Unity refunds

Hey guys!

I was curious on how the new refund system works on the Unity Asset Store. Before, all issues related with refunds seamed to be dealt between the costumer and the asset maker. But since then, it as changed.

I'm fairly new to selling assets and today I got my first refund. Its no big deal, it was a 5$ purchase on my Texture Pack so I'm not that bummed out, but I was wondering if there is any way to see the buyer's reasons for the reimbursement. Since they where sent directly to Unity and not me, I have no way of knowing what was wrong with my product. Just to clarify, I would definitely give personally a refund to any customer who is dissatisfied. It's really for future improvement and to make sure it isn't anything wrong with my asset.

The reason I'm also asking is because I looked at the refund policy and they mentioned that any refund related to assets that are visible to the buyer before they purchased ( I assumed anything art related, a specially textures since what you see is what you get) would need to be dealt directly between the costumer and the asset maker. Maybe I'm confused or could it be that the price point is so low that they just figure why hassle? I would understand that.

Here is the official unity policy, what I read was the 4.6 Special Refund Requirements

So yeah! Any thoughts or ideas as to where I could find the reason?
Thank you so much!

Ps: I hope I'm in the right forum section!

 

The only reason you should be having a refund happen without you being consulted is in the case of a bad payment or double payment - you won't get a reason for those, naturally.

OR:

4.6.3
Assets that cannot be previewed by the Customer (such as software): Provider authorizes Unity to give the Customer a full refund of the Asset price if the Customer requests the refund within 2 (two) weeks after purchase.

You could contact caitlyn for more information.

 

Unity will do a refund if there was a mistake in the purchase such as two copies purchased for whatever reason when only one was required. Refunds due to an issue with the asset are only done via a request from the asset author. Unity may also do ChargeBacks if the asset was purchased with a stolen credit card.

 

Thank you Hippocoder and Spookycat!

The double transaction makes a lot of sense and now that I think about it, it could quite possibly be what happened.

Hippocoder, dose my Texture Pack fit in the 4.6.3 section? Wouldn't it be more in the realms of 4.6.2? Which seams to say that they need to contact me or did I misunderstand?

Thank you both so much for your prompt responses! I do believe the double transaction is what happened. It would make a lot of sens!

 

hey at least you got your money, I never got mine on the 15th of the month for some reason. I contacted a guy at asset store, but never heard back from him again. Hmmm.

 

@N1warhead

Did you earn anything in December?

Payouts are made for the revenue earned in the previous month. So if you earned money in January, it will not be sent to your Paypal/Bank Account until February the 15th.

Hope this helps

 

Ohhhhhhh okay, makes sense, I just saw on the FAQ's that they just paid out every 15th of the month.
(Maybe it could be updated to mention what you put?)

My first product was literally released on the 1st of the year lol.

 

Oh, when did the policy change?

 

It's always been that way as far as I know.

--Eric

 

It has always been this way. @N1warhead - The FAQ answer seems to explain it better: http://unity3d.com/asset-store/help#publisher-8101

 

I bought this pile of S*** that doesn't work in any way, shape or form, I left a review and started a thread and emailed asset store support 4+ times, 4+ months ago. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3768

Doesn't work whatsoever in Unity 4x or 5x, yet still for sale.

I emailed the author after bitching here on the forums and emailing support, I never heard a word back from him.

Somewhere between waiting for him to reply and Unity wanting me to talk to him, I forgot to actually file for a chargeback with my CC company.

Pisses me the F*** off.

 

Glad it wasn't my product lol.
I would have communicated with you.

 

That sucks ImBarns, I definitely would of gotten back to you if I were him.

That's sounds like bad costumer service.

Out of curiosity, Unity can give refunds withing two weeks of purchase, that's good, but what if unity tells the customer to contact the developer for a refund, how dose that work? Do you contact Unity and tell them to allow the refund once you got in contact? or do you have to pay out of pocket the full price of the asset (including unity's cut) back to the dissatisfied customer somehow?

