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Apple Offering 7-Day Refund Policy on App Store Apps in Taiwan

Need a game that you can finish in less than 7 days, or even an expensive professional app for a project of less than 7 days? Now even more unscrupulous customers can rip off the developers and get apps for free in Taiwan.

To those complaining that the app descriptions and reviews are not enough, just don't buy those apps. Go write your own app that does what you want.
 
7 days is way to much for games. You could play through most full console titles in that time. I hope they do something against abuse, like refusing further service to users who return most purchases.

But I'd love to see a 1h trial, or something.
 
7 days is to long for other parts of the world. An hour trial is enough to try out the app otherwise its not fair on the developers.
 
richard4339 said:
I'll agree with some of the above posts. I think a return period in the App store should be implemented. I think the 15 minutes Google does it too little, but the 7 days is too much. But either way, this should be a standard feature worldwide.
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While the consumer-facing policy is that "all sales are final", Apple is authorized by developers to refund a purchase "in the event that Apple receives any notice or claim from any end-user that: (i) the end-user wishes to cancel its license to any of the Licensed Applications within (90) days of the date of download of that Licensed Application by that end-user", and they have been known to do so if requested.

It might be the case that it's not a blanket policy precisely because of the concern for abuse, and this way they can more closely monitor requests.
 
Agree with the posts on this thread suggesting this should be a universal policy. If some countries require certain time periods, like 7 days, then so be it; otherwise, an hour is plenty of time to download an app, fire it up, try it, and decide that it's not what you wanted.

I have downloaded a number of $0.99 apps that I've looked at quickly and said "Rats, that's not what I was expecting at all. Oh well, there goes a dollar." I can handle the occasional buck, but this has caused me to be very wary of downloading apps that cost more than a couple of bucks -- I need to be very sure that it's what I want before I buy it. Having a "satisfaction guaranteed" policy like this would allow me to try out, say, 5 different to-do list apps before I finally buy the one I like best.

As someone else mentioned, they could set a flag so that you're only allowed to "return" the app once; after that, if you decide in the future that you really do want that app after all, then you could buy it again but this time there would be no option to refund your purchase.
 
arn said:
The main problem with this is that for most games, you can complete them within 24 hours. So, it's not particularly fair for developers that people will be able to refund games after playing them through.

arn
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True. I think 15 mins is too short and 24 hours is way to long. I think 1 hour would be fine. That gives you enough time to really dig into it but not enough to get all your enjoyment out of it.
 
swarmster said:
While the consumer-facing policy is that "all sales are final", Apple is authorized by developers to refund a purchase "in the event that Apple receives any notice or claim from any end-user that: (i) the end-user wishes to cancel its license to any of the Licensed Applications within (90) days of the date of download of that Licensed Application by that end-user", and they have been known to do so if requested.

It might be the case that it's not a blanket policy precisely because of the concern for abuse, and this way they can more closely monitor requests.
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Problem with that system is that it really isn't a system and people don't really know about it. I am all for a one hour trial to not cheat developers, but at the same time, I want a system that I know exists. Contacting Apple on a case-by-case basis is really a pain, and one very people would know how to do. But if you build it into iOS, then it simplifies it. Auto-purchasing after 1 hour gives people the ability to delete it and cancel the purchase or a notification reminds you to do so immediately. Otherwise you are stuck with it. You could even put a toggle in the App Store settings on the iPhone/iPad for turning off App notifications for Store purchases if you don't want to see them. Then the onus is completely on you to delete the purchase within an hour if you don't want it but also don't want to be bothered by the notification. With iOS 5, I would think that this would be even easier to implement.
 
Piggie said:
I am 100% for this, and think we should demand it here.

Many times I've read the reviews of a game, downloaded it, and found out it had a horrible control system so apart from the 1st two minutes I have never loaded the app again. total waste of money and happened to me quite a few times.

I would like a refund system even if it's only for half a hour after purchase, so that if you pay and think OMG it's rubbish or it crashes, you can straight away get a refund.

To be honest, for me, even 1 hour would be plenty, 1 day a real real max. I don't see why you should need days to decide if it's any good.
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Agree 100%. Even a day trial period like you said would be fine.

