
We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists - nhangen
http://ignitiondeck.com/id/we-do-not-negotiate-with-terrorists/
======
dougmccune
I can't possibly imagine the time and energy wasted on this blog post and back
and forth with the customer is worth $300. Not to mention the PR
implications... you're calling your customers terrorists! Good god. You have
an unhappy customer, give him his money back and move on.

~~~
drcube
It's not about $300. It's about everybody else from now on who will discover
getting $300 from Ignitiondeck is as easy as threatening some bad reviews.

Think of the bad PR as an investment. These people will hopefully move on to
easier targets now.

Not saying I agree, but I think that's the rationale.

~~~
epsylon
The angry customers aren't "getting" 300$. They're getting _their_ money back.
Virtuous giant lose virtually nothing in the process (perhaps the cost of the
transaction and some man-minutes for processing the refund).

And customers wouldn't threaten some bad reviews if VG agreed to refund:
They'd just get refunded and move on!

This is a pretty bad PR move in my opinion. In fact, it's worse than the
threats that the original customer would have carried in my opinion.

------
codegeek
I understand that ignitiondeck has a no refund policy and hence they were
technically/contractually correct in not giving the refund but seriously why
would you go this far calling your customers "terrorists" ? Not to mention
that to save the $299, they probably spent lot more time and hence money
trying to fight with this customer.

"The reason we do not offer refunds is because our products are digital in
nature, and digital products can easily be copied and reproduced."

Wait, what ? As a consumer, I personally dislike companies even if digital
that do not offer refunds. yes people can abuse refunds but when it comes to
abusive customers, there are many things they can do to waste your time and
money even if you don't give them a refund. As far as the digital part is
concerned, I don't understand the argument. If they have already downloaded
the stuff, then it is always open to be shared with anyone and you really
cannot control that. That is the risk of doing digital business. What does
that have to do with refunds ?

I am sure most customers are not abusive and refunds can sometimes be
genuinely needed. This company sounds like they are trying to be too
protective by having these kinds of policies.I would even go too far by saying
in my opinion, strictly no-refund companies are a no no for me. Just doesn't
give a trustworthy perception to me at least.

------
spellboots
How ridiculous. This post sounds like a pair of children fighting. And whilst
your client seems very annoying, calling them terrorists for opting to
exercise their perfectly valid rights to (a) engage you in legal proceedings
and (b) write about their experience and publicise this writing make you look
a lot less professional that they do.

~~~
6d0debc071
To be fair threatening to have your 'SEO staffers aggressively hit the forums
and ratings hubs' seems a bit beyond standard writing about someone. It seems
more like they're threatening to flood with lots of reports of bad service,
where only one would really be an honest reflection of an experience that
successfully picks out the company involved.

Which seems more akin to fraud than honest reviewing.

~~~
pm90
Fraud, yes. Terrorism, no.

~~~
6d0debc071
I don't disagree, they seem like bullies who think they can threaten their way
out of something they've given their word on - but that's not necessarily
terrorism for all that it seems a similar approach in some respects.

I take the article to have been more a play on Reagan's statement than
anything else:

 _" If you’re able to remember back to the days when Ronald Reagan was
President of the United States, he issues a warning that the United States
would not negotiate with terrorists, a policy that has been maintained to this
day.

We state this reminder only to explain that we treat our policies in the same
manner."_

~~~
MartinCron
Maybe people here are just to young to remember the Reagan 80s and can't make
the metaphorical leap?

------
moocowduckquack
_" The reason we do not offer refunds is because our products are digital in
nature, and digital products can easily be copied and reproduced. Once a
digital product has been downloaded, it cannot be recalled._

 _Additionally, refunds can be costly, as fees convert positive transactions
into negative ones. In other words, we lose money every time we refund a
product._

 _Lastly, we want to discourage the process of ‘shopping,’ that is, someone
testing many products in order to try them hoping to return the ones they do
not like. "_

You can't do business in Europe with that policy. The Consumer Rights
Directive expressly forbids it.

 _" Consumers have 14 calendar days to change their minds and return the goods
for any reason_

 _Currently under English law consumers have seven working days to cancel a
sales contract and change their minds. This is commonly referred to as the
'cooling off period'. This will be extended to a minimum of 14 calendar days.
The 14 day period will begin from the time the consumer receives the goods –
not at the conclusion of the contract as is currently the case."_

[http://www.out-law.com/en/topics/commercial/consumer-
protect...](http://www.out-law.com/en/topics/commercial/consumer-
protection/the-new-consumer-rights-directive/)

edit - oh, and as far as the Reagan thing, their memory seems selective. - _"
A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages.
My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and
the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a
strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading
arms for hostages."_

edit2 - Also, funnily enough, I am currently looking into buying various
wordpress plugins for my employer, and I know for a fact that they would not
even consider a company with this policy. So I guess I should thank Nathan for
bringing this to my attention.

~~~
eliteraspberrie
Canada has similar consumer protection laws. Here "no refund" means "stay
away."

------
mikemikemike
IgnitionDeck needs to accept that there are consequences for refusing to offer
refunds to unsatisfied customers. Either accept the negative reviews,
apologize for your policy decision, and move on, or rethink your policy,
because UX extends to the sales process.

This customer may be rude, but name-calling and public call-outs don't strike
me as a professional response. As others pointed out, they definitely spent
more than $300 publishing this post.

------
gnu8
The word terrorism is reserved for actions not approved by our government.
Please don't dilute its meaning by using it for a customer insisting on a
refund.

