Apple has responded to potential abuse of its new refund policy by inserting an alert that waives users’ rights to a refund.
Recently, and as a result of new EU legislation, Apple put in place a policy that allowed for 14-day refunds [Read: New App Store refund policy]. However, the policy was ripe for abuse and users could affectively download an app, request a refund, and not have that app deleted from the device.
However, Apple will now keep track of users with a track record of frequent refund requests – if they keep trying to refund purchases, they will be met with an alert (see below).
By accepting the confirmation, users waive their right to refund the purchase. They cannot make the purchase unless they agree.
How frequently a user has to request refunds for this alert to appear is unknown, and despite this improvement, users can still affectively ‘steal’ at least a handful of apps before the alert appears.