Apple’s defense against excessive refunds

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Late last year, Apple made a change to its EU-based App Store/iTunes terms and conditions. Here are two excerpts from the UK terms agreement:

Right of cancellation: If you choose to cancel your order, you may do so within 14 days from when you received your receipt without giving any reason, except iTunes Gifts which cannot be refunded once you have redeemed the code.

And:

Exception to the right of cancellation: You cannot cancel your order for the supply of digital content if the delivery has started upon your request and acknowledgement that you thereby lose your cancellation right.

This last bit turns out to be critical. It gives Apple the right to defend against people who might abuse the no-questions-asked refund policy. Here’s one report, showing this clause at work:

One reader explains that when Apple introduced the new 14-day return policy, he started treating this policy as a trial period of some sort. After spending about $40 in various apps to trial, he was able to get $25 refunded, but Apple took notice of his behavior and a message popping up in the App Store now warns him that he will no longer be eligible for refunds on new purchases.

Here’s the language in the new alert:

I acknowledge that if I download this app within fourteen days of tapping ‘Buy’, I will no longer be eligible to cancel this purchase.

Seems fair.



  • ElLibro

    Without the download term, it would still be okay for most 1$-9$ apps, since those customers that refund within 14 days to save money are those who probably wouldn’t buy your app in the first place. On the other hand, games and expensive professional apps would probably suffer from the 14 day return policy, if you could use the app within the 14 days.

    I like the Play Store’s policy much better. You can return the app within 15 minutes after buying it. That’s usually enough to find out if a game is for you. Case in point: my mother recently bought Bejeweled 2 for her mobile, but knowing Bejeweled 3 she was disappointed. So she went back to the Play Store, tapped refund and got her money back.

    • I want to be opposed to that return policy, since developers may put a lot of effort into an app that you only need for a short period of time.

      But I think we’re reaching the point where we need a policy like that, and they (we) should just build something else instead.

    • Gerr

      Two hours now on Google Play

  • Matthew

    Does the app not start downloading as soon as you’ve bought it though?

  • Laurent Meister

    This is not a “defense”. It’s the law.

    Based on the regulation of the European Union the new right of cancelation for digital downloads can only be restricted if the user has been informed (in the terms and condition) of this restriction and has acknowledged (in each individual case) to renounce at its right of cancellation, if he downloads the digital content prior to the expiration of the right of cancelation.

    Thus, Apple might just be changing the App purchase process in Europe or to reduce the number of annoying (but required) alerts, that the alert is only displayed if Apple things there might be an “abuse” (which by law does not exist) of the right of cancellation.

    • Václav Slavík

      You are wrong. This right does not apply on ALREADY DOWNLOADED DIGITAL GOODS. All Apple would have to do would be to separate the buy & download steps, e.g. by requiring another tap (button: Buy -> Download -> Open instead of current Buy->Open).