I had to refund a purchase...

today i have checked my publisher account and i have found that a buyer requested a refund of one of my assets, so the 30$ x 70% earned from that asset are gone!!

i wonder why... i was never contacted by email by anyone for problems so i really don't konw what to think...

i have emailed asset manager to ask for clarification, hope to get some reply.
did you ever had this problem?

thanks!


edit:
i just received an email from Caitlyin explaining how a lot of refunds were due to a fraudolent credit card use:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/18...rchase/page4?p=1246174&viewfull=1#post1246174

 

I think I had 2 refunds altogether. Once one of my buyers had an impression that my zombie package comes with an AI and full gameplay solutions, but that was just a graphics pack. So he asked for a refund. Another time a buyer asked for a refund of my particle systems, as he found it out that on a very bright background they don't look good.

 

thanks for sharing your experience.
in my case it's hard to understand: all my music is in preview on soudcloud. all the files, exactly as you will buy it, with the exception of a watermark. so the buyer knows what he's buying, and in any case he should have contacted me if he faced any problem...
the asset was purchased in february / march (i sold 3 times) so a some time ago... i wonder what happened meanwhile...

 

I've experienced 2 refunds over the 7 months that Suimono has been released... both times were a surprise as noone contacted me with any problems, and I had no info to respond to. But I can see someone having an expectation or an issue and they just didn't want to bother with getting support. However in your case it seems a bit strange to get a refund issued on a music asset... as you said, you already know exactly what ou're buying... you may want to email the asset store and ask for clarification regarding their music/refund policy... I would think it should be different than other assets that can't be completely previewed beforehand.

handling refunds with digital products is tricky in general, as there is no reason for the buyer to remove the asset from their computer... they're able to get something for free. I have no issues if someone has a real problem wanting a refund, that's just the way business goes. But it is less straight forward with digital products as opposed to physical products.

 

i had 1 refund for a sale in february. Caitlyn and assetstore people explained to me that the buyer used a stolen credit card.
You can always ask to assetstore people, they are friendly and talkative ones.

 

Today I had 2 refunds from the same same buyer, I think.
Not nice to have it.

 

I only had 1 refund from over a year on the store but I guess if you sell more units you will bound to get more refunds.

 

thanks everyone for the replies!
maybe my refound is the same as the aubergine's one...
let's wait for the reply of the asset manager.
i'll let you know!

 

Same thing happened to me yesterday, i had 1 refund

 

It is a shame that people do request a refund before contacting the publisher.

I have purchased a number of things over the past 3 months and have not used them and possibly will - will I ask for a refund? No, simply because I understand how much work has gone into these things

If people are going to buy from the asset store, they should do research first.

I am actually surprised their is a refund policy to be honest

 

People are buying shaders/models/script pack - make refund and than post in on warez sites ... not good strategy from Unity side. I had some refunds and after asking Unity "why" I never received any reply ....

I'm thinking about opening my own asset store...

 

I requested a refund recently (only refund i ever requested, own 130+ assets) but i did it that way
Contacted the seller to see if he could fix my issues
Waited a bit to see if a solution could come
Contacted the seller again offering multiple solutions (including refund)
He picked the refund solution
Only THEN did i contact unity asking for a refund.

While i can understand the credit card fraud case, i don't think unity should grant refunds, unity should pass on the refund request to the seller, have them approve it, if they approve it fine, if not they need to arbiter, but not simply refund and let you know they did.

 

Me too - its digital goods, people can just buy an asset then say it doesn't work as expected to get a refund and continue using it.

Honestly I didn't even know you could get a refund until this thread. I can see how refunds would be available on a very strict basis but if it's common to see them then that's kind of disappointing, especially if the seller has no say in the matter.

 

Hmmm. As someone that has just asked for a refund of an asset I can understand why. In my case I couldnt get the asset working to a satisfaction level where I would be happy releasing a game with it in. It took 3 days to get a reply for help and basically I had given up before help arrived. I have another non working asset and cant get any support at all and have left it to late for a refund.

If you sell assets on the store you need to make sure you reply to emails within a day.

 

Seems like a large number of people, me included, had one refund yesterday. My price had changed several months ago, and the refund was the earlier price, so it's Likely a chargeback due to a stolen card or something.

Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

I have requested a refund on an asset in the past, and got it, because the asset used windows specific applications to configure it, and I run on a mac (it wasn't mentioned in the description). otherwise, I don't request refunds.

 

What!? If goods dont work as promised, or you dont get support with it, then why on earth shouldnt you get a refund? Nothing to do with research. Ive loads of purchased assets that were not up to scratch where i regret not asking for a refund.

 

I am sorry I should have made myself a little clearer.

Naturally if an asset is purchased and claims to do a specific thing and fails to do that then yes the best course of action would be to contact the publisher and see if some resolution can be found, if not then a refund would be expected.

