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Does this mean if there's a developer I don't like, I can buy their stuff and refund it to arbitrarily cost them money at no cost to myself and there's nothing
by wlesieutre 6y ago
Does this mean if there's a developer I don't like, I can buy their stuff and refund it to arbitrarily cost them money at no cost to myself and there's nothing they can do about it?
That seems ... not great, especially these days. What happens when mobs of internet morons decide review bombing isn't sufficient and realize Apple will help them cause direct financial harm instead?
- zamadatix 6y agoIf you do this often Apple will ban your account. If you don't do this often it's not a problem.
- ejolto 6y agoWhat if you have a big Twitter following and ask them to do it?
- SllX 6y agoSounds like a lawsuit in the making if the harm is great enough.
- vageli 6y agoWhat laws would be broken in this case?
- jfk13 6y agoSomething about conspiracy to defraud, maybe?
- vageli 6y agoHow is that fraud? "Everyone, buy this product and return it to the store for a full refund," doesn't sound like fraud to me. It doesn't result in personal or financial gain to the people perpetrating it, either. edit: so who is in trouble here? The person calling for people to do it with their twitter following or the twitter followers? I'm not saying that buying the app and returning it is not fraud if you entered into the transaction in bad faith and with intent to cause damage to the dev, I'm saying calling people to do that is not fraud.
- munk-a 6y agoYou would be fraudulently filling out the request form - unless Apple has a "Reason for refund: For the Lulz" in its drop down box. You would also probably committing some sort of credit card fraud by enacting a transaction in bad faith. I think the form is definitely fraud but I wouldn't be surprised if Visa went after you for something as well, they need to actually process all those charges and charge backs and it does cost them some amount of money to do so.
- Dylan16807 6y agoIf I say the product wasn't useful to me, that's going to be completely true.
- gambiting 6y agoYou are entering into a purchase agreement without the intention to actually purchase the item - that is most definitely fraud. It's like ordering a brand new car without the intention to actually ever pick it up, but instead to cost the dealer money. If you're acting maliciously that's definitely fraud.
- vageli 6y agoI completely agree and understand. My statements were about the person inciting others to commit the fraud without so many words. Basically, I was saying it is not fraud to tell your twitter followers to buy and return an item. It may be conspiracy though.
- ralph84 6y agoTortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party causing economic harm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
- vageli 6y agoI've heard of this but am curious, does this also apply to people calling for boycotting companies?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mellavora 6y agoYes, but you need to serve notice to the offending party, which might be hard if they are not a US person... likewise collecting damages, etc
- munk-a 6y agoThere might be something subtly illegal here - but I assume Apple would just refuse to honor the refund if they thought it was fraudulent - so it wouldn't be up to Apple to collect damages - it'd be up to the other party to collect their refund (assuming they can legally compel Apple to pay up)
- klank 6y agoHow does that apply? In hypothetical this thread has been discussing nobody is damaging the contractual relationship itself nor is anybody preventing either company from fulfilling their contractual obligations. In fact, it's the strength and continued operation of the contractual relationship that would cause the economic harm. I don't think tortious interference applies here.
- im3w1l 6y agoIanal but it might go under tortious interference?
- vageli 6y agoI was thinking more along the lines of criminal laws, I should have been more specific in my word choice.
- barbecue_sauce 6y agoThe word "lawsuit", at least in American english, has the connotation of a civil rather than a criminal case.
- klank 6y agoNo, I don't believe it would apply. Tortious interference is when you interfere with the contractual relationship itself. In this case the continued obligations is what would drive the economic harm, thus tortious interference wouldn't apply.
- the_hoser 6y agoLawsuits only really work if you know who to sue. And if they live in a country that will honor your country's court's decisions. And if they have money.
- pantalaimon 6y agoOr have a botnet do it
- underyx 6y agoIndividual bots in a botnet usually don't have their own credit cards.
- pantalaimon 6y agoYou can buy stolen credit card data on the same sites where you can buy botnet access.
- azinman2 6y agoThen you’d be a jerk. There are many, many ways to be a jerk in life.
- tartrate 6y agoSo all it takes is a jerk then..
- lostcolony 6y agoGood thing there are so few of those. /sarcasm
- himinlomax 6y agoIt's rather stunning how you took that rhetorical question literally, and in the process missed the point spectacularly.
- yesenadam 6y ago> It's rather stunning how you took that rhetorical question literally, and in the process missed the point spectacularly. In the past 2 weeks you've said quite a lot of mean things to people on HN. Please stop doing that.
