Serial refunders, what's wrong with you?

People who do it will continue to do it, unfortunately. Are the product you are referring to digital products that can be used and then refunded, or are they physical products?

A lot of people I know have started to ask for genuine reasons before they authorize any refund. I think this is quite far, although there is a thin line between a genuine reason and one that is not.

If they are constantly refunding my products, I would definitely refrain from selling to them in the future. Doing it once or twice is understandable.

I think it is the responsibility of the affiliate/owner to advertise all aspects of the market and to make sure they do not provide any misleading information about the product. In a lot of cases, this can cause refunds in the future since the buyer expected something else when they purchased the product.

If they have a no questions asked money back guarantee, "I don't like your product" is a good reason to get a refund. You never know if you will like a product until you open it up.

There will always be serial refunders and there will also be legitimate refunders. It is important to try and differentiate. Blacklisting a legitimate refunder could cost you sales in the future.

I know of a popular marketer on here that was selling a product I was interested in. I bought it and it ended up being way too basic to be helpful for me. I got a refund and explained the problem. I've bought tons of products from them since then and have loved every one!

Because on their sales letter, they stated: "If you are not satisfy for the value you are getting in my product, I'll refund your money in full, no questions asked".

If you really hate serial refunder, then you should have add a 0% money back guarantee notice.

I've had customers ask for refunds: but I've never found myself annoyed by having to give out refunds as it's roughly only 2% of my sales. Plus the only alternative is not offer a refund which will reduce your customer satisfaction and overall sales.

I would not blacklist serial refunders: it is not worth your time unless 20% of your customers are asking for refunds.

When you say serial refunders: I imagine you mean people who buy your product,and ask for a refund the next day - not because the product is poor but to just score it for free. If this is frustrating, consider implementing better DRM (Digital Rights Media) protection i.e. terminate access to the product if they get a refund.

Focus on the sales not the few refunders. Goodluck.

Part of the game my friend...

I just smile, refund them and wish them a Merry Xmas.

Cheers

Anton

I am new to this and i am not an IM'r like many of you but is this not a part of the risks you have to accept when selling online? Not issuing a refund will only cause you to have problems because then their next steps would be charge-backs. Also where do you get the terminology "serial refunder from? Are you making the assumption because they asked for a refund that they are going elsewhere asking for refunds? How do you know its the same group of people? Did it ever occur to you maybe, just maybe, as brilliant as your product and as a great of a contribution to humanity as it is that it suites everyone? I just don't get it.

As for your question of "If they don't like it why did they buy it in the first place", well DUH!! As I said I am new to WF and every sales page, WSO or whatever the heck you call it that I see, INCLUDING MINE does not tell you "the secret" of what or how to do what it is being sold and then you end up buying it only to find out that... OH PLEASE... this is not for me.

I think your frustration, though legitimate, is isolated to the lack of strength your product may have in terms of delivering value and that is the only reason I can think of as to why people don't want your product or the price for the value is misplaced. So again while I am new to WF, I am a seasoned offline marketer and I personally can't see any other reason.

But to blatantly accuse someone of being a "serial refunder" you may truly do so if they keep coming to your store or where ever and buying your products over and over again and asking for a refund over and over again. Then label away.

I think this is a case of "its-not-me, its-got-to-be-you" syndrome.


I don't understand.

Hmmm...
related with refunders,
what if you give your product and offer upgrade of the content so they will think twice to refund it. What do you think?

Make your product best quality - a large majority of people will not ask for refunds then.

If you produce rehashed crap, you have to deal with refunds and like doing it.

If you plan to be in business for long, you better deliver quality. Otherwise you will not exist. Go the extra mile to make your customer happy.

Serial refunders aren't the kind of people (they don't have the mindset)
to actually follow through and do the work required to build
a successful business.

So they may laugh at getting the product for free,
but in the end, I get the last laugh.