~~~
maaku
If you're going to nitpick, please be accurate. Terrorism is the strategy of
taking actions to incite terror within a population to achieve some goal. It
goes back much, much further than the current concept of a nation-state.

~~~
001sky
Its better surmised as just anti-civilian warfare.

~~~
maaku
What? No. Terrorism is the incitement of terror within a population. Waging
general, all-out war does not accomplish that goal very well - the certain
risk of an invading standing army is much less terrifying than the uncertain
risk of unseen agents with random but deadly agendas. The goal of war is to
conquer or destroy. The goal of a terrorist is to leave a social structure
intact as-is, but to spread fear and uncertainty within its ranks. These are
totally different purposes.

~~~
001sky
Nothing incites terror like killing innocent people. Maybe you didn't get the
memo? Picking the weakest and most vulnerable (children, women, the edlerly)
and adding a does of arbitrary intentionality (apparent randomness) also
helps. The word 'war', in general terms, also predates and is different than
your (apparent, statist) post-modern definition.

------
zrail
If "no refunds" is your policy, that's your policy, and there's no shame in
sticking to your guns. If that was my policy and a customer told me they'd
moved on and would like a refund, I'd tell them "tough cookies" and move on
myself.

That said, my products[1] have a full money back guarantee. A very small
percentage of my customers have taken me up on it and the ones who have have
almost always had a pretty good reason. The refund policy has basically cost
me nothing since Stripe refunds their fee.

[1]: [https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-
payments](https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments)

------
macspoofing
Urgh. That $300 is not worth the aggravation and all the potential negative
(and somewhat justified) PR. Not to mention they may pull the nuclear option
and simply do a credit card charge-back. Just give them their money back.
You're not looking like winners here.

//

On a separate note, with no try-before-buy and no refunds, what do you expect?

------
programminggeek
A happy customer is potentially worth multiple other customers, a pissed off
customer potentially costs you many other customers. Because the refund rate
on everything is basically single digits, you should do a refund.

Why? Because the end result is basically going to cost you a lot more in
potential revenue than you are "saving" by not giving a refund. Say it costs
you like 3% to do a refund, that is like $9 on a $300 product. That $9 savings
is going to cost you hundreds of dollars in negative customer sentiment. If
they lose a single sale because of this episode, they are at a net loss of
$300 because they really wanted to save $9.

Even if you wanted to factor in customer acquisition costs at say $50 to get
that sale, you can't get that $50 back because you spent it either way. More
importantly, due to the negative publicity this is generating in the way of
"Ignition Deck Scam" type pages on the internet, it is now going to cost them
more to acquire new customers. So, that eats up even more of those measly $9
in savings.

No matter how you look at it not having a sane refund policy is costing them
more than it is saving them by a mile. What a foolish and shortsighted way to
run a business.

------
rogerbinns
Don't IgnitionDeck realise they can't win? The customer will do a credit card
chargeback which almost always goes through.

Joel wrote about this -
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html)
\- 7. Greed will get you nowhere

------
TrainedMonkey
Do not refund them. Send them $300 gift card, with hand written note
explaining that you cannot issue official refund due to license they agreed
to.

If such situations are as rare as they claim you will come out ahead.

------
patio11
As a counterpoint: I have the opposite policy for refunds, and have for the
last 8ish years. The official version, to satisfy my accountant [+], is a full
refund with no questions asked for 30 to 60 days. The unofficial version is
that I will give anyone a refund in (basically) perpetuity. I think my current
record is 70 months after the transaction.

My refund rate for BCC is 2.7%. That's the easiest one for me to calculate
with a single SQL query. Don't hold me to these, but I think AR and my other
products are at about 1% and 0.5%.

Refunds are a very easy way to amicably part ways with ex-customers who are
not good fits for you, rather than having the resolution where a) they can't
use your software and b) they feel like you've stolen their money.

Refunds quickly remove problem customers from your inbox. This will save you
time and, more preciously, sanity.

Prominent money-back guarantees frequently increase sales in a statistically
significant fashion across your entire company. This is one of the cheapest
A/B tests to implement, by the way, since you can create a guarantee by adding
two sentences of copy.

Most customers have a fully functional put option on your digital goods,
brokered by their credit card company and assignable to you instantly by
saying the words "Internet merchant" and "chargeback." You should prefer that
customers resolve disputes amicably, via refunds, rather than aggressively,
via chargebacks. Chargebacks come with aggressive fees ($15 to $25 plus the
purchase) and accumulating too many of them can get your merchant privileges
revoked. (This is about the point in the post where somebody is going to
suggest adopting Alpha Black Lotus Depository Certificates, which they believe
to be superior to credit cards because ABLDCs don't have chargebacks. This is
a moot point because your customers don't possess ABLDCs, but be that as it
may, charebacks are _net welfare enhancing for merchants_ because, like
generous refund policies, _they encourage transactions_.)

Refunds will not typically meaningfully impact your cash flow in a digital
goods business. You probably have stupendously high margins -- they absorb
refunds as a cost of doing business _quite_ easily. You can implement a
rolling reserve on yourself [++] to cover them -- mine is $500, which is more
than adequate at a revenue figure in the six figures.

\+ Your accountant may not be happy if you sell goods with perpetual
characteristics because it makes revenue recognition more complicated than it
needs to be.

++ Rolling reserve = "Don't spend the last $500 in the checking account",
which is good advice for a host of reasons, not the least of which being
you'll never worry about refunds impacting cash flow.

