Thanks Hannah for your detailed response. I appreciate the service your website is offering very much. In regards to your explanation about Dropbox no refund policy, though, I wonder why the concept of "pro-rata" seems to not apply here? Isn't it completly fair to both the business and the customer to simply charge an "early opt out" customer the full, non-discounted price for the time actually used?
In my case with Dropbox, I paid $99 year upfront for "Premium" account, to obtain a discount from the $9.99/mo if paid monthly fee. It seems quite reasonable (and trivially easy through the use of computerized billing systems) to calculate the non-discounted monthly fee for the time used and then refund the difference--or even charge a "cancelation fee" of a small amount. But to keep the entire years fees? That's not reasonable, nor ethical IMHO. Unlike physical products that are handled, packaging opened, reduced in value in some way, damaged, un-resellable, etc. Dropbox's storage service is not harmed by my cancelation of unwanted/unused cloud-based services. Revenues are reduced--sure. But if they prorated my refund back to the monthly fee, they would have earned exactly what a person paying monthly would have paid, and thus be in no worse position whatsoever-- even from a revenue aspect. And if as you say, this is becoming the norm for cloud-based services--that's just sad. mark adams On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 7:44 AM, Hannah Poteat <[email protected]> wrote: > A clarification: the reason for ToS:DR isn't *to expose* anybody at all. > It's to inform users about their rights under the terms of use agreements > they're asked to agree to. > > "No refund" policies are legal as long as they're clearly and > conspicuously marked prior to purchase (and the law assumes, rightly or > wrongly, that consumers read the terms of use agreements prior to using a > website, so are informed about policies like this prior to purchase). Also, > a "no refund" policy like this one is very common for a prepaid, recurring > service like Dropbox's: it's rare to find a similar service that *does* offer > refunds. > > Let me explain why: let's say you're a small business owner. You offer a > service online where users can sign up and pay for each month in advance, > on a recurring basis. A user signs up at the end of January and pre-pays > for February. On February 27, after nearly a full month of use, the user > cancels his account and demands a refund. Here's another example: let's say > you're a small business owner. You offer a service online where users can > *either* have a free account that comes with a monthly data cap, or they > can have a paid account that has no data cap. A user signs up for the paid > service and pre-pays for February. By February 4, the user has transmitted > more data than he would have been able to with a free account. On February > 5, the user cancels his account and demands a refund, arguing that he > hasn't used it for a full month and should be credited for the unused > time...however, he has clearly gotten full use out of the paid service. > Enough issues like these crop up, and businesses simply adopt a "No > refunds" policy. > > Of course, some businesses do offer refunds on a discretionary basis. Not > all do, though, and it doesn't make a business necessarily *bad* if it > chooses not to. > > Hannah > > > On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 5:53:23 PM UTC-8, [email protected] wrote: >> >> Surprised Dropbox isn't on the BAD list for having a NO REFUND policy on >> their accounts...this doesn;t seem fair--a perfect example of the reason >> for tour website (to expose these companies). Here's the fine print... >> >> >> Dropbox Premium Accounts are prepaid and are non-refundable. DROPBOX DOES >> NOT PROVIDE REFUNDS OR CREDITS FOR ANY PARTIAL MONTHS OR YEARS. You may >> cancel your Dropbox Premium Account at anytime, and cancellation will be >> effective immediately. If you wish to cancel your Premium Account you may >> do so via your "Account" page. Should you elect to cancel your Premium >> Account, please note that you will not be issued a refund for the most >> recently (or any previously) charged monthly fees. >> > -- Mark Adams San Jose State University eCampus/Academic Technology Project Director -- PDEEP (Pakistan Distance Education Enhancement Program) PDEEP Website: http://sjsuaiou.wordpress.com/ Campus Office: IRC 206 One Washington Square San Jose, CA 95192-0135 408.924.2618 / cell 503.956.8760 Skype: PDEEPOnline *I have always thought it possible to live a GREAT life. Beyond all the nightmares we hear about in the news there is a larger world surrounding us, not just the resplendent world of nature, but also our own potential as people to live well, to connect with each other, to do meaningful work, to make powerful art, and to forge a different kind of future for ourselves and for the next generation. -- Andy Couturier "A Different Kind of Luxury <http://adifferentkindofluxury.blogspot.com/>" * -- tosdr.org | twitter.com/tosdr | github.com/tosdr --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Terms of Service; Didn't Read" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tosdr. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