- himinlomax 6y agoYou're right, my bad.
- azinman2 6y agoPerhaps you missed my point. I'm simply suggesting that the answer to this rhetorical question is yes, you could do that, but you'd be a jerk for having done so. Having an internet army do jerk-like things for you occurs all too frequently.
- wlesieutre 6y agoWill they? In some jurisdictions they are required by law to grant refunds. In others, they still have very little incentive to control refund fraud, what with the fact that they're still making money rather than losing it. It would be one thing if they said "We're keeping the credit card processing fees so that we don't lose money," but to keep the whole 30% cut is just petty.
- R0b0t1 6y agoAre they obligated to do business with you? Typically the answer is no, but some countries (like Germany) stores can't ban people if they're the only store in a town. I'm not sure if this would work for Apple, but it might if you already own an iDevice.
- wlesieutre 6y agoI couldn't say. But here's the bit of their terms of service (for USA) that mentions refunds: > All Transactions are final. Content prices may change at any time. If technical problems prevent or unreasonably delay delivery of Content, your exclusive and sole remedy is either replacement of the Content or refund of the price paid, as determined by Apple. From time to time, Apple may refuse a refund request if we find evidence of fraud, refund abuse, or other manipulative behavior that entitles Apple to a corresponding counterclaim. Which makes it sound like they aren't granting refunds at all for anything except failure to deliver the product. And yet when I look at their actual refund request form it has options for "I did not mean to buy this, child bought without permission, I did not mean to subscribe, I did not mean to renew subscription, my purchase did not work as expected, in-app not received." So clearly not all purchases are final. I don't think it's a good look for Apple to be issuing refunds at their sole discretion and then turning around and making someone else pay for it. You're just supposed to trust them that the magic fraud prevention box is doing its best?
- zmk_ 6y agoAs far as I know, in EU, you have a right to return anything that you bought online, no questions asked.
- pythonslayer 6y agoAs described, it’s just a lot of people doing it once.
- numpad0 6y agoApple will ban adversary’s account which could be fake ID with balances loaded from iTS cards bought with stolen CCs.
- cortic 6y agoSource? Cause this sounds like wishful thinking.
- zamadatix 6y agohttps://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-when-apple-says-youve-committed-fraud/ https://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-w... https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208856 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208856 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250384392 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250384392
- cortic 6y agohttps://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-when-apple-says-youve-committed-fraud/ https://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-w... -fraudulent gift card https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208856 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208856 -a problem with the payment method https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250384392 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250384392 -credit card fraud I asked for you to cite sources on Apple banning people for repeatedly claiming a refund. Not for using a stolen credit or gift card.
- zamadatix 6y agoThe theme is fraud which is what large amounts of refunds are treated as. Cite me that it's not fraud if that's not good enough for you, I'm not really interested in proving fraud is not just allowed to run rampant in a payment system in the very thread about how doing this exact thing would be abusive and need to be stopped somehow.
- cortic 6y agoYou don't know that large amounts of refunds are treated as fraud, its just wishful thinking, as i thought. In the EU i have a right to a refund, there is no part of that right that forbids me from repeating that purchase. Since we have established that Apple don't suffer financially from obeying these rules to the letter, i see no incentive for them to treat this kind of thing like fraud. They might, but you have not established this, and i don't think its a fair assumption to make.
- kumarvvr 6y agoIt will not cost them money, per se. Apple is keeping money from you.
- jaywalk 6y agoSeems like a pointless technicality. If somebody refunds my $100 app and Apple "keeps" $30 from me, that means the next person who buys my app only earns me $40. I've lost $30 either way.
- munk-a 6y agoOr if the same person buys the app again later (maybe using a different Apple ID) then you lose 60$ out of the money they would have paid for your app - to view it a different way.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wlesieutre 6y agoPer the linked twitter thread: > Yeah Apple keeps their 30% no matter what. So if someone refunds an app they get the whole amount back, Apple keeps 30%, and the developer has to cover that extra amount
- 0x0 6y agoIf your app costs $100, and you only sell 100 copies, and they all ask for a refund, then at the end of the month you owe Apple $3000?
- RobRivera 6y agoThe fact that that is even a thought screams silly and childish in my mind, but then again life has taught me that 'maturity' really is a social construct and the rule of law and contracts really should be the only baseline expectation of human behavior from strangers. Also - that plotline from SV where he just buys pizza from thd pizza startup that is operating at a loss seems like the same idea as this but just slightly different. Business is funny
- munk-a 6y agoIt's a bit different when a company is completely voluntarily engaging in self-destructive behavior - when it comes to the app store it is voluntary that folks post their apps there but Apple has an absolute monopoly on the market.