~~~
spinlock
I have the same refund policy specifically for chargebacks. Here's a fun side
note: despite the fact that I always issue a full refund, I had one customer
chargeback a purchase. I decided to contest the chargeback and, amazingly, I
won. I still don't know how that ended up in my favor but I feel like I just
saw a unicorn and wanted to share.

~~~
patio11
Here's my unicorn: CEO Bob buys the service, uses it happily for 6 months.
Bookkeeper Cindy wonders what this strange recurring bill could possibly be,
assumes it is credit card fraud, and initiates six chargebacks. I get on
phone. Bob brings Cindy on call, explains the situation, and tells Cindy to
call bank and cancel chargeback. We document the conversation over an email,
which I file with my credit card processor.

 _I still lost._

~~~
spinlock
I think our files must have gotten switched at the credit card company. What I
don't understand is why Cindy didn't remove the chargeback. That should settle
things for you, right?

------
DanBC
Hilarious that they write a wall of text about how no one ever gets their
money back and how unreasonable this terrorist customer is, and then the last
bit of small print is

> …The best I can offer now is we downgrade your account to the IgnitionDeck +
> Membership level and return the difference of $150. It is not a full refund,
> nor is it a refund of ($299 – $100), but it is a compromise that allows both
> parties to meet in the middle.

Which is pretty much what the customer was asking for anyway.

------
Pxtl
I appreciate not wanting to encourage a refund-oriented culture, but seriously
this seems like the worst possible reaction.

------
glurgann
Seems the party responsible behind this is vbsocial.com, who at this point,
doesn't allow comments. Surprise? I think not.

[http://vbsocial.com/ignitiondeck-scam](http://vbsocial.com/ignitiondeck-scam)

~~~
post_break
Ignition deck turned off comments too. Don't try and make it seem like one is
better than the other based on the fact that they don't have comments.

------
fmavituna
This is quite pathetic.

When your customer is not happy just find a way to make them so. Start from
solving their problems, then free license extension and get down to the
refund.

If you are actually losing worthy money at the end of the year due to refunds,
take a hard look at yourself, your business and the unreasonable expectation
you set while selling your software.

We apply these principles to selling a software with $6K price tag and it
works just fine, it should work much better and easier with $300.

 _P.S. If your policy is not to make any refunds (which is a bad policy) then
make it clear, and when someone tells you stuff like this tell them to "Sorry
you agreed our sales terms, no refunds. Thanks." And if they are aggressive,
don't answer. Also don't blog about it, so at least rest of the world doesn't
know that you are charging people for something they can't use and then
announcing them bunch of terrorist because they told you that they'll write
their bad experience about your product in various forums -even when they
choose a bad way to express this-._

------
comex
While threatening to SEO negative reviews immediately voids, in my book, any
sympathy the buyer might have generated, I'm curious why they can't attempt a
chargeback.

------
adam12
$300? This blog post makes that company look petty and cheap. Just pay the
"terrorist" his money and move on. Wow.

------
greenwalls
I think in this case it may be worth refunding their money and moving on.
These blog posts make both companies look bad.

------
adammil
This sounds more like "We don't negotiate with customers." because even if the
customer had been professional and polite about it, their policy is no
refunds. Even considering the behavior of the customer, IgnitionDeck is
getting some really bad PR for the sake of saving $300.

------
bradleyland
I think The Dude said it best: "You're not wrong, Walter. You're just an
asshole."

I don't know IgnitionDeck, but this makes me want to never do business with
them.