It's part of the games, there'll be always someone that want a refund. If i were you, i would keep going on gathering more buyers than keep thinking about the refunder.

As it's already been told - focus on sales and new customers

I think it is down to expectations.

I believe serial refunders are disillusioned to a certain extent.

They have probably purchased many program that "just didn't work" and move on in search for the holy grail.

When they see another sales page that says what they want to hear, they purchase expecting EVERYTHING to be done for them.

When they open it up they are fine until it involves some action.

Then the cycle repeats itself.

I have actually had people refund where I recognize the name from 5 or 6 other purchases.

I normally black list them at this point but always wish them well.

Just look at it like this:

They were NEVER going to PAY for your product anyway.

Chris

They just want to get your contents and post them on Blackhat sites. However, many people has high hope with the products because of sales letters.

There are many times those I want to refund immediately after I bought the products because some of them are just over hyped and I already know all information in the products.

Serial refunders measure their value to society by the number of seller's black lists they have been added.

Buying a product and asking for a refund the next day with no obvious reason(s) does not mean a person is a serial refunder.

A serial refunder would be a person who asks for refunds repeatedly. If you have no evidence that such a person is a habitual refunder, then you can't truthfully say that he is a serial refunder.

Also, just because a person's reason for refunding isn't obvious to you doesn't mean that the customer doesn't have a valid reason to refund. Some marketers are unable to see just how badly their product sucks.

There are many serial sh*t sellers and many serial refunders. I guess we all should build some sort of pubblic blacklist

You guys shouldn't have made it so easy for me to get my money back from you then. No questions asked? Ha, every time I see that I make this face .

Serial refunders are not just a problem on the Internet. They exist offline too. People, who would buy some things, use it for a few days, and then return it back to the store. Many times, they would buy expensive products to impress people on a meeting, reunion etc, and once it's over, they return the stuff.
PS: I know this because I watched a show about these people some time back, not because it takes one to know one ;-)

If the sellers were more open with the program, contents, online help, telephone support, maybe there would be less demands for refunds.

Too many are selling products that we know nothing about. Be more honest and it would save the seller and buyer lots of time and frustration.

If you put a big "no questions asked, 100% satisfaction guarantee" refund policy on your product then you just opened the doors wide open for all the serial refunders to buy and refund your product. You have no right to complain about them as you made the rules. They're not doing anything wrong, technically and they know it.

The solution to avoid serial refunders is don't offer refunds.

It's simple but most won't do that because they think it will drop their sales. Not true if you have a good product. The refund without questions asked was brought to the IM world from the offline world where it is much harder to return a T.V. or a couch or large purchase. Even returning a shirt or dress that doesn't fit right offline typically means the store STILL gets the sale, they just replace the item for another and put the returned item back on the shelf for future sale!

That's the problem with taking stuff from the offline world to the online world, especially with digital or information products. When it's "returned", (it never is returned or exchanged physically for something else), it's a lost sale and the person who bought it just got it for free. SO now you're relying on the kind heartedness of the buyer to actually pay for it and not ask for their money back. Technically everyone who ever buys your product with a no questions asked refund policy could do just that.

There are no barriers to stop them, there are no replacements for the buyer and the "store" ie you in this case, just loses.

Now, if you say "no refunds" and someone complains about that openly, you just spotted a potential serial refunder and derailed their plan to buy it and ask for a refund right away, no matter what the quality of the product was.

Lastly, we now have payment processors like Clickbank the FORCE you to offer a refund for a 60 day period. That is insane in the online world. You know all those big clickbank products that make ridiculous income claims? They've got huge refund rates too. Clickbank intercepts them all before they get to charge back stage which allows clickbank to stay open.

So yeah serial refunders suck, but if you attract them through your own doing, shut up about it. You brought it on yourself, no matter how scummy they are, you're actually encouraging them by offer no strings attached refund policies.

