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When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

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Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#331

Post by bitexploder »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #94
bitexploder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when we didn’t have app stores. All we really need is decentralized app publisher trust. Centralized app publishing will always be abused by the publisher in the long run. It’s just too powerful and tempting to not stack the deck in your favor as the app store owner.

What if the choice really is to only make things lucrative for restrictive shop owners vs malware authors? So far those have been the only two options.

I think Microsoft did a good job with its drivers program. It was solving different (but similar) goals, and the bar was kind of high, but they essentially did a good job with their driver signing system. A web of trust approach is not horrible. You should know the reputation of software publisher before you install an app. App stores do a lot of static analysis and screening, and they yank unsavory apps, but their profit motive is suspect and inevitably biases them towards maintaining that model rather than giving the optimal environment that favors users and publishers.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#333

Post by oneplane »

syshum wrote: post #288
stu2b50 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because they're not the same class of processor. The chain is like Your bank account -> visa/mastercard/discover -> PayPal's merchant bank account -> the person you're paying bank account PayPal only replaces the ccs when you pay with their wallet. Otherwise they're just orchestrating the money flow (because integrating with the CC companies is a gigantic PITA)

PayPal is not a credit card processor, it is Money transmitter, different legally Stripe on the other hand is a credit card processor, and as a merchant you get a Merchant account, the same like Authorize.net who used to be the largest online processor before Stripe. Back in the day (and I have been out of that market for over a decade) Authorize.net absolutely refunded processing fees on refunds

Didn't PayPal get a bank license which also caused them to close a lot of accounts that were created decades ago by users that weren't old enough for back accounts back then?

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#334

Post by davidwhodge »

tomduncalf wrote: post #298
davidwhodge wrote: post #250

This does not match my experience with my App, Nikola. I've been able to match up the transactions and refunds as 1 to 1, price-wise.

Interesting. I wonder if it varies from region to region perhaps? Going to do a bit more research as this guy seems quite convinced they are taking the cut but evidently you’ve experienced otherwise!

Yeah I'm not sure what the discrepancy is. This afternoon I'm going to dig a bit more into my records.

In my data right now I see a few examples of an $80 purchase match to $56 in proceeds (70%) matched to $56 of a refund.

I can't say I think the 30% fee is appropriate anymore, but this particular case being made about refunds does not appear to be accurate for me at least.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#336

Post by stordoff »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #295
wlesieutre wrote: post #7

Does this mean if there's a developer I don't like, I can buy their stuff and refund it to arbitrarily cost them money at no cost to myself and there's nothing they can do about it? That seems ... not great, especially these days. What happens when mobs of internet morons decide review bombing isn't sufficient and realize Apple will help them cause direct financial harm instead?

Getting a refund from Apple is really difficult, so I don’t think this would be a problem. I once forgot to cancel a subscription, cancelled one day after renewal, and they would NOT refund me. It was a time based pricing model, so it’s not like I could’ve used any in-app credits.

Not for apps, at least in the UK - I've had four different apps (and one in-app purchase) refunded for a variety of reasons[1] without an issue.

[1] One listed features that were actually (expensive) in-app purchases, one didn't work, a new app had been released but they were still selling the old non-updated one as well (and I bought the wrong one), and one was just really clunky and borderline unusable; the in-app purchase was purchased by mistake (my thumb was resting on the home button and I hit something that triggered a purchase in the app by mistake, so it went straight through TouchID)

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#337

Post by [deleted] »

mywittyname wrote: post #282
jclardy wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is part of what is holding back iPad software. You can't charge $100 for Sketch and lose $30 when someone asks for a refund. Apple designed this around $1-$10 apps where losing $2 at volume is fine. What is worse, is that Apple doesn't remove the app from the user's device. When you get a refund of a paid app it is on the honor system for them to delete it. It is removed from their account, so they can n…

> What is worse, is that Apple doesn't remove the app from the user's device. This. Is. Ridiculous. We all know this is an intentional design decision by Apple and that they would absolutely not have designed the workflow this way if they had to dogfood their own platform.

[deleted]

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#338

Post by dgellow »

mwest217 wrote: post #229
andreasley wrote: post #195

A Statement of Tim Cook for the House of Representatives claimed that "For the vast majority of apps on the App Store , developers keep 100% of the money they make." [1] How can this be even remotely true if Apple takes a 30% commission for every sale in the App Store? [1] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20200729/110883/HHRG...

He's referring to the fact that most commerce on the App Store is for physical goods and services (Airbnb, Amazon, Uber, food delivery, etc). Apple doesn't take a cut of those transactions.

They do if your service is subscription based.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#339

Post by buildawesome »

syshum wrote: post #288
stu2b50 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because they're not the same class of processor. The chain is like Your bank account -> visa/mastercard/discover -> PayPal's merchant bank account -> the person you're paying bank account PayPal only replaces the ccs when you pay with their wallet. Otherwise they're just orchestrating the money flow (because integrating with the CC companies is a gigantic PITA)

PayPal is not a credit card processor, it is Money transmitter, different legally Stripe on the other hand is a credit card processor, and as a merchant you get a Merchant account, the same like Authorize.net who used to be the largest online processor before Stripe. Back in the day (and I have been out of that market for over a decade) Authorize.net absolutely refunded processing fees on refunds

Just to add, PayPal is also most likely a credit card processor, serving as a Payment Facilitator (PayFac), which enables others to become CC Processors. It happens that PayPal and Stripe are money transmitters, which may come with being a PayFac.

Auth.net is a gateway/portal that facilitates CC transactions, and while you may be refunded on processing fees for the use of the gateway, someone, somewhere is likely eating the interchange and most likely occurring at the merchant level.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#340

Post by tomduncalf »

davidwhodge wrote: post #334
tomduncalf wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I wonder if it varies from region to region perhaps? Going to do a bit more research as this guy seems quite convinced they are taking the cut but evidently you’ve experienced otherwise!

Yeah I'm not sure what the discrepancy is. This afternoon I'm going to dig a bit more into my records. In my data right now I see a few examples of an $80 purchase match to $56 in proceeds (70%) matched to $56 of a refund. I can't say I think the 30% fee is appropriate anymore, but this particular case being made about refunds does not appear to be accurate for me at least.

Could be that this developer is confused, maybe the way Apple represent the data is confusing in the records or something... in which case my apologies for spreading false information, but he seemed pretty convinced!
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