Can Somebody PLEASE Explain These Refunds To Me?

by Steven Wagenheim

Posted: 15 years ago 29 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

This is not a rant. I am honestly just trying to wrap my head around this so
that I can improve my business.

I rarely get refunds, especially on products sold through PayPal. Clickbank
I understand because of their lax policy and the serial refunders out there
especially in the IM niche. So I accept that.

But when I sell through PayPal, hardly any. My stuff is solid and those of
you who have gotten it know it is.

So can somebody please explain to me why when I DO get a refund, almost
every single one of them comes from a person not born in an English
speaking country?

Is it that I don't know how to communicate with non native English
speakers?

Is it that they are more critical of things?

Is it something else?

I need to be able to understand this and rectify it or I need to start
banning non English speaking countries from purchasing my products
because if I eliminate all those refunds, I hardly have any at all.

It's just not worth the aggravation. I hardly make any sales outside of
the US, England, Canada and Australia. When I do, I'm almost ready to
just go into my account and refund these people because it has to be a
90% refund rate from them.

Obviously it is I who is doing something wrong that I can't please non
English speaking countries but if I can't figure out what it is, then there
is no point in my selling outside of the US, Canada, England and Australia.

Again, this is not a rant. I need somebody who understands the cultures
and the mindsets who can possibly explain to me why this happens.

The only exception country that I have found is India. These folks are
incredibly hard workers. They are the 10% who almost never refund. I
won't name the countries who do because then I'm going to come off as
a racist and I'm not. I love all people but this trend, which has been going
on since day 1 that I have been selling my own products has finally
reached the point where I need to do something about it and thus I need
the really experienced and brilliant minds here who understand what is
going on with the cultural and/or language problem and explain it to me
so I can either improve my product for non English speaking people who
stop selling to them.

Thank you for your help in this matter.

#explain #refunds

kool

15 years ago

Well, I am from India, and because of the conversion rate, if I pay anything more than $30 (which is like Rs 1500 for me), and I find it not suited to me, I would definitely ask for a refund. However, if the product is really useful, of course I would not. What I am trying to drive at is the exchange rate, because of which maybe people ask for a refund.

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Kamran

15 years ago

Originally Posted by kool

I am pretty sure this is the reason. $30 can be more than 1000 in some other currency, and trust me if you live in some country with a weak currency, then you value $30 much more than a person living in a country with a strong currency would value $30. So, it follows that these people will be more demanding from a product and if they see it doesn't meet their expectations (which is much higher than people from countries with stronger currencies) then they ask for refund

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kumar

15 years ago

Originally Posted by kool

Originally Posted by Gail Sober

That sounds like a lot, Just to put that in context, how long does it take an average worker to earn Rs 1500? Hour? Day? Week?

I did try Google, but.. tmi

Thanks,
Gail

Originally Posted by Kamran

You have to factor in the Purchasing Power Parity when trying to compare currencies. A (one) dollar is actually more valuable to an American than a (one) rupee is to an Indian.

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Thank you all so much for your responses.

I have learned a lot from this thread. It appears to be quite a combination
of factors.

So what do I do? I use DLguard for all my Paypal sales and it does have a
spot to ban IP addresses and emails, but I don't see anything for banning
whole countries.

Is there a way to do this? Remember, I am not very technical so explain it
as simply as possible.

Thanks.

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steveweber 15 years ago

A few weeks ago I had a refund request from overseas. They filed a paypal dispute before I even had time to reply.

Things did not "smell" right to me.

I responded to PayPal telling them I thought something was fishy. I suggested they check this person's history of refunding.

Within 24 hours PayPal closed the case in my favor. They did not offer details, they just said they were closing the case without further action.
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Paul Myers

15 years ago

Steven,

You could do a number of things. I don't think any of them are necessary for your circumstance, but you could do them.

First, you could get a list of all the major ISPs in the countries you want to ban, and have someone write them into an .htaccess file or into your Apache config. Send people from those providers to a different page.

If you work up the list of providers, any qualified server admin can do the rest, based on what I just said.

