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Here's an example a friend of mine ran into recently: They sold their company and shut down their service for which they charged monthly/yearly subscriptions.

by Me1000 4y ago

Here's an example a friend of mine ran into recently: They sold their company and shut down their service for which they charged monthly/yearly subscriptions. They had a decent relationship with Apple, so they emailed their contact and notified them that they'd like to issue refunds to all their users. Apple said that users had to do it themselves. That wouldn't be so bad, but there's (as I understand it) some restrictions on Apple offering refunds for subscriptions, for example if you're 25 days into a 30 day subscription period, Apple won't allow users to request a refund. This caused users to get angry at my friend and their company. If they had been using any other payment service other than the App Store, they could have just automatically issued refunds to all their users.

shagie 4y ago
The difference that we're seeing here is a "user can request a refund easily" vs "developer can refund something to a user." Apple balances on the assumption of the stability of their developers offering subscriptions and an easier experience for a user requesting a refund. The difficulty that the developer is having in this case is that Apple isn't exposing the payment information to the developer. If they can say "this user gets a refund" that is leaking some information about the users to developers. (...) Additionally, it appears that there were some new methods added to the in-app library for developers to be able to create a refund request on behalf of a user. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transaction/3803220-beginrefundrequest https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transacti... > Call this function from account settings or a help menu to enable customers to request a refund for an in-app purchase within your app. When you call this function, the system displays a refund sheet with the customer’s purchase details and list of reason codes for the customer to choose from.
- jacobr1 4y ago
  Apple could still act as an indirect facilitator - send apple the money and they refund it on your behalf. I'm sure there are many reasons why this is complicated, but I don't see any fundamental reasons this couldn't be done if Apple want to enable it.
- saurik 4y ago
  Sure, but that obviously isn't what people were talking about with respect to developers giving refunds. I provided that feature to developers in Cydia and gave refunds directly to users and it was still appreciated by all to have that feature. Regardless, to address your (off-topic) addition: do you actually request refunds from Apple often enough to be willing to pay 10% more for the privilege? You'd have to be asking for refunds for 1 out of every 10 products you buy for that to make sense...

by Me1000 4y ago

shagie 4y ago

The difference that we're seeing here is a "user can request a refund easily" vs "developer can refund something to a user." Apple balances on the assumption of the stability of their developers offering subscriptions and an easier experience for a user requesting a refund. The difficulty that the developer is having in this case is that Apple isn't exposing the payment information to the developer. If they can say "this user gets a refund" that is leaking some information about the users to developers. (...) Additionally, it appears that there were some new methods added to the in-app library for developers to be able to create a refund request on behalf of a user. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transaction/3803220-beginrefundrequest https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/transacti... > Call this function from account settings or a help menu to enable customers to request a refund for an in-app purchase within your app. When you call this function, the system displays a refund sheet with the customer’s purchase details and list of reason codes for the customer to choose from.

jacobr1 4y ago
Apple could still act as an indirect facilitator - send apple the money and they refund it on your behalf. I'm sure there are many reasons why this is complicated, but I don't see any fundamental reasons this couldn't be done if Apple want to enable it.
saurik 4y ago
Sure, but that obviously isn't what people were talking about with respect to developers giving refunds. I provided that feature to developers in Cydia and gave refunds directly to users and it was still appreciated by all to have that feature. Regardless, to address your (off-topic) addition: do you actually request refunds from Apple often enough to be willing to pay 10% more for the privilege? You'd have to be asking for refunds for 1 out of every 10 products you buy for that to make sense...