn into Gold by you waiting for it. And together with the detailed feedback I give, I hope the few people where I had to ask for a refund will a) understand that the product wasn't right for me and b) maybe take some of the feedback on board and make the product better.

with my own products and courses, my philosophy is this: a small percentage of people will be serial refunders, and there's nothing I can do about it (but I still ask them what I could've done better).
But then there are those who ask for a refund for a very good reason: they had expectations, and I didn't meet them. And that's where the real gold is: figure out what I could have done better, where I could have added more value and do it even better next time. (and btw, I'll always try to give the refunders something as a consolation prize -- nothing creates more goodwill and gets that feng-shui flowing than happy (ex/almost)customers.

Veit

I've only ask for refunds twice.
Once on the early stages of my IM Journey where I bought a product that in a very subtle way came with a monthly fee. The kind of free membership bonus where you need to cancel between the next 60 days otherwyse they start charge you like $99 a month. (When you are newbie you usually don't read the small print). They politly and quickly refund me, not questions asked.

The second time I'll asked for a refund, was for a software who automated the traffic. Turns out that didn't work with Windows Vista (for what they told me). That was about six months ago, I'm still asking for my $97 back.

I bought a piece of crap software that absolutely didn't even work at all. Paid $100 for it. Requested refund and did a Paypal dispute. Didn't win the dispute because it was a digital product and never heard from the scammer who sold it.

I've bought stuff from people that I got very little to nothing out of. I don't ask for a refund, but I never forget their names. Suffice it to say, that I will never purchase from them again.

If the product is just unviable. They're promising something that just has not been delivered. If it's an honest product but I can't use it it turns out, I keep it (For example I just bought a hundred dollar ebay product that is excellent but I can't use it due to change of interest). I keep it

I don't think I have ever requested a refund for an information product. I just like to learn. And usually I can find something inside the product that is worth what I paid for.

Now, on the other hand I have requested refunds for services and software type products.

For instance, this week I bought two products that I requested refunds for.

The first one was tremendously buggy and should not have been brought to market yet. The second one was a program that did not work with my autoresponder. I just assumed that it would, and it specifically did not state that it did not work with my autoresponder which is a very well-known autoresponder. So, I requested a refund because I could not use it.

Anyway, refunds are part of business and I have no problem requesting a refund. And I also have no problem giving a refund when people asked for it.

Talk soon,

Shannon Herod

I have rarely refunded. In some cases promises are not delivered or software doesn't even run I ask for refunds.

One guy refused to send zips only self extracting exe files. I am on a Mac and he said he couldn't zip them for security reasons. So I refunded.

I've never requested a refund for a product, but if a product is pure trash, then I'll be sure to not buy again from that person and spread the word.

I honestly don't get that upset if I buy something that contains information that "I already know" (a refund excuse many seem to like to use). But, if it isn't at all what it's claimed to be, then I get a tad upset. It also depends on the dollar amount. I'm not really shocked if a $7 report doesn't blow me away. lol. I don't buy too many "how-to info products" anyway though.

I have requested a refund on a service a couple times. Sometimes because they are just way too late and other time because the work was just so bad.

I ordered an ebook from a writing service (who somehow has a very good reputation and great testimonials). The ebook was really late, but I wasn't upset about that because I had received very courteous emails explaining that the ebook was not up to their high standards and it had been sent to their "chief editor" before being sent to me.

That made me feel a bit better about waiting an extra 10 days or so (lol)...but then...
I received the ebook and it was so bad that I thought they sent me the wrong file by mistake or that it was some kind of prank.

The author obviously did not know English very well, the topic/title was completely wrong, and nothing in the entire ebook made any sense. It was basically outdated reference,s that were sometimes on topic, peppered throughout 40 pages of incoherent sentences. It was really unbelievable.

I was forced to ask for a refund since it wasn't cheap and I now had to find someone to do it fast as I was in a rush. They gave me a refund but made it sound like they were bending the terms and going out of their way to make me "happy". lol

I have only requested a refund on two occasions.

Both were because I already knew everything taught.

Thanks to everyone for your responses. I've been an entrepreneur for most of my adult life (and a good part of my childhood, now that I think of it) and from what I've observed there are so many businesses where the competition sets the bar so low, they're no competition at all. Ebooks and other IM related products are no exception, and for those of us trying to create useful products that is very fortunate indeed.

Although I'm relatively new to this forum I saw the value of being a member the first day. This is a great place to not only learn Internet marketing in general, but with the generous help, advice and support of other members there's no reason why someone willing to put in the hard work can't go out there and just kill it in their niche.

Will

I haven't asked for a refund yet.

There is one product that I bought in the last month where I might. The reason being that the sales letter was just ridiculously over hyped. It promised a ferrari and delivered a push bike.

I like to go over all the bullet points in a sales letter and look to see how they are answered in the product. If they are answered well enough then OK, if not and I feel disatisfied then I'll ask for one. I'm still going over the bullet points with the last product.