You can also get a geo-targeting script to do the same thing.

DLGuard does have the ability to ban email addresses or IPs. Check with Sam and see if it will handle IP ranges, for example, 198.10.1/16 (Or whatever. That's probably not a valid expression, but he'll know what I'm getting at.)

If you can dig up the ranges for the providers you want blocked, that'd work, too, from within DL Guard.

Don't block individual IP addresses, unless you're ready to do a whole lot of them to keep out a given provider. That's pointless, as it's easy to force your cable modem (for example) to acquire a new one.

I wouldn't mess with it. If they're just refunds, and not chargebacks or something else serious, deal with it. It's less headache, unless you simply must have your ego involved.

Paul

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Martin Luxton

15 years ago

Paul

I was wondering about geo-targeting but then I thought if people are really determined they would just use a proxy so all Steven's efforts would be for nought.

Martin

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Paul Myers

15 years ago

Martin,

I was wondering about geo-targeting but then I thought if people are really determined they would just use a proxy so all Steven's efforts would be for nought.

Indeed. But if someone is that determined, they're going to get the product. Believe it.

The majority of the thieves I've encountered online aren't smart enough for that stuff. And, as has been pointed out in this thread, not all of the people Steven is concerned about are thieves. Some of them are simply buying over their financial heads and suffering buyer's remorse later.

It's fairly easy to add the ranges of anonymizing proxy services to the block list. The trick is when they get into the distributed networks that function as proxies. Even fewer of the creeps know about those, but they're not fixed, so they're (nearly?) impossible to block.

Paul

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Paul Myers

Martin,Indeed. But if someone is that determined, they're going to get the product. Believe it.

The majority of the thieves I've encountered online aren't smart enough for that stuff. And, as has been pointed out in this thread, not all of the people Steven is concerned about are thieves. Some of them are simply buying over their financial heads and suffering buyer's remorse later.

It's fairly easy to add the ranges of anonymizing proxy services to the block list. The trick is when they get into the distributed networks that function as proxies. Even fewer of the creeps know about those, but they're not fixed, so they're (nearly?) impossible to block.

Paul

You know Paul, it sounds like it's more trouble than it's actually worth.

It's easier to just issue the refund.

I think I'll just keep a separate bookkeeping account for sales from these
countries. That way I don't include them with my normal forecasting and
they don't mess up my numbers, because for the most part, they don't
stick.

Thanks all, I know how I'm going to handle this.

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Paul Myers 15 years ago

Steven

You know Paul, it sounds like it's more trouble than it's actually worth.

It's easier to just issue the refund.

Yep.

This did spark an interesting conversation. And I've emailed Sam about using IP patterns in DL Guard. That could come in handy for other things later.

Paul
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sylviad 15 years ago

Here's a thought.

Maybe the refunds occur because some people in those countries are not up on e-Commerce and buying products online, sight unseen.

When I first got online, I was extremely reluctant to buy anything. When I did take the plunge, I returned more than I kept. My expectations were a little high maybe. Now that I'm more familiar with what is being offered, it's easier to weed out stuff that I know I don't want.

Perhaps other-world countries are going through that same learning curve. That's not to say there isn't the illegal element as well.

One question...

Are your products including bonuses? Are they buying just to get the free stuff?

If so, try selling without bonuses. Or do like one author I just read... wait until the refund period is over before providing the bonuses. I think that's an excellent idea.

Sylvia
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Paul Myers 15 years ago

Steven

There's nothing racist about saying, "I get the following statistical percentages of refunds, based on country of order." That's MATH.

It's why so many services will do business with big chunks of Africa, but not with Nigeria. Certain cultures have different beliefs and habits that tend to dominate, and those have to be taken into account. Economic conditions and the efficacy of law enforcement also play a part.

Based on my observations of online and offline information marketing...

In Nigeria and parts of eastern Europe, the criminal element is strong enough that doing business there is extremely risky.

In parts of the Far East, cultural attitudes about intellectual property, along with some criminal involvement, make the IP business equally risky, if for different reasons.

