Refund from asset store

If you cant get a hold of the developer who's asset you have bought and the asset does not seem to work at all. How do you get a refund from Unity? Emailing them they just say the developer much issue you a refund. Reason I am asking is I have bought more than one thing now that I can not get refunded for and does not work at all.

 

You can get help from the developer, he can also organize a refund for you.

 

Apparently this used to be up to Unity but also apparently the new tos means the developer has to contact ut about it, which is a pretty stupid situation if youre in the position you are in but ut took a chunk of the sale. Even better, i've recently asked for a refund and the developer found my request completely reasonable and was great about it, but UT now take several days to respond to the developer themselves over a refund issue?

I think they need to have a bit of a rethink about their structure there.

I can't help you on this though, sorry, some asset devs can be kind of twats and a bit of a con and it's worrying that Unity are placing the responsibility for refunds in their hands while profiting, i'd hope they responded to this problem

 

If you do find an asset though that doesn't work or full of nothing, it can be reported. This will help weed through the crap some. Might sounds better then actually doing it though...
Understand the pain...

 

I myself have assets I am selling on Unity Asset store and understand that's its not easy for a developer to get back to someone, but there must be a better way to handle refunds. Like you said Unity takes a good percentage of the profits and for them to just put it onto the developer to decide who gets a refund is very stupid. You would think they would have a system in place where if you cant get hold of the developer then they would take responsibility for it. Also its not to say the product does not work at all, it could be that it does not do what you expected it to do thus is basically useless for what you bought it. We have more than one product that we are selling outside of Unity as well and if someone came back to us within a reasonable amount of time and said this does not work for them as in for what they wanted it for we are more than happy to issue a refund. And because we are selling on the unity asset store it is concerning to me as I am sure other people are thinking twice before they buy anything because of the current refund policy. At least say Unity can issue a refund within a few days or at least 24 hours after it was purchased that way there is at least something.

 

Unity haven't been very loud with this policy change, the developer i talked to was surprised i had contacted them about it as they said previously it just showed up in his account. It's definitely a pretty strange situation if you developers yourselves arent aware of this

 

Please don't forget to post a review on the Asset Store on what you feel is wrong with the package you need refunded so that future potential customers can keep that in mind before buying.

This is especially true if the product does not do what it says or is full of bugs. There's a limit to how much research can be done on some packages before buying, so helping out the next person who is shopping is good for the community as a whole. (And will help weed out any packages that are just plain bad.)

 

This policy change will do nothing but cut down profits for both plugin authors and Unity (since they take a cut). You can quote me on that. And new products by new authors will have a hell of a time selling *any* copies with this policy. I hope Unity considers changing it back. When did the policy change occur? I only heard about it today I think.

 

During these years I had several cases when customers asked me about refunds by reason, they decided not to use my asset after month or two from purchase. Or they asked me to add some things to my product "because it was uncompleted" by they opinion. And when I had no time to do it, they started to find issues in order to base their complains on something else and left unfair revues.

I hope there is not same case.

 

A long time ago (nearly 1 year). There were many complaints from sellers that refunds were being abused.

--Eric

 

Ok, if it's happened that long ago then fine. Maybe it doesn't affect sales much. I'm not sure what percentage of buyers (or sellers) are aware of it though.

 

That's means the person who bought it is the sucker. There are so many missing functionliaty in Unity that we have to buy, and we have to take the risk, like this?

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/194783-Buyers-Beware-All-Sales-Are-Final?p=1322241#post1322241

FYI, see how long Assetstore it took to respond. I talked to Paypal who also refused refund, then I did a chargeback through credit card.

This is also why I stopped buying unless it's assets.

 

It understandable if you don't give a refund say after 3 days but within 24 hours after you have looked at the product you should be able to get a refund. All stores in the world has a time policy on a refund that is reasonable. If someone is not going to use your product and they responded within 24 hours they should have no reason to pay for it.

 

Assets that aren't able to be previewed (such as those with code) have a 2-week refund window. That's posted right on the Asset Store Publisher Guidelines page. But yes, you have to contact the author to get the refund okayed. I do think it's good that you have to contact the author so they get a chance to fix your problem. However, if the author is uncontactable, you should get the refund anyway.

 

Wasn't my experience (and many others). In many case, Unity Assetstore team took more than a week to reply so that's already pass the window.

 

You need to get the plugin authors ok to get a refund before contacting the Asset Store for a refund. If you did that, it should not matter how long the Asset Store folks take to respond to your email. What matters is when you sent the email requesting a refund. If someone told you that is not the case, I believe that's definitely incorrect and we should call BS. Get legal if you have to, if you have proof of when you sent the email. The 2-week thing for non-previewable assets is STILL posted on their guidelines page, I looked yesterday.

 

If you aren't reachable for support or it's "hard for a developer to get back to someone", you shouldn't publish your asset on the Asset Store, unless it's free. And in fact, if the plugin author is not reachable, I believe such assets should be immediately and forcibly removed from the store, if support is needed by someone and can't get it (and it's not free). I don't believe there is any room for debate on this, especially with the refund policy being the way it is.

I do agree that if the author does not respond in a week or so, the refund should just be given by the Asset Store. Maybe not on the very first person to report this, because there are the inevitable spam filter problems. But definitely after 2 or 3.

 

Jerotas, not everyone is as responsive as you. And if you read the case I have, the package is a clear scam case. There are other instances as well. Get legal? Really? How? Get a lawyer for a $50 product?

