from Hacker News

Dealing with unreasonable refund requests

by esw on 12/11/14, 1:24 AM with 15 comments

• by jasonkester on 12/11/14, 11:42 AM

  I run in to this from time to time with S3stat. We have real server expenses processing people's reports, so there is in fact a genuine loss to the business if we refund a customer who "forgot to cancel".

  Still, I do it every time. For as far back as they want to go. Even if that's a year. Even if it costs us a hundred bucks worth of AWS expenses.

  Why? Because I'm not in the business of taking money from people who don't want to give it to me. Sure, it costs a few hundred dollars every now and then but a few hundred dollars is not a lot of money for a business. The biggest expense in the whole process is my time and attention spent dealing with the situation.

  Given that, the quickest and cheapest route out is to open up the Stripe console, click the Refund button a bunch of times, cancel the guy's subscription, then write him a nice email telling him so.

• by CyberFonic on 12/11/14, 2:06 AM

  Without more information it is hard to suggest anything.

  If your hosting service is like most others out there ($100-$300 p.a) then it might far less aggravation to simply cancel them and refund the year's pre-paid amount than to waste time bickering.

  Unreasonable people tend to start out being difficult and then dig in. Have you seen: http://www.boston.com/food-dining/restaurants/2014/12/09/har...

• by davismwfl on 12/11/14, 3:30 AM

  Are they claiming the service was unavailable, unreliable, poor etc. Or just saying, hey we forgot so we'd like to have our money back?

  Did they use the service for 12 months? To me it is two different things if they had the account but hadn't used it, I might be more inclined to say refund 3 months just to keep them reasonably happy and make it easy on myself. If they used the account all the way up to the end, then I would likely not be very accommodating on any refund, unless you messed up somehow which it doesn't sound like.

  Overall, they are responsible for canceling timely which is not your problem.

  Would you get your money back if you called up the cable company and said, hey sorry I didn't watch TV for the last 12 months, so I'd like my money back please. It is the same thing they are asking you to do.

• by saluki on 12/11/14, 3:39 AM

  Check what card they were using . . . determine how far back they could request chargebacks and refund to that point or one billing cycle farther back . . . most services will only refund back one billing cycle so I agree this request is extreme . . . Good luck in 2015.

• by jhwhite on 12/11/14, 1:33 AM

  Did they pay for a year up front? I feel more information is needed.

  Is this a renewal and they pay for a year at a time? If so how long past the renewal are they?

  Or has a year gone by and they owe for the past year?

• by LukeFitzpatrick on 12/11/14, 3:54 PM

  Yeah, I'd just refund it like jasonkester said. It's not worth the hassle and besides, that customer is likely to complain about your service if you don't refund it. The chances are, they are probably really strapped for cash and are looking for ways to cut down on expenses suddenly. Or they are just (---: 's

• by rancur on 12/11/14, 5:19 AM

  I would look at how much they actually cost you. Cost you. If they didn't cost much of anything refund them up to the cost to you to do business, including overhead

• by cgtyoder on 12/11/14, 1:33 AM

  What are your original TOS for refunds?

  Maybe offer them a month's refund to get rid of them. Hard to say when dealing with extreme cases.