I was simply referring to people requesting a refund because they needed the money, not what was expected, no response from publisher.

I do however think that there would be a lot less pirated assets if it was not so easy to get a refund...

 

Music should be excluded from refunds. Seriously, you just gave away that collection for free... That's exactly what that refund did..

Bad on Unity!!!

 

Nothing should be "excluded from refunds", but everything should be handled on a case by case basis (sent to the author, if he says yes, then yes, if he says no, then case by case by unity checking there is no fraud involved and a legitimate reason for requesting the refund, and not reading the description isn't a legitimate reason!)

 

I think that you guys are all forgetting the purpose of refunds, if a product is mis-advertised or does not meet up to the consumer's par then someone falsely advertised their asset and conned someone else into buying it, said consumer should be able to get their money back and dispose of whatever asset they purchased to avoid piracy.

 

ok, but this asset had a clear link tyo preview every single music track in the asset.. SO what would be a valid reason for requesting a refund on music that you should have heard every bit of, if not to rip off the artist?

I would never ask for a refund from the store.. Never have..

 

Perhaps no refund was actually requested, and the purchase was charged back due to use of a stolen credit card.

 

Insufficient funds from Debit or Paypal could also result in this.

 

Never happened to me.

Biggest problem I have is the need to explain via email why Game-Guard crashes the build process for a webplayer... Even though I say everywhere that that software is impossible to run on a webplayer build, only the wizardry with variables will work on webplayers. After that goes, using SC is pretty easy and they never come back asking for support since it simply works as intended.

As a consumer however, I ask for refund when I find out the assets I paid for are stolen from someone else or don't work as advertised.

 

You are missing one key thing here. If I purchase an asset, I now have that release forever on my machine. I ask and get that refund. Now I still have that release asset, even though you may expand on it. I can use it, modify it, put it anywhere, give it away, etc.
The only fair thing is that if I request a refund that assets is forever removed from my machine which you can't do. This leads to larger issues with finding them online. And we all know humans are the biggest pack rats that just have to have it even though they may never use it nor produce anything with it.
Don't get me wrong, there are legitamet reasons for a refund as explained in other posts but the fact remains that I still have your product now at the stage I bought it in.

 

thanks everyon for the contribution.
in any case, i am waiting for reply for the asset store and i have also referred to this topic because it appears that several people had a refund on the same day.
maybe it was actually a fraud... let's wait for the reply and i will keep you informed!

btw: great community here...

 

hi!
this was the reply of the asset manager:

In this type of case there is one of three reasons:

- Not fit for user's intended purpose (within 14 days grace period).
- Purchased without card holder's consent

We will always refer the user to the publisher when the issue is one of the following:

- Misleading asset uses in description.
- Buggy.
- No help guides or tutorials.

If the asset purchase is outside of the 14 day grace period then we will state that they will need to speak with the publisher.


since i feel that we are after the grace period, I think it was a fraudolent purchase....

 

I haven't bought any assets yet, but I am threatening to buy many of your assets guys. I do have a question, can I use a prepaid visa or mastercard on the asset store? I have had issues with my bank card and the international transaction handler. My bank does not normally allow purchases outside of the US without authorization (like me informing them I plan to make a purchase in London or Denmark). Now if I can use a prepaid credit card, I would feel better and would not have to go through a couple of hoops with the bank.

 

I think you can surely used a prepaid card, as long it goes into the VISA or Mastercard circuits

oh, and you are more than welcome to buy my assets!

 

I have experienced users who received refunds for assets because they could not do what they thought they should.
Users advertising other competitive assets in the thread of my product and in the asset store reviews.
Users who asked the web player examples only to post the extracted data on warez sites.
Users who bought products, got refunds and published the packages on warez sites.
I do not care.

The majority of the users play fair and give us a chance to stay in business.

Most people who download warez are simply playing. They are not making money from these assets. Those who do, regularly buy the assets they use. It can be annoying to see the assets you made in warez sites, but it doesn't really matters. Warez is a form of try before you buy for many.

And, if for any reason someone who bought an asset finds that it is not what they thought it is, you know what ? It is perfectly fine that they get a refund and can search at other places. It seems fair to me and creates less problems on the long run.

Life is too short to bother with such "problems".

 

I've got one refund.. And i did not know that you could buym and request a refund. This is a problem for sure. @Ippokratis said that "Life is too short to bother with such "problems"". But hey i see a big fail here. I see that there's the buyer protection, but who is protecting us (sellers)?

That's bad UT!!!

 

Thank God for refunds. A good percentage of the assets in the Asset store are advertised fraudulently, and many do not even answer their e-mails until they receive a bad review.

If you're requesting a refund, make sure to write a comprehensive list of the performance issues and visual artifacts. Mention to Unity that the Asset developer will not answer his e-mails or fix the asset to make it useful, or work under mobile environment as it was advertised

ATTENTION Asset developers: more screenshots, more web demos, more Youtube videos. Answer your support e-mails. It's that simple.