 

I wouldn't go that far. At least mention that you may go to the Better Bureau Business and file a complaint if they don't refund your money, and actually do it if they do not relent. I would not stop arguing with them unless you see fine print that says that they have a right to "do nothing" even when you've done all you can within 2 weeks (try to contact seller and/or got a response from a seller that you should get a refund). I would argue to them that obviously if the seller isn't reachable you better refund my money on a broken product. And not only that, but they better add that condition to their refund policy paragraph. Beyond that, let's make a petition and have a bunch of Asset Store buyers and sellers sign it requesting that they add this last part to the refund guidelines. I'll sign it! We'll send it to someone high up if we need to.

I agree with goat, Unity doesn't have a leg to stand on if you use a credit card. We buy everything with a MasterCard, but we haven't had any reason to get a refund for a long time.

 

I just wanted to chime in here. We have published 4 assets on the asset store (Better Trails, NavMesh2D, etc) and last month we had a single refund but we never received a request for a refund. One of the users who purchased our product must have contacted the asset store team directly and gotten a refund - we were not notified at all.

This sucks because we didn't get a change to fix the issue - maybe it was an issue our other users are having as well? We'll never know. Instead, the customer got a refund and gave us a bad rating on the store. Zero communication. We respond to all our emails in less than 12 hours without fail (Normally within the hour), even if its just to acknowledge their request and tell them we'll be getting back to them at a later time.

Just thought we'd bring this up. When it comes to refunds, the system is full of holes. When it 'works', it works nicely. A long while ago I had a customer who had issues which I could not resolve (for reasons outside of my control) so I offered them a refund - they sent me their invoice ID, I sent an email to the asset store admins and I got him a refund. Perfect. However there seems to be instances where the system just doesn't work or the rules are not adhered to.

 

That sucks If they left you a bad review that has false information (like they couldn't contact you), you can report the review and it will probably get removed after a couple weeks. Removed doesn't actually remove the bad rating from the calculation though, it only removes the text part of the review.

 

Its not that much of a bother. I just thought it'd be good to bring up so we can start thinking more about the state of the asset store/refund policy. We really need rules/procedures in place that a user can follow to get a refund and these rules/procedures need to be followed like the law - enforced by the asset store admins and publishers. These rules/procedures should be easily accessible - not just some dot points written in some document no one is ever going to bother reading. On your asset page, show a 'refund' button someone that links directly to a page that outlines the steps you need to take the get a refund. I don't have any suggestions for what those rules/procedures might be, though I would hope it would include "contact the author for assistance" as one of the steps.

 

That refund button probably should be on the "download center" page, but sure, that sounds like a great start.

 

Oops, yes It would be silly to have it on the assets page - when I said "your asset page", i ment "the page with all of your purchased assets" ie the 'download center' - the name of that page escaped me while I was typing up my post

 

Are you sure that wasn't a chargeback? They won't issue refunds without contacting the seller as far as I know. Chargebacks are another matter, since they are generally the result of credit card fraud.

--Eric

 

Assetstore might not be registered in US. Anyway, that just waste more of my time. It should be Assetstore doing its part to get my biz, not the other way round.

Anyway, already suggested. and sent David before but yet see improvements.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/195691-AssetStore-needs-improvements

 

Thank you, I'll read the other threads.

 

Man, refunds are very painful,

been in that situation before and you just dont want to deal with it in the future since its painful to deal with.

I used to buy from assetstore all my items, and never had any issues with assets, always choose the right asset and asked lots of questions to developer before i buy.
but one time i bought a piece of crap , amateurish plugin that after the buy i contacted unity to request a refund due of not as described and non functional asset.
In the end i finally got my refund after more than a month of going back and fort, but ohh boy, ohh boy was so damn painful
process.

unity asked me to contact developer and ask him the refund instead of the assetstore, wtf, i purchased the item from unity assetstore and not from the developer particular store. unity washes their hands and they say that they dont have nothing to do with the purchase , so to contact the developer so he agrees with the issue and ask unity to issue the refund to the buyer.


so you have to contact unity first, then they ask you to contact developer and request refund from him, then developer contacts unity and gives green light, then unity refunds your money, but this process takes at least several weeks of headaches.



after this painful situation, me as a buyer i will never purchase another asset via the assetstore, it is just BS.
and i bet you many others share the same feeling.

my recommendation is if you need an asset, contact the developer and purchase directly from him, you get better chances to work out things straight with him or her instead of dealing with a third party dealer like the unity store.

make sure to purchase with creditcard via paypal, this way if the developer runs away with your money and no fix for the app you purchased, you can always count with your creditcard bank issuer and they have the power to do a chargeback easily and you get your money instantly from your bank, the bank tells you that they will investigate, but meanwhile you get your money instantly , at least that is how bank of america has worked for me with several online purchases that were not as described or had issues with.

your bank will always rule for you since you are their long time client and they will always favor you in most cases, ofcourse being legit cases and not abuses.

when the chargeback come directly from your credit card bank, there is nothing paypal can do about it, your bank credit card just plain reverse the funds and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

 

Yes I am sure. It happened again last month. So far, 2 refunds - one in May and the other in April. They appear as a '-1' under 'Refund' on my asset admin panel. Not under 'chargeback'.

I was not contacted about either of these refunds. I never knew about them until they happened.

There you have it. They will infact refund assets without telling the seller. This is my issue with the asset store. A lot of this refund stuff is inconsistent when it really can't afford to be.

 

The question is why did the costumer request a refund?
Not why was i not contacted about the refund.
In my humble opinion.
I am a victim of both, I need a refund now tho,
I see there's still no fixed on the issue?