Is This Unethical WSO Practice Even Legal?

Do not read the following if you're offended by rants:

I just had to get this off my chest, because I am ticked off with the owner of a worthless WSO I bought, with a worthless guarantee. I rarely refund anything, and this is the first time I've ever tried to refund a WSO, so I don't know if this happens a lot or not. In my opinion it's blatantly unethical.

It seems obvious to me how wrong it is, but maybe it's the norm and I just never realized (that still doesn't make it okay though). I'd love to hear some other Warriors' opinions and insights about what follows.

The WSO had a very clear guarantee in the thread-within 30 days, if not satisfied for any reason, you will get a complete refund-no ambiguity. When I went through the owners' help desk, which is where he told me to go, a couple days after trying both his email, and a pm, I did get the OTO refunded, which is good, but not the main product.

I hadn't asked for the OTO refund alone, in fact, the core product was way worse than the OTO, and I wanted that refunded too. So I contacted the owner again, and he said he emailed the affiliate "yet again", to get him to refund me ("yet again" means a second time).

He told me that "it's out of my hands", and he couldn't do anything else, since 100% of the front end went to affiliates. So it was up to me to track down the affiliate and squeeze the money out of him. He told me I'd be within my rights to make a Paypal dispute.

I replied that since he was the person who owned the product, and whose sales page promised satisfaction or a refund, he was therefore responsible to make good on that promise, even if the affiliate he approved would not. I said maybe I'm old fashioned, but I expect product owners to personally-if necessary-make good on sales page promises, especially guarantees.

He replied a final time, and told me he'd gone "above and BEYOND" (his caps), for me, because he "requested it twice".

He said "Buddy you bought from [man's name]. Take it up with him. You HAVE options. You can file a dispute with Paypal..."

Then went on: "I'm not paying an out of pocket expense for something I didn't get paid. You ARE old fashioned. I'm also closing this ticket, and removing you from my email list."

(the "out of pocket" bit was in response to me suggesting that if the affiliate went AWOL, the product owner should refund out of pocket if needed, rather than leave the customer holding the bag).

He hadn't mentioned the affiliate's name until the last email, and so before I got that, I looked it up in my Paypal account, and contacted the affiliate, demanding to know why my refund request was being stonewalled.

Later I had to apologize for accusing the affiliate of stonewalling, since it is the first SHE had heard of it. In other words when the owner had gotten my request for a refund, he forwarded it to the wrong affiliate-a man. But he thinks he went "above and BEYOND" for me, because he'd made the same mistake twice.

He doesn't even know his mistake, because when I tried to open a new ticket, his help desk would not allow it-I think I've been banned.

I hope it's clear now why I'm mad. The fact that he contacted the wrong person, and in his arrogance, doesn't even know that, just adds an extra level of absurdity, but what I'm really mad about is his utter refusal to take any responsibility for enforcing the guarantee, or standing behind it if enforcement fails.

I have no trouble understanding why someone wouldn't want to go out of pocket on a refund, after letting the affiliate take 100% of the front end sales, but that is one of the risks you take when you quickly approve an army of affiliates you don't bother checking out, to go out and promote your stuff.

Is it really the customer who should take the hit when the product owner puts a bad affiliate on his team?- (if that had even been the problem-like he thought, rather than his own screw-up)

A guarantee is someone's promise, and the person who made that promise isn't the affiliate, so when push comes to shove, a product owner should step up, if the affiliate won't. If they never had any intention of doing anything beyond forwarding the request, the guarantee was a stone cold lie, and hence, I suspect, illegal as well as immoral.