Odd Money Back Guarantee Situation

[otaku]

This is a rather odd money back guarantee situation that I’m sure will be occurring more frequently as this business takes off and the market space expands. It boils down to a customer contacting us for support for a game that we develop & publish that she had purchased some weeks prior through another service provider (Yahoo! Or Big Fish Games, I’m not sure which, I’d need to check the original e-mail trail to be sure). It transpires that she was unable to solve a particular level, claiming it was unsolvable (I can solve this level and I’m really bad at this game). The game offers a “solve level” option if you have enough bonuses built-up and we even sent a walk-through of the level to her to be sure. Still unsolvable. This took about three further weeks before we finally gave up and decided that the level was unsolvable on her particular computer (who knows whether it was or not)

As our company offers a “standard” 30-day, no questions asked money back guarantee we were prepared to refund (even though the refund time had more than elapsed by now) but when asked for her name & order ID she stated that she had purchased the game not from us, but from another (authorised) provider. Many of the other vendors do not provide us with customer lists, just a cheque to deposit, and the cut we see is a lot smaller than if the customer had purchased through our website. Whilst the customer understood we couldn’t refund her without a valid name & order ID (she understood that it went through another system) she couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t be able to issue a refund for money we never received.

As refunds happen so rarely (this would be the first refund in 10 months of business if we had actually paid it out) it is probably not a massive drain on financial resources but I’d be interested in other people’s opinions.

Anybody else faced this issue where you need to make a refund of $20 on a payment of only $5?

[arcadetown]

Same thing happens here where a customer found us thinking they purchased a game available here or one of our games through a partner. Sometimes a game not even here (some users sure are confused). Simply tell them you cannot find their order and have them provide the information they entered when placed the order or a copy of the order receipt email. Most of the time it turns out they purchased it elsewhere or they're trying to coax a free game.

Anyhow since you know your partner collected the money it's definitely not your responsiblity. Have them contact the partner site where they purchased it from to get their refund.

[KNau]

If all else fails and there's no way to get them their money back, why not just offer a free credit for one of your other games?

[Greg Squire]

It's my opinion that all returns ought to go through their point of sale (at least through that "official" money back period). That way the publisher (or registration service) and you both take the hit on that sale. Obviously the details of how this is to be done, should worked out together with the publisher ahead of time. Some of that may be dictated by the publisher's standard return policy. They should be able to provide some proof of purchase (the registration key could work), so that you know the return is legit. However, there may still be cases where you'll have to take a much larger hit like above (refunding $20 when you only got $5), but it's always best to take the hit and try to keep the customer happy, rather than take the chance of your reputation getting damaged by a very vocal disgruntled customer.

[otaku]

If all else fails and there's no way to get them their money back, why not just offer a free credit for one of your other games?

I would like that, but the company only has the one game so far. :-) I decided the best way to grow the company rapidly was to take on consulting work to pay the day to day bills -- the consulting work has been more successful than game sales but I don't intend to let that be the case for too long. Until the company publishes more titles some time around February of 2005 it's not really an option. :-)