China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Phillipines are especially bad about this in the east. Singapore seems to be only slightly more difficult than western European countries for some reason, and Japan is better than North America in terms of refund rates.

Note that this has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. Identifiably European names of customers in places like Hong Kong or Malaysia are no more or less likely to be problems than the predominant race or ethnic group. Americans of Asian descent are no more or less likely than Americans of any other race or ethnic group to request refunds or pirate products.

Race has nothing to do with it. It's about culture, criminal activity levels, and law enforcement capability.

It can even be as simple as which email service one uses. I once dropped 5000 subscribers at Yahoo, simply because Yahoo was 10% of my subscribers, some tiny percentage of customers, and over 90% of my weekly hassles.

Why? Yahoo had taken over Geocities, and THOSE people were the big source of problems. There was also the matter of a lot of people recommending using Yahoo for throwaway accounts. These days, Yahoo is no more or less likely to be a problem than any other free email provider.

You don't have to know why it happens. If the numbers are there, and they're consistent, you take action on them.

It's not racist. It's math.

Paul
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- Frank Donovan 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Paul Myers
  
  Race has nothing to do with it. It's about culture, criminal activity levels, and law enforcement capability.
  
  Steven, I'm sure that Paul has hit on the main reason.
  
  BTW, I hope your refund rate doesn't start to soar from those good people of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and New Zealand; miffed about their exclusion from your list of native English speakers.
  
  (And yet you did include Australia :confused
  
  Frank
  
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  LegitIncomes 15 years ago
  
  So can somebody please explain to me why when I DO get a refund, almost
  every single one of them comes from a person not born in an English
  speaking country?
  
  Mine are the same way...most of my refunds are from countries other than the US/Canada/UK.
  
  Sometimes I get a purchase from one of these countries and think to myself "well there's a refund coming", and sure enough...most of the time it usually does. I've thought about banning a few countries, but haven't done so yet.
  
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Evita 15 years ago

I have a friend who has an ebay business. He finally quit shipping to any other countries than US, Canada, European countries and Australia.

He had nothing but headaches, bad feedback, "lost shipments" incorrect addresses, "broken merchandise" and the list can get very looooong....when shipping to countries outside those previously mentioned.

May not be worth the hassle?

EVita
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- Warrior Simon 15 years ago
  
  just to clarify
  I am one of your customers living in Germany
  that never requested a refund
  I think saying people in India don't request refunds
  because they are hard-working
  that's kind of ... problematic
  because it goes beyond 'maths'.
  on the one hand you want to know what's the reason
  for refunds from non-US-folks, on the other hand
  you imply that it's because people who request refunds
  are not hard-working enough...
  when we start saying people from there are like this
  and people from there are like this
  well, if not racist, that's at least prejudiced I guess
  but to think like this - it happens to me also, so no offense
  
  I think people in non-english-speaking countries
  have a hard time to transfer IM products from the US
  to their market.
  just an example:
  the last product I bought from you was the 'hot trends' report.
  well, I knew already that the Google hot trends are available
  only for the english-speaking market so I knew that it wouldn't work
  in german.
  but for somebody who didn't know Hot Trends would find out
  about it after purchasing (as long as it is not mentioned on your
  sales page) and very likely request a refund even although the product
  itself is of high quality.
  
  another thing is:
  the most indian people (for example) I know speak excellent english
  the most german people (including me) speak rather bad english
  and are overwhelmed by the english stuff, especially when videos
  are involved.
  (that's not an excuse, I just want to mention a possible reason.
  Of course someone should think twice before purchasing if his english is good enough)
  
  that's just my opinion
  if the 'prejudiced'-part sounds rude I apologize sincerely
  
  Konja
  
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Neil Morgan

15 years ago

BTW, I hope your refund rate doesn't start to soar from those good people of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and New Zealand; miffed about their exclusion from your list of native English speakers.

Frank, we'll forgive him just this once!

I'm just scared he'll block me when I next want to purchase one of his products

Cheers,

Neil

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Steven Carl Kelly 15 years ago

If it bothers you THAT much, just block sales in those countries. Otherwise, keep selling and keep refunding.
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PatricKrost 15 years ago

Well, I believe one of the reasons is 'buyers remorse'.