 

I believe the publisher has to authorize the refund, but Unity has to actually do it.
http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/144729/asset-store-refund-policy.html

 

The seller has to authorize it for unity to give you any money back. You're out the entire purchase.

When you contact Unity they tell you to contact the seller. They will not do anything without the seller allowing it. If the seller has gone missing, you have to wait for a response.

I've been ripped for a $50 android plugin 1.5 years ago that was an empty jar file. I got it pulled from the store by claiming fraud but was never refunded.

In the future I will just call the credit card company and get my money back without Unity's help.

 

That's really sucky Imbarn! don't give up talking to developers though, we need to know whats wrong with our assets, and most importantly satisfy our customers! I think you were really unlucky with your purchases and I hope you get better treatment in the future!

 

Truly? Because despite this in the terms...

... the following has always been the experience reported by others, and my own experience the one time I wanted a refund:

If the seller has already authorized refunds in that case by agreeing to the standard terms, why do they have to explicitly re-confirm it every time? There are good reasons to do it this way: it probably deters people from going nuts on the purchases only to return everything in a day or two since they'd have to contact everyone in the middle, and you're also making sure sellers have a touch point to provide one-on-one service to keep the sale. The terms just don't seem to line up with the service as it is actually provided.

Edit: Actually, the one time someone wanted a refund from us was for a visual asset (which he openly stated was not broken or misrepresented), so it doesn't count here. And, the fact that Unity passed on his request anyway shows care for their customers, so no complaints there either.

 

I can't speak for the asset store, but... Some personal opinions until there is an official response:

Don't forget the difficulty and complexity of this situation and of digital assets in general.

There are already enough people who are outright stealing, and sharing or selling all of our assets (our being the collective of selling developers, as I put a few things on the store before joinin UT). Many like to "buy" the asset and then claim a refund, for whatever reason. Often they work on sharing sites and get points or kudos for sharing the most number of assets, or be the first to share a new one.

There are people who put up duff assets on the asset store, either out of ignorance (they think it's great!) or on purpose, even some putting up stolen assets from either other developers or items directly ripped from commercial games. These the asset store team deal withdraw effectively if any slip through. There are even more that have become stale over time, having once been the goto asset, and now are long since outpaced more serious developers as the assets store gains traction. (There is also a cycle where the support of an asset bogs the developer down so much that newer assets without the need for supporting a large userbase can outpace it in development speed.)

Returns are difficult because there is nothing physical to return. I can see why developers are reluctant to refund a sale. It's not like the developers can put the product back in a box and put it back on the shelf and put some sticky tape on the flap and try to resell it... The product barely actually exists. And there are no guarantees that the person who is doing the return isn't going to use them anyway, or use the code as a base to start a rewrite of their own.

I have had two request for refunds that I can think of (taking the UT hat off, and speaking as a developer before I was with UT) and both played out the same way. Neither of them had tried to contact me on my published website, my published email nor the forum. They had contacted the asset store directly. The asset store contacted me about the refund, asking if I'd refund the purchaser. I said we should talk first. The asset store offered them my sites and addresses, even tho they are listed. As I still had not received any contact and they were still asking for a refund. I reached out and contacted them thru the asset store support technician with a message to send to them. One never responded, and the other did and just said my product just didn't work and refused to tell me why nor would work with me to find a solution, and the interchange lasted one round of email. In both cases I didn't grant a refund. If I could have worked with the user and found they'd purchased in error, my product didn't work in their project, I was give a chance to fix my asset if it were broken for them, whatever, I'd consider a refund. Even just saying honestly to me, I don't want it now, might make me say - Here, have your five bucks back. (One product was five dollars, the other twenty.)

