All Sales Final

[DotComCTO]

Well, I asked for a refund for the ESPN Fantasy Football app. Not only is it buggy (crash to springboard, server hang/disconnects, etc), they even had the nerve to put in banner ads...in an app that I paid $4.99 + tax for!

Wrote to Apple and then to ESPN support. Let's see what happens.

--DotComCTO

 

[aluren]

See I saw your other thread on this and I question your purported allowance of keeping the app on yor device and your eligibility of future update. I find this wrong. I think refunds should be considered, but how does it not lead to what you did? "Return" an app and claim it's not what you want but yet you'll keep it around anyway; only after a refund? All of that is a big bucket of fail right there.

Agreed. Maybe the cost to implement something that will delete refunded apps costs more than just taking a loss. Now this gives alot of people the idea of returning some apps just for the heck of it. Someone here just got a free Tom Tom GPS app, I think I would want that as well.

 

[m3coolpix]

with itunes you get an .ipa file that you can back up to another location and Apple can't delete it off your computer. you can always add it back to your library. Apple would have to have a blacklist server with every app you ever gave back and build functionality into iTunes to check it. and it would be very easy to block it.

Agreed. Maybe the cost to implement something that will delete refunded apps costs more than just taking a loss. Now this gives alot of people the idea of returning some apps just for the heck of it. Someone here just got a free Tom Tom GPS app, I think I would want that as well.

Apple already has the capability to reach out and touch every iPhone if they want to, just like Amazon's Kindle app can remove books that you've received refunds on. Apple just isn't doing it yet....it will be a black eye on them (for a while) the first time they actually utilize the power.

Amazon got some flack a month or so ago for pulling some books from customers that had downloaded them (both on the Kindle itself and the Kindle app), when Amazon realized they didn't have the total rights to distribute.

Apple is already starting to 'turn the screw' a bit on this, and show what they have capability of, or so it would seem by a)releasing 3.1 and forbidding (ok, making it very difficult for) 3GS owners to go back to software v3.0 software or even allowing a restore to v3.0 and b)re-iterating the TOS specific to refunds (I thought I read that somewhere) with 3.1, and lastly c) the new MobileMe feature that allows me to lock the iPhone from being used, but still being able to be 'tracked' by MobileMe.

Without a program like Little Snitch, or DoorStop X on the iPhone, we really don't know what's going on 'in the background'.

 

[simpleleap]

They do offer refunds, you just have to contact them

 

[johnnyjibbs]

It's to stop a deluge of people who bought crap apps returning them after 2 days when they are bored with them.

Having said that, it's actually illegal, at least here in the UK, as everyone has a mandatory 14 day statutory right to get a refund assuming you can show sufficiently that it was purchased by mistake or that it did not live up to your expectations. That said, even if not, I think the law is on your side. Apple will I'm sure give a refund if pushed but would not want to publicise that.

 

[Chimpy]

TOS's are written to cover everything - it's generally a CYA kind of thing. Just because it says "No refunds" it doesn't mean they have to reinforce it. If you have a buggy app I wouldn't hesitate to write in and ask for a refund.