Most people outside US, Canada, England and Australia, dont make a consistent income online ( on my personal analysis, this is by no way a scientific evidence ), so they just ask for refund.

I know because i also get some of these in my current wso from countries like Nigeria, China and even one from Brazil , and my wso is only $4 !! (http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...s-forever.html)
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Gail Sober 15 years ago

$30 (which is like Rs 1500 for me

That sounds like a lot, Just to put that in context, how long does it take an average worker to earn Rs 1500? Hour? Day? Week?

I did try Google, but.. tmi

Thanks,
Gail
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aspiepower 15 years ago

Konja above makes a good point that quite often tips and methods that work in the US market are simply not available in the other markets. I am only in the UK and notice this. e.g. when Google Checkout became available, it was to the US first. There are quite a few other big international companies that roll out tools etc to the US way ahead of other countires. So if the major part of your advice is for things that work in the US it's just not the Big Secret we expected.

Aside from that, there is the cost of the product versus localised average wages to consider.

If you are marketing a product that costs 10% of a US or UK takehome pay for somebody who works behind a bar or in a shop, then for somebody in other countries that might represent 100% of their pay.

Combine the two: limited functionality + real cost and it's only sensible they want a refund.

To turn it on it's head, your sales are probably 300% higher than they would be if there were no refund option.

Good luck!
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lakshaybehl 15 years ago

Steven!

People from non-English speaking countries do have a hard time understanding everything, and that is probably one reason, but that is not the main reason.

The main reason is that in most countries dollar is pretty expensive, and piracy rates are pretty high. Its nothing but a shameful fact. So people are used to getting a thousand page printed book for just 20 dollars very easily, anbd even that would be considered expensive.

Printers are rare... Most people do not have printers... And many people do not even use their printers even if they have it until they really need to. So for them, e-books are like crap... because they are just available on the computer... printing costs are definitely a barrier so as to why they would not want to buy it.

And they are not even sure that making money online is possible as most IM'ers are hiding in their dens or are supposed to be hackers or porn artists/directors (At least this is what most people think here... Even today when I tell someone I make money from the internet, the first thing they ask me is how to I make those movies... And where do I find the artists..)

That might not be wrong but people here DO feel that is immoral.

Now these people have a hard time trusting yoiu when you say making $100 a day is easy... For them that is nearly 5000 INR. And if they could make that kind of money, they'd vbe ridoculously rich.

And then when you say write articles... They are thinking... OK what's the big secret about that. I want a refund. They think they get better by practice and not by learning from the best. That's the sad part... but truth. And hence they want a refund because they do not see any magic bullet in your methods.

On the other hand, when I create products for the Indian market, I am prepared for piracy and that is why I make them dirt cheap. I give them a ton of quantity... Which makes them very happy.

So for these people, quantity over quality. Of course not everyone is the same... Most poeople know I am a big fan of quality... And I have always been.

This is the proof...

Lakshay Behl Online Blog Archive Why I Quit IIT Delhi… My Engineering College

Partly explains why I say I need to have quality relationships, quality education and top notch quality products.

-Lakshay
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- zephyrwriting 15 years ago
  
  Well, I'm Malaysian (see list of IP-lax nations provided Paul's post above), and I have to admit that you have a point.
  
  Personally, I've never requested a refund for anything that I've purchased online, although I am rather careful about what I purchase.
  
  But, Paul has hit the nail right on the head as far as piracy and intellectual property 'laxness' is concerned, in this region in particular.
  
  Considering that in this country you would buy a DVD movie for no more than $3, Microsoft products for no more than $5, and so on... well I guess it isn't surprising that we have a bad name internationally.
  
  In fact, lately a lot of products in the IM niche have cropped up that appear to be ripped-off translations (into the local language) of other products. I suppose it could be a JV to target the local market, but I am somehow dubious.
  
  Add to that the fact that a majority of our population has a mediocre command of English, and, well...
  
  Recipe for disaster.
  
