Have you even asked for a refund?

I had my first refund about a year ago (not from this forum), first and only time I have requested a refund.
Paid a guy to create me a minisite ($300 or something), he promised me to deliver within 5 days. 29 days after paying him I requested a refund. Never received anything from him and never got an reply from my mails.

I've never felt the need to request a refund from anything I've bought.

I imagine the only time I would is if I ordered something which didn't arrive.. like a product or a service.

In all I guess I've been pretty lucky when it comes to online purchases and hiring people, I usually get more value from something than I paid for it.

Yeah, I've done it. Haven't asked for many, though...

First one ever was way back about 1999 or so. Bought Corey Rudl's autoresponder software, which everybody raved about. I spent three or four weeks trying to figure it out, but - for me at least - it was a bear, and I ended up giving up. Sure hated to do that.

Later, I bought Frank Kern's first audio book, and was on a slow dialup line in Japan at the time, so the audios would never load. Had to ask for a refund there, too. Frank was cool about it.

Recently I bought a piece of software to help me keep track of Clickbank sales, but it wouldn't run right on either of my computers. After three error message service requests and two private emails, I still had zero response from the author, so I had to open a ticket with Clickbank - which also brought no vendor response. Ended up turning that into a refund, too. I'd rather have had the software work, frankly.

I dislike refund requests from customers, so mostly I just swallow the loss from a weak (or bad) product and forget it, but sometimes it's just appropriate to go get my money back.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

Some people will find fault with a product, no matter how good it is.. some people are just tire kickers and are never satisfied with something because, once they download it, shock horror, it requires them to take some responsibility and actually work.

A few people really do think that by just downloading a product to their hard drive it's instantly going to solve all their problems, without taking any action for themselves.

Hmm, refunds?

No I have never asked for refunds for products I bought. Some membership sites where the content doesn't match up to the monthly fee. And also when you join a membership site paying monthly and after two mohts there are really not much content at all.

But never on one time purchases.

I look at it this way:

--- If the product is so bad it's not worth the money asked, how come I bought it in the first place?
--- What can I learn from the experience?
--- What could the person have done to make it worth the money asked?
--- If I were to create a similar product, what could I do to avoid customers having the feelings I had when I bought it and make it overdeliver?
--- Have I missed something in the product, some website link, strategy, technique, or something that can be combined with something else to produce killer results?

And besides, after a night on the town, when you get really drunk and get a headache, and can't walk straight, bump into light poles and stuff, do you ask for a refund from the restaurant based on health and safety reasons?

That experience is probably more expensive than most average products you buy online, and you don't blink an eye at that expense?

Moral: There is always, always something you can learn from a product no matter how bad it is. Maybe from the pachaging, sales process used, some resource being used, some link being used etc. that will make it worth the money.

Just my humble oppinion :-)

~Olav

I rarely ask for refunds... However, if the product over promises and severely under-delivers I will ask for one. If I feel like you've cheated me, be prepared to give me back my monehzzz!!!

The e-book/info-product market is spillin' with so much recycled and rehashed crap nowadays. If the product doesn't deliver. Refund. If it delivers, give it a good honest review. If it over-delivers, give it a good honest review.

There are actually a lot of crap and useless products in clickbank. I think its because these products are just imagination by authors and not tested, or don't have proper and transparent reviews.

No right or wrong answer to my question. I just wanted to gather views on why people ask refunds.. this could also help me with my future products... Yes, refunds are inevitable but there is always a solution to at least lessen the occurrence..

Yes....once before. I got a little obsessed with business opportunities a couple of years ago and asked for a refund....£199 from memory. Got credited back to my card straight away. Most genuine businesses won't risk their reputation.

I've never asked for a refund though there's been a time or two I thought about it.

I've given a few but only asked for 1 in the last 10 years. Based on this thread - maybe I should have asked for more :-)

I've asked for a refund on a crap product before. If the sales letter promises the world, and the product doesn't deliver, why should I take the hit? Give me a good product, and you won't be asked for a refund. Unlike a physical product, I can't really look at an info product and see if it's any good, it's just part of the game.

A lot of products get misrepresented in sales copy. It's
prevalent on the WSO forum here.

When you take your lumps and accept a crappy product
that doesn't deliver, do you wish to encourage that sort
of behavior in other marketers?

I bought an ebook recently that was misrepresented
by well-written english-language copy. The actual
product was thrown-together, flippant, and pretty
much just stuffed with affiliate links. A good giveaway
perhaps. It was also written in atrocious English,
translated from Italian by Google. The seller cared
enough to hire an English copywriter, but not enough
to have his product proof-read. The letter also
misrepresented the barriers-to-entry into the business
model - representing them as low, when in fact
you'd have to be a enthusiast for the niche to consider
entering it anything but a lot of tedious research
and work.

When you buy a book and it's crap, do you send it
back? I have. Not often, but I've done it. Anytime
I cannot try or look at a product in a store, I'm aware
I may have to return it.

Some people just don't even ask for refunds, they just file "Unauthorized Transaction" claim in Paypal, no matter the quality of the product. In places like Digital P***t it seems to be common practice...

I never asked for a refund neither but I guess we'll always have to deal with cronic refunders.They buy your product and after 5 minutes the ask for a refund.Some of them just buy,ask for a refund and then they upload files to mediafire for some BlueFartforum freebie seekers.Sad.

The thing with the IM market is that there is a lot of junk out there. Loren makes an excellent point... some of the products out there are really just thrown together.

But to the OP, having purchased both your WSOs I can't imagine why someone would ask for a refund on your products. Thieves imo... but i guess there is a thin line between thieves and unhappy customers.

That's raises a tough issue though. Personally, I'm hesitant to purchase anything that doesn't have a money back guarantee. But as a seller, a money back guarantee is something i don't want to give but have to in order to bring in more sales. Dilemma.

I guess it ultimately boils down to a moral issue. Do you think offering a "Conditional money back guarantee" is a good alternative? As in, "100% money back guarantee if you can prove that you used my technique/product etc. and it DIDN'T work for you"?

I never asked for refund. No matter how crappy product is I always get something out of it.

The only times I've asked for a refund is when the product/software failed to deliver as promised.

And each time I've been disappointed to have to get a refund. I would always have preferred the product as it was sold to me on the excellently written sales page. If only they'd used the same quality control on the product itself.

Amin
p.s. Big Mike, got your email - thanks. I'll deal with that this evening.

I've never had to ask for a refund for anything to do with marketing and the internet. I always check for reviews and such before giving them my hard earned cash

i think i might have asked a couple of times, and i felt bad since this were very low priced WSOs, like $7.

But the reason i did it was that the products didnt provide value for me personally, and i simply dont want to be one of those people who buy many WSOs simply to let them pile up on the hard drive - or spend money on products which i simply cant use. It was not about the $7, but rather out of principle.

Yeah. im asking for a refund as well but most of the time i'm asking for a change of item specially when I badly need the product.