

Dealing with unreasonable refund requests - esw

What&#x27;s an appropriate response to a customer who requests a refund for a year of hosting service because they &#x27;meant to cancel&#x27;?
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jasonkester
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.

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esw
You're right. I issue refunds all the time, and this should be no different.

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CyberFonic
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...](http://www.boston.com/food-
dining/restaurants/2014/12/09/harvard-business-school-professor-goes-war-over-
worth-chinese-food/KfMaEhab6uUY1COCnTbrXP/story.html)

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davismwfl
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.

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esw
Their site was up and running, receiving traffic for the duration.

>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.

I've had the same thought, and I wish there was an elegant and professional
way to communicate that sentiment.

~~~
davismwfl
Knowing that, I would call whomever is requesting it and talk to them like a
person not a business. Say something like, look, I understand you meant to
cancel, but the fact is you actually had your site running all the way up to X
date. Meaning I incurred real costs to run it and be available to help you
with any issues. And while I understand you are saying you had intentions to
cancel it prior, you never communicated that and you didn't take the actions
necessary to move your site, therefore I had no knowledge until your recent
request. Given that, there is just no way I can refund you for 12 months of
service that you received and I incurred costs for.

And tell them the cable analogy or something similar. I think sometimes we get
caught up thinking as though we have to be "businesses" and forget that it is
another human on the other side. They may not even be aware that there was
service going on for 12 months, as someone on their side might have just told
them to go see if they can get a refund.

I had a fairly small client once that the manager of the team I worked with
was new. He didn't understand what we did for them yet so he asked their
accounting person to get a refund from us for the last 3 months because we
didn't do anything. What he didn't understand is that everyday we were the
ones keeping their site alive and functioning while his team was rebuilding
it. After my initial feeling of anger subsided I called the lady from
accounting back and explained what we did, and said there is no way I can or
will refund that money as we provided the services in the contract. She had no
idea and said yea, I wouldn't either, let me talk to him and make sure we are
all on the same page. They were a small business and just didn't communicate
clearly, maybe you have something similar going on here. For us it worked out
great, hopefully it will for you too.

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saluki
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.

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jhwhite
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?

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esw
It's a month-to-month service, so they're asking for a refund on 12 billing
cycles. The TOS is clear that there are no refunds for services rendered. I
try to be as accommodating as possible, but this just seems absurd.

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jhwhite
Yeah. I would try and compromise with them. Maybe offer some of their money
back, but in this case the company doesn't owe them 12 months of refund
because they forgot to cancel for a year.

~~~
dalke
Suggestions like yours make me wonder if I should be more of a nuisance, so
people will compromise with my unreasonable demands.

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LukeFitzpatrick
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

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rancur
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

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cgtyoder
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.