I once ate Cheerios for breakfast and a little later had an unsettling feeling in my stomach. I then went to the bathroom and submitted my refund. I hope that doesn't make me a cereal refunder.

I WISH I COULD JUST GET A REFUND FROM SOME OF THE GARBAGE THAT TAKES UP SPACE ON MY COMPUTER

I think this is the trend we are going to have to deal with in the future.

refunds sadly are a part of doing business, people can refund up to 6 months after purchase All you can do is just give them what they want if it's a digital product, Paypal rarely will ever side with you. But my advice is log their ip, and any other info you can about the user and ban them from ALL your future products and services. If you sell software make it service based and let them keep the software, just ban it from the network and make it useless. Use FraudRecord - Report and Query Unpleasant Clients, Frauds, Fraudsters, Scammers, Spammers, Abusers it's free, also maxmind has a payed anti-fraud thing you can use. I recommend you ban certain countries from buying too, keep stats to help you determine which. I wonder if it's legal to share those who've chargebacks info with others...if a user knew he'd be blacklisted for serial refunding by many marketers he'd think twice.

You are focusing on the wrong thing. Guarantees are their to increase sales and are usually legally required. The right question is this one:

Are refund requests significantly cutting into my profit?

If yes, find out how to fix it by asking nicely why they are returning if they didn't already tell you. Put in place measures to reduce refund requests. If no, accept it as a necessary cost of doing business. Getting irritated or in someone upset about it is not helpful to yourself or your customers.

Frankly, there are a lot of subpar info products. If I buy one and it turns out to be really basic or whatever, not useful to me...I'm not going to take the time to explain why. I figure I bought this from a successful business, they aren't going to be looking at each and every return and wondering why it was returned. If they are, they don't have better things to do with their time. And they should. Focusing on increasing traffic, conversion, reducing refunds with stick letter emails, etc.

I hate refunds; especially when you know the buyer already downloaded the product and intends to keep it (for "free) - but it's part of the game we have to play.

When you offer a money-back guarantee you boost your sales because you're giving people confidence about your product, but there's always people who abuse the guarantee...

Refunds blow though - big time!

There is nothing we can do to escape from refunds in my opinion. But the one thing we can do is to deal with them - true that a lot of these refunders are just exploiting the money back guarantee, but then again, you have to ask yourself - how many of your sales are getting refunds asked for? If there are more than 10%, then there are some genuine refunders over and above the notorious ones..

Gary Halbert believed that people make up there mind before
they buy your product that their going to ask for a refund. I tend
to think he was right.

Must agree with you. Really frustrating indeed.

i just write a big NO REFUND in my sale letter, until now only 1 request. problem solved.

if you offer a 100 % money back, you should do it.

I know such a person. He is always asking for refunds on items he orders and he is rich not poor. However, he has an angry wife that does not like the other wives - computers, cars...

Therefore he is careful with his money. He once asked me if I wanted his old laptop so he could get some cash currency. She seems to monitor his every move.

This is the Warrior Forum and all the sellers could share info on the serial refunders that each seller has come across.(kind of like a sellers network) Its probably already tried and failed, but it just might help sellers weed out the serials from the legitimate customers. Just my thought on the subject.

I've seen Jason Fladlien put a lot of constraints on his refund policy. They usually refer to concrete actions that you much perform before you can see that the product doesn't work for you.

Remember also that any refunders could be the one who shares our WSO on Black Hat. I'm sure of that and I'm trying to analyze all the refunders to clear any doubt about that. Who steals a WSO has no problems to steal also our money.

And payment systems are just by the side of sellers. I remember I got forced to make a refund to a sale I did 6 months ago, when my money back was clearly stated as 30 days. Well, after sending the invoice I created on that date, and stating that the product got only 30 days of money back, well, they refunded it to the buyer.

This is not correct, but they know how easy is to do that. They say the credit card was stolen, the product is missing basic information or that the product was not delivered.
We must stop that.

See you soon,
Alessandro