  How would you fix that? I really have no clue. Prohibiting our country would seem to be pretty annoying for the honest ones among us, but then again, veoh.com banned us outright too, so I can't blame you.
  
  Hope it doesn't come to that though.
  
  Regards,
  
  -Vish.
  
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  Martin Luxton 15 years ago
  
  Steven,
  
  Apart from the valid points made by Paul Myers, you also have to take into account the strategies you recommend.
  
  For example, until early this year, there was little point me buying an info product about using Clickbank + PPC because you couldn't sign up for Clickbank in Turkey. Paypal was also problematic because you couldn't withdraw money from your account. Clickbank is still not much fun because it takes 3 weeks for the cheque to arrive (if it doesn't get "lost") and you have to pay bank charges of $25 per cheque.
  
  It is still extremely difficult, if not impossible, to be approved as an eBay affiliate.
  
  That is why, when I saw a WSO I was interested in, I used ask what it involved.
  
  Konja,
  
  I don't agree about Steven's Hot Trends report.
  
  Forget the German market - go for the USA. That's where the traffic and money is with this strategy
  
  Martin
  
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  Paul Myers 15 years ago
  
  Marian,
  
  Romania is one of the eastern European countries I was thinking of. The points you make about income are the sort of things I meant when I suggested that economic factors play into it in some places.
  
  In your case, I'd focus on creating a really good product, in a joint venture with someone. Do most of the work, but make sure they add value to it. Let THEM sell it, and pay you half of the profits.
  
  Yes, it involves finding someone you can trust, but it's a way to establish yourself as a trusted name in the industry.
  
  Vish,
  
  Thank you for taking my comments in the spirit in which they were intended. I'm aware that there are solid people in the business in your country Patric Chan is Malaysian, if memory serves. He has an excellent grasp of the industry, and I don't believe I've ever heard anyone question his ethics.
  
  For most services, blocking a country is based more on fraud and chargebacks than on refunds. The latter play a part, but the first two are huge. I don't know anything about those rates as they relate to Malaysia, but they can't be that horrible if you can use PayPal.
  
  Of course, they might refuse credit cards from some areas and only allow funding through checking accounts. Is that the case there?
  
  For an example of how this works, consider: Niger is a devastatingly poor country, with less than 1/10 the population of neighboring Nigeria, less than 1/3 the GDP per capita, and a reputation for governmental corruption. Even so, citizens there can use PayPal, while Nigerians are outright refused.
  
  Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Egypt are the only African countries that come to mind immediately that can't use PayPal, (although there are probably others), and I believe that the exclusion of Egypt has to do with their currency flow controls, rather than PayPal policies. (Any corrections on that would be welcome if it's wrong.)
  
  This is why I laugh when I hear people say that refusing Nigerians access to such accounts is somehow racist. If that were the reason, why do business with at least two dozen other countries on the continent of Africa?
  
  As far as individual merchants, that's a judgment call on their parts. Some have higher tolerances for refunds than others.
  
  Paul
  
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Chris Lockwood 15 years ago

This is not happening because these are IM products. This happens with niche products, too.

Some countries don't respect intellectual property as much as others, for one thing.
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Marian Berghes 15 years ago

well...referring to my country:

1. we have I think around 80% piracy rate for software etc... (because of that nobody trusts us)

2. 100$ is 280 LEI...and an average salary is around 700-800 LEI...so besides the usual expenses one cant really afford to buy alot of IM things, and if they do buy it and it doesn't come up to his expectations of course that he will ask for a refund...cus that may be his meal for the next 2 days.

Also...believe it or not its alot harder to make money online in a country such as mine...one because the economic system and laws are rubbish and second because (no offense to anyone intended) most americans,canadians and Australians don't trust us...and nobody can say that its not true cus it happend alot of times to me...email replies like "Get lost you european scammer" and stuff like that...
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kumar 15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

The only exception country that I have found is India.

Well actually, you can add India to the list of 'Native Speakers of English', if you don't go by the dictionary meaning of Native Speakers and only with the number of people speaking good English
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Can Somebody PLEASE Explain These Refunds To Me?

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