I've downloaded SO MUCH CRAP from the App Store. ****** garbage apps.
 
No, I don't approve of this at all...it does not protect Consumers at all...what bull$%^&.

All it does is cheat developers out of money they're entitled to.

Any and every App can be effectively used, and all value absorbed, within the grace period, and then a refund granted.

This type of "consumer protection" is total nonsense, and only serves to cheat software developers.

Don't buy it if you don't want it.
 
notjustjay said:
As someone else mentioned, they could set a flag so that you're only allowed to "return" the app once; after that, if you decide in the future that you really do want that app after all, then you could buy it again but this time there would be no option to refund your purchase.
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You go to buy an App that you have already trialed, and the popup says, "You have used your trial for this app, purchase now?" or something. The thing about this system is that Apple wouldn't be dealing with refunds. They charge your card at day's end for all iTunes purchases, music, apps, etc. The charge would simply not be put through if you cancelled within the 1 trial window. They are not returning money, but just waiting an hour to make the purchase official.

But all that aside, I still think Apple needs to make the App store much more organized and searchable. Finding what you want can be a nightmare sometimes.
 
Every app should have a trial version or at the very least Apple should implement an hour limit.
 
I think even a day is too much honestly. There are plenty of apps I've gotten that I've gotten my use out of in a day (mostly cheesy games and even if I paid 99 cents I wouldn't be too upset if they entertained me for a day).

I think an hour is more than plenty to figure out if you like the app, even 30 minutes is enough (15 is a bit small but I think I could figure out if I liked an app in 15 minutes, it still gives you time to mess around and mostly figure out if it is useful to you).

Honestly, with most cheap apps anyways an hour should be way more than enough. It's not like with a lot of apps you are out of a lot of dough anyways.

7 days though is completely abusive and Taiwan really needs to figure out that different mediums really need different considerations on what is fair. An all inclusive law leads to stuff like requiring 7 days on software apps that plenty of people have pointed out here leads to people getting their use out of the app and then returning it so they can use it for free (even I could probably finish a game if I was determined in 7 days and I'm pretty slow at finishing games).
 
Japan has an 8-day "cooling off" period. It is a culture of traveling sales men tricking the elderly into buying expensive mattresses.

I wonder how Apple got around it. Maybe it doesn't apply to software, or maybe japanese people are way past 1-2 dollar refunds.
 
nippyjun said:
Do we get refunds for boxed games? Do we get refunds for movies we see or buy?
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You can resell physical media like DVD's and boxed games (ebay). You can't do that with a digital download. I would love to have an hour free with an app.

I have bought a couple apps that I feel really ripped off with. It would be nice if the consumer would have a little protection in this area.
 
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Is there a limit on the amount of times an app can be purchased and refunded?

For example, if not, then you'd never need to buy an expensive GPS app ever again, you'd just get it every time you went on a trip and refund it when you get home.

Surely?
 
I am absolutely for a return policy. I can't tell you how much money I've lost on useless crap from developers that don't fix bugs.
 
Most of the games can be finished within 7 days. 1hr-4hr should be max trial period.
 
jmpnop said:
Most of the games can be finished within 7 days. 1hr-4hr should be max trial period.
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I am 100% for a return policy as well, and I agree with your timeframe. Any app I've wished I could get a refund for, I knew within minutes of downloading it that it didn't do what it was advertised as doing, or it was a rickety, unstable pile.
 
I'd agree to a 15-minute or perhaps one hour "cooling off" period, but allowing people to play a game for a day or even a week and then get refunded sounds bad to me. We're talking about less than a buck for most apps. I've bought beers that were more expensive, and lasted less than 15 minutes. I'd never think of asking for a refund for those.

Disclaimer: I have an app on the app store so I'm one of those "filthy rich" developers (I wish).
 
arn said:
The main problem with this is that for most games, you can complete them within 24 hours. So, it's not particularly fair for developers that people will be able to refund games after playing them through.

arn
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Yup. They need a small time limit and/or progress % trip indicator to prevent free games.

Still, in the commercial packaged software world, there is no try it before you buy it expectation, so I would say a very small window like 15 minutes is more than generous.
 
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