- RobRivera 6y agoThat nuance makes a major difference for sure in the situation. Mind I'm not rationalizing any behavior from either party. It's more an observation on the state of current affairs and how we've allowed it to come to this.
- munk-a 6y agoOh it's absolutely terrifying - I just think it's important to highlight that in this situation there's a large power inbalance that doesn't exist in the SV example. It's likely most developers didn't walk into having an App knowing how this weird refund rule worked, so for most folks (if this is an issue) you've got the sunk cost of building the app already and have the choice of 1) putting up with Apple's arbitrary rules or 2) unlisting your app from the store and accepting that you'll never see another dime off your labour.
- incelmods 6y agothat's kind of like saying walmart has a monopoly on who sells what at walmart. you can buy your same exact plastic garbage can at target instead, so there is no monopoly. just you can buy the same app for a non-apple phone. so there is no monopoly on the apps. now as far as what you sell within your own store, digital or brick store - that's not a market. in fact, the same apps on google's store have a much larger marked due to many more users. and amazon's store. and aptoide. and a whole bunch of other stores, which all sell the same app. so not only does apple not have a monopoly, they have a small share of the app market for the apps they sell in their store.
- Thaxll 6y agoIt's like credit card charge back, you will get banned for abusing the system.
- balls187 6y agoIt cuts the other way too--if you have too many charge backs you can get das boot from your payment processor.
- jclardy 6y agoI think this is part of what is holding back iPad software. You can't charge $100 for Sketch and lose $30 when someone asks for a refund. Apple designed this around $1-$10 apps where losing $2 at volume is fine. What is worse, is that Apple doesn't remove the app from the user's device. When you get a refund of a paid app it is on the honor system for them to delete it. It is removed from their account, so they can no longer download/update, but the installed binary is not affected.
- mywittyname 6y ago> What is worse, is that Apple doesn't remove the app from the user's device. This. Is. Ridiculous. We all know this is an intentional design decision by Apple and that they would absolutely not have designed the workflow this way if they had to dogfood their own platform.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nvahalik 6y ago> if they had to dogfood their own platform. But Apple does sell one app through the iTunes App Store (Dark Sky, which they recently acquired). They sell several through the Mac App Store. So, they do dogfood, but obviously they are not depending on revenue to survive here. Side note: there are a bunch of apps listed under their developer that I had not seen before: Music Memos, Indoor Survey, Texas Hold'em, and Reality Composer.
- pier25 6y ago> So, they do dogfood, but obviously they are not depending on revenue to survive here. Their pro apps are almost given away for free. You could argue that $200 for Logic is not free, but similar DAW products costs 4-5 times more. Not only that, but competitors need to charge you for major updates every couple of years, like any developer. Since Apple released Logic Pro X in 2013 it has kept pushing updates without asking for money.
- TheKarateKid 6y agoGetting a refund from Apple is really difficult, so I don’t think this would be a problem. I once forgot to cancel a subscription, cancelled one day after renewal, and they would NOT refund me. It was a time based pricing model, so it’s not like I could’ve used any in-app credits.
- stordoff 6y agoNot for apps, at least in the UK - I've had four different apps (and one in-app purchase) refunded for a variety of reasons[1] without an issue. [1] One listed features that were actually (expensive) in-app purchases, one didn't work, a new app had been released but they were still selling the old non-updated one as well (and I bought the wrong one), and one was just really clunky and borderline unusable; the in-app purchase was purchased by mistake (my thumb was resting on the home button and I hit something that triggered a purchase in the app by mistake, so it went straight through TouchID)
- RBerenguel 6y agoReturns are limited. At some point I returned 3 or 4 things pretty quickly, because I had an old iPad and some apps didn't advertise compatibility well enough and then you get put in a "special" category of "you can't get a refund unless you are very, very obnoxious or there is a very real reason".
- asddubs 6y agothis would happen to you with paypal and credit card chargebacks, no idea if this is still the case (but it wouldn't surprise me). you lose the money and an additional 10$ fee, for every transaction. so someone could send you 5$ in 5 transactions, chargeback and you'd be out of 55 dollars.
- Razengan 6y agoApple doesn’t grant refunds willy nilly (anymore).
- z3t4 6y agoWhy should the developer pay the refund!? Isn't the user buying from the store (not the developer)!?
- abiogenesis 6y agoThe developer pays Apple, not the end user.