I've never requested a refund. Partially due to the fact that Im too lazy to fool with it. Common among most Americans I'm sure, but really do to the fact that the whole course, or ebook, whatever it is may not have the total knowledge I was expecting, but there is always some juicy little nugget I didn't know about marketing. In this business we are all constantly learning all the the time. So I take that nugget and make the most I can out of it.

I have never requested a refund...although there have been times I felt it warranted. Maybe I'm just too nice

I only asked once for a refund. The product was priced 47 dollars and it contained 8 videos, yes 8 videos
which showed you how to post to forums and create a sig.

Guess what, I have never recieved any refund and that's the day when I
stopped buying and starting implementing

I have received request for refund. I will give them right away.. that's a trust between parties. Next time they could buy from me again in the near future. There is a way to reduce refund request if you extend from 30 days to 1 year money back. Most likely they will forget what happened after 6 months or don't really bother to request one.

I don't buy a lot of IM products.

But on the off-chance that I do... if I put into practice
EVERYTHING I'm taught and don't see a reasonable
return on investment, I'll usually ask for a refund.

...And I don't mean 'try' the technique or strategy. I
mean completely, whole-heartedly, all-engines-go
focused ACTION.

I have asked for refunds four times.

Once when I bought a piece of software that did bad things to my computer.

Once when I never received the product I paid for.

Once when I was billed twice for a trial membership.

And the final time, was for a product that was not what it was marketed to be. This was maybe my only questionable refund, but the sales page said that it involved marketing (it did not) and that it did not involve selling (it did.)

If the sales page had been accurate, I would have been able to figure out what the method was that the guy was selling, and I would not have bought it. The reason I wouldn't have bought it was that I could have taught it myself, I had done it so many times. The information was valid, just not what he presented it to be.

To be fair though, the guy was offering double-your-money-back refunds, which I didn't take, and I still left a fair review of his product.

There have been a lot of other things that I have bought that I wished that I hadn't, but that is a different story.

Because the product was crap? Not as advertised.....

If the product or service did not live up to my reasonable expectations
of it, it would cause me to consider asking for a refund.

There are MANY reasons I may choose not to proceed with doing it,
though. (And that's a far more interesting discussion topic! )

All success
Dr.Mani

If i don't get what the book promises, i ask for refund. rarely i do this

The only thing that would make me request a refund is not getting the product I paid for or paying twice for the same product.

I used to have subscription to a membership. I cancelled subscription and a year later decided to subscribe again thinking it would be different content but the content was what i had paid for a year before already and that was sitting on my hard drive, so i requested a refund.

I've only bought a few WSOs and of them, only one was totally disappointing. I didn't bother asking for refund and just put it down to experiences.

Basically, this particular WSO was advertized as revealing knowledge the average person wouldn't know. In fact it was nothing new or original. It is actually hard to believe that anyone purchasing it through this forum wouldn't already know all of these 'insider' facts.

I don't think i have ever requested a refund...I am pretty careful with what I buy...but I have purchased a few things I wasn't happy with...stuff i already knew or wasn't much use for what I was doing...but if it lives up to the sales copy (if I like it or not) it was my choice to click the pay now button...

as was said before if the product is not what the sales copy said it would be that is a different story

Unless I really misread a product I'm usually fairly confident when I make a purchase that the product will provide value. Even if it doesn't live up to my expectations the only reason I would ever request a refund is if it was very pricey and it turned out to be absolute garbage. I've bought many products through the years and it hasn't happened yet. If it's a low priced product I'd probably just chalk it up to experience. There's a point to be made that our time is too valuable to be spent pursuing a refund on a disappointing product.

I use to just grin and bear it - but recently there's been a spat of WSOs and other marketers ads which basically lie in the sales page.

If you tell me something is 100% white hat and you cover ewhoring in your ebook, well, ewhoring is not white hat folks. and yes - the rest of the manual was full of at best gray hat techniques and out right black hat techniques.

To me, cheating people is just plain wrong.

If you tell me black hat - then shame on me, but at least you warned me in the sales page. Guess the crack down on blue farts has caused many to relabel their stuff 'gray hat' ie is the new black hat called gray hat, or just white hat now?

if you don't want refunds - give your customers the facts and material they can actually use. Now if they don't get off their bottoms and do it that's another story.

But lying to your customers is not a good idea.

respectfully,
--Jack

I've been a purchaser of many programs, ebooks, courses, etc. over the years and most of the time, a refund is never part of the equation. However, if a specific claim is made about a program or product, and a guarantee is made or implied, and the product falls short on the claim then a refund is in order. I for one, would not hesitate to ask for a refund. Having said that, I have been involved in ecommerce on and off since 1995 and refunds are part of any business. I have personally had to issue a refund on a few occasions and as much as you hate to lose a sale, the most important thing is satisfying your customer.

It's like buying a book and just getting a gist of it. You'll really never know what is inside until you read it.

I guess it will be just one of those books that you'll keep on your shelf and might never take a look at it again until after 10 years.