Apple Adds New 14-Day Return Policy for iTunes Digital Goods in EU Countries

[Fattytail]

This sounds horrible. I'm all for consumer protection but let's be honest, we consumers can be a conniving lot. There's going to be a lot of abuse of this policy. From the looks of it as demonstrated by the Finnish guy on this thread, Apple hasn't yet implemented a system that cancels the refund right after the game is downloaded. So it is currently a developer's worst nightmare. Wonder what this does to app revenues.

 

[dazed]

We need something like this worldwide but 14 days is a bit much. I think 24 to 48hrs is more than enough.

Hopefully more countries will force Apple (and others) to do this.

 

[dyn]

Yeah, no. You couldn't do that. Refund policy becomes void the minute you download the purchase.

Only if you have actively told it to download. Since Apple doesn't have such a system (the buy button buys and downloads automatically without your consent) they have to refund. That's what the directive says and that's what Apple is bound too whether they like it or not.

 

[Neonblue]

I tried this out.

I requested a HD movie and four music tracks to be refunded, all of which have been downloaded and watched/listened to, and sitting in my library. My bank account has since been credited with the refund, but the tracks and movie are still present in my library - even after being online and signed into iTunes. I'm wondering how this works, will the files be automatically deleted at some point?

 

[roadbloc]

Bout time this happened. Glad the EU pressured Apple into doing this.

 

[Solomani]

Pretty sure Apple reserves the right not to sell anything to you if you do this like twenty-two times in a row.

Pretty sure the EU Lawyers are ready to sue Apple the minute Apple does something to blacklist download abusers/exploiters.

 

[gnasher729]

Pretty sure the EU Lawyers are ready to sue Apple the minute Apple does something to blacklist download abusers/exploiters.

There _is_ freedom of commerce. If Apple doesn't want someone as their customer, that's up to Apple. And if people download, cancel, and keep the download, that's actually fraud.

If it happens to any significant degree, then some people will just not be able to download without pressing a "download" button and agreeing that their cancellation rights are gone.

 

[Solomani]

I live in Finland and I just tested this. I bought an $0.99 game on Christmas. I've now completed 50% of it and it's still installed on my iPad Mini. I cancelled the order via iTunes (which opens a website where you actually do it).

I then received 2 emails confirming the refund. The money should be on my account in 5 to 7 working days.

The game is naturally still fully playable. It's not listed anymore on My Purchases. Interesting to see if I get any game updates after this.

Needless to say, this sucks big time for game developers. We're currently working on our third game and we were thinking about releasing it as a premium title. Now I'm seriously considering making the game free with ads.

If I were an App Developer, anything I make will always always always be a FREEMIUM for European countries. Throw in some ads in order to make some extra revenue.

Forget actually developing solid well-made apps that are "purchased outright" because the potential sales and revenue could be crippled by this new policy.