I have yet to buy an asset on the store that I didn't think deserved to be there, especially for the price. A few cheap things I bought, were... well... Cheap! And not very well thought thru. Several were abandoned and went stale, but the code is still ok and I can maintain it myself. I've never felt I've needed a refund. Many are slow to develop, as the developer has a full time job. I always research my purchases before I buy. I often email the developer and ask questions, and look at their website, and read their forum thread. If they don't have these, I hesitate to purchase, especially if the price is not trivial. I was one of the first purchasers of EZGui, if not the first purchaser; and I'd been in contact with Brady discussing my project and what I needed his package for, and checked to see if his product (at over $100) was what I needed. It was, and I was happy to help make him one of the first big publishers on the asset store.

It's not perfect, but that's the nature of this store - and the nature of the prices we see for these assets.

Now, imbarns, if you he contacted the Asset Store and have not received a reply, I'd suggest you either keep it up, or contact support@ to get some traction. You might be an edge case. From my (distant) vantage point, it appears that the asset store team is working regularly to deal with publisher/purchaser issues.

In theory: "all sales are final" as it's software, but the team has offered this window for returns, which is great for the purchaser. Let's hope it also doesn't hurt the publishers who are often working very hard to produce good product.

(and again, these are all my personal opinions having sold on the store!)

 

I don't have a problem anymore, I will refund directly from my CC in the future, already told asset support this.

When you email support they do respond, but this is the response:

And the publisher was missing in action.

So I told support I'll just dispute through paypal from now on and needed clarification if they'd ban my account for disputing an asset that did not work in any way shape or form.

I've bought 500+ assets over the years (both personally and on work acct) and have 3-4 that really were complete BS non functional in any shape or form. And for those few, when support is non existent it buuuuuurns. And it's not Oscar's fault Unity went the way they did with hands off support. Other stock sites (turbosquid) can actually download and test assets in real time while you wait and grant you a refund instantly if it doesn't work.

 

As a publisher, how do I know if an asset that our store sold was refunded without our permission due to a "double charge" or the condition that is stated below in 4.6.3 ?

We have no way of knowing who bought our product or why they got a refund. We are new sellers in the Unity Asset Store and this was our priciest item that took us a very long time to produce. I'm hoping it's not getting chopped up and resold somewhere. This is extremely disheartening, Unity. A response would be nice or at the very least I'd like to know who I can contact for more information.

Just to be clear: we love the asset store and this is a great opportunity for us on many levels, but mysterious refunds make us question whether we should continue creating content or move on somewhere else.

 

Of what I know, there is no way to tell. But yeah, I agree with you it would be nice to have access to that info. I was lucky it was on a fairly cheap asset of mine when it happened. By looking at the sales I got every day, I did notice I got two sales very close to each other, so it would make sens that it could be a double charge. I never got any kind of confirmation though.

May I ask, which asset of yours it was? And was it code or art?

 

As I understand it you can't get a refund without authorization from the publisher of the asset. If refunds are showing up in your publisher admin, it was probably a credit card fraud chargeback.

 

Well, there is the charge back and the Refund column in the asset sale page. Loosing the money from a Charge back is understandable and Unity shouldn't have to consult us for that. I like that they make it a separate column for it too. But what we are talking about here is the refund section. In my case and ViridianPhthalo's, we were issued refunds without our permission on assets that are considered visual. In my case it was a 3D character asset. That's kinda where the discussion stems from.

 

I would appreciate more transparency in these transactions. For example: an automated system could tell publishers if a refund was due to a double charge, some type of payment fraud, or a complaint about the asset in accordance with 4.6.3.

If credit card fraud is a possibility I would like to know if that person downloaded our asset.

It was art.

 

I completely agree! It's super important for the analysis of our sales. As professionals, I thing we should have access to more statistics. The Google analytic implementation right now is also a big issue for me. There is barely any valuable info in there. Yet, having access to the monitization metrics is crucial for us to be as efficient as possible in bring the most value to the asset store. That would truly make a difference.