 

That's part of doing business, especially online. Note that Paypal, for example, does not offer seller protection for digital sales. Last time I looked at their chargeback guide, their advice essentially boiled down to "deal with it" (but in nicer terms of course). It's only a real issue if you have a significant number of refunds, and clearly you don't actually have any problems if you only had one. (Unless you only had one sale to begin with. )

--Eric

 

It is a shame the people do that. My most recent purchase was for Zeronos RPG Kit. I couldn't dream of returning it or any of the great models from Arteria3D, motiontracks, and Dozer that I have bought(-:

 

No Eric, i'm not worry about that refund, my concern is: the guy download the content, save it on his hard drive, do not contact the seller if he has any doubts and just request a refund. UT should at least do some check to make the buyer prove that he has/had problems with that product and prove that the seller did not help the buyer, and if the package do not what it says, it's also UT fault, cause they ask you at least 3 days to do some basic check on the packages. It's ok only one refund, but i'm not talking about 'One' refund, i'm talking about the Seller hard work given for free.

"I probably should talk to UT assetstore team about this issue not to a volunteer moderator anyway".

--Fano

 

Blaming Unity for your fraudulently advertised assets. You're kidding, right?

 

I have no fraudulently advertised assets. this kind of asset is from a not professional seller. You should not make it general, there's always bad and good people, it's not different in business.

 

There's also sometime missadvertised assets, it's not necessarily fraudulent, i was refunded for an asset i purchased that wasn't very well labeled, so i got a refund (with the authorisation of the seller).

 

The seller was left with two choices - fix the asset, or accept the refund. He chose the easier route.

 

"I probably should talk to UT assetstore team about this issue not to a volunteer moderator"
Fano, I supposed that you did that already and you wanted community feedback on this matter.
I believe Eric's experience is valuable.
You can address them via email.

 

I see Ippokratis, but i'm not questionning Eric experience, he is a moderator so he has to have experience. But I'm the one who cares about refunds, he doesn't, you can notice that by his post. That's why i've said i needed to talk to UT not the moderator.

--Fano

PS: I don't care about my one refund, my concern is more general

 

I had 3 refunds today. 5 during 8 days. What is going on here!?

 

This month is my income - $17. It is not so much

 

What the hellll today i too got 2 refunds again, total 3 refunds in one week

 

While I'm not a seller (yet) of Assets, I spend quite some money on the asset store.

Before any purchase (unless they're impulsive sales day purchases ), I usually take a look at the asset store screenshots (i.e. to see the tool layout), videos (for tools, effects, etc) and web demos. If I don't like what I see, I don't purchase...

So I find it quite astonishing that people actually ask for a refund (especially if it's a refund for graphic assets where web players are available; like napster ones).

Did any of you get access to the reason why the refund had been requested? Have you been contacted by the customer himself before the refund was done?

If no, perhaps Unity should have a 2-tier system where the first step would be to actually contact the reseller of the asset and check back with him if there is a real issue or if something can be done to satisfy the customer. Only if this isn't possible (i.e. reseller doesn't answer within 5 working days or the asset cannot be changed), the refund should be done.

A "refund-grace-period" would be a good idea, too. Like 10 days before any refund is processed.

 

No i didn't get any emails from buyers simply they issued refund, but its happening with many publishers from last week even mr.necturus. It is very bad for p[ublishers. I wonder one of my asset got refund which has been sold last in march sales

Unity people required to do something on this before our gross will go to ZERO.

 

No one contacted me too.

 

well, i'm on the asset store since about 2 years and this month it was the first refund.
it's very sad to hear about all this... maybe something odd is happening, such as fraudolent credit card use?

remember what the asset manager replied me:

In this type of case there is one of three reasons:

- Not fit for user's intended purpose (within 14 days grace period).
- Purchased without card holder's consent

We will always refer the user to the publisher when the issue is one of the following:

- Misleading asset uses in description.
- Buggy.
- No help guides or tutorials.

If the asset purchase is outside of the 14 day grace period then we will state that they will need to speak with the publisher.




are your refund within the 14 day grace period??

 

Yes it was purchased tonight and refunded after several hours. But I don't understand how it can be applied on this assets, for instance:

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/4487
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/6711

What is here so difficult to understand for user if he is not very very odd man?
I think someone trying to fraud. Get assets without paying for it.

I have 6 refunds during 8 days!!!!

 

Well today we got a whopping 16 refunds! All at the exact same time. When were these products purchased from you ask, November of 2012! We know this because this was the only month that all these exact asset were purchased. Some we have only sold once and that was in the month of November

This is getting ridiculous, the refund policy clearly states 14 days not 6 months. Who is issuing these refunds? Do they not know their own policies..

I contacted Unity and am waiting for a reply.