Ben Prater & his Software Secrets Exposed...
One of the 'classic' Internet hits

It has been, what? like 5 years or so since he launched
his report?

Online, that looks like 20 years of the offline world's time

Great article as well,
Tamer

The best attitude is ALWAYS: "Never ever give up!" Regardless of how some will scam for small amounts, I think the blocking of IPs seems fair.

That some will buy a second time is encouraging but if they even had the audacity to ask for a second refund we should have a website with e-mails listed as wannabe-scammers.

It may sound harsh but those who SUBVERT our chances to run a decent business of benefit to all the honest people should not go "unpunished"...

Just a thought, anyway.

If someone can use PayPal to pay with 2checkout, then they can go to PayPal to make a claim and get their money back.

Dan, that $100-$150 limit would make sense. PayPal isn't fighting my chargebacks because they are for several $20 products in a row, so in total I'm being scammed out of hundreds of dollars but because the individual transactions are low dollar amounts, they go right through.

But I do like your way of thinking about it... it's only an issue if it drives you out of business. My refunds rate is less than 1%.

About blocking the IP, I don't consider it vengeful entrepreneurship... it keeps the person from ordering from me again! Before I started doing this, it was VERY common for a refunder to order a new product from me again.

There are 4 billion IP addresses in the world... the chance that someone else will happen to get that IP address is very low, even if you block the ENTIRE subnet.

Thanks guys, I was feeling crappy about these people who refund for no reason but some of these comments really put it into perspective.

Use 2Checkout instead of clickbank as your merchant account. They now let your customer pay with paypal.

Besides you can always turn the refund situation around and say "Your money was refunded. I'm sorry my product was too complicated for you to understand at the present time. Please keep the product and use it when your expertise is ready to learn from it."

Let's get serious -- we are offering digital products. Once the ebook, software or whatever is produced and ready for sale, there's no more work that has to be done.

So if your product is excellent quality, you have maybe one or two refunds. No big deal.

Quit worrying about the refunds and go on to make even better products that give your more income.

Judith
P.S. The autoresponder ideas are great. Thanks for sharing that information.

Oooo. That's bad advice, Robert. I mean the part about blocking the IP address. That's just vengeful entrepreneurship which does nothing but to hurt the entrepreneur. You see, the vast majority of people do not have a dedicated IP, they have a dynamic IP. Sure, they might keep an IP for days or weeks, but they will eventually drop it and be assigned another one, so ultimately, they have a dynamic IP. The IP that was dropped is then assigned to someone else. That "someone else" will then be blocked from your site for no good reason and therefore you lose potential sales.

I had a cable connection at one time and I would keep my IP address for months on end, even if I shut off my modem overnight. But that does not happen to most people with cable - they get a new IP address more often than that. Now I have DSL and I get a new IP address every time I shut off my modem for more than 5 seconds.

The key to refunds is to realize that there will always be refunds and chargebacks and to expect it when going into a venture and price your product accordingly. There is no real secret to reducing refunds. I think we internet marketers have to look at things more realistically and positively. We are able to start up a business and make tens of thousands of dollars (and even more) in a year with very little overhead and in our own home offices with no real costly physical contact with the outside world - as opposed to our offline counterparts. Don't dwell at the downside and don't let it get to you as you cannot do much to change it and trying to and worrying about it all the time costs you a lot of time and therefore money. The followup thing you suggested might be good to reduce refunds and I would say go for it, but not because it reduces refunds but because it creates a good image for you even if it does not reduce refunds. IOW, forget about the refunds unless there are so many that you cannot stay in business. If that is the case, then the problem is most likely on your end and in your product, not in "the systems" you use.

Also, realize that some markets/products have a higher refund rate than others. One of those markets is the biz op/make money/make more money/IM market/products, especially those sold with pie-in-the-sky sales pages.

BTW, I believe Paypal still does fight chargebacks however the charged-back transaction has to be for over a certain amount. I think it's over $100 or $150 dollars. They don't seal with the smaller dollar amounts as it is too costly for them to bother with.

Dan

The key features of the regulations are:
1) You must give consumers clear information including details of the goods or services offered, delivery arrangements and payment, the supplier's details and the consumer's cancellation right before they buy (known as prior information)
2) You must also provide this information in writing
3) The consumer has a cooling-off period of seven working days.

This last point means that we MUST provide a refund by law if it is requested within 7 days.

It makes it very difficult when the item you sold is not a tangible item such as an ebook, software, ringtone etc.
You can't be sure that the buyer has deleted it.

As a programmer, maybe I should make all my software expire after 7 days and then issue a new key to people who have not requested a refund.