14 Day iTunes Refunds Now Available, Providing You Haven’t Downloaded Your Purchase

A new policy in the iTunes store, somewhat hidden away, has revealed a new policy that allows up to 14 days for users to cancel their purchases.
Before you read any further and start getting worried that you could download a game / cd / book / music track or whatever you can’t cancel AFTER you’ve downloaded it.  Once you’ve downloaded anything you’ve purchased you have then waived your right to a refund

And yes I intentionally typed that in bold as people are under the wrong belief they can try before they buy all over the internet.

“If you choose to cancel your order, you may do so within 14 days from when you received your receipt without giving any reason, except iTunes Gifts which cannot be refunded once you have redeemed the code,”

the new terms of service agreement reads.

iTunes Gifts purchases as well as iTunes Match, Season Pass and Multi-Pass would not be eligible to cancel via ‘report a problem’.

It’s been a while coming but the recently-enacted EU Directive on Consumer Rights, which calls for giving users a 14 day ‘withdrawal period’ starting from the time the customer takes posession of the items or services purchased.

The Unsavoury Side of refunds.

Whilst welcome, I can see an issue with this if it applies to the iBook Store – those people who are, shall we say, less than scrupulous, now have access to a pretty impressive and free lending library.

What’s stopping me from “buying” a film on iTunes, watching it a few times, then taking it back to the shop for a refund?

Well there’s a term and condition for that:

“Exception to the right of cancellation: You cannot cancel your order for the supply of digital content if the delivery has started upon your request and acknowledgement that you thereby lose your cancellation right.”

So if you use/listen/stream/download your digital content you probably won’t be able to return it.

Might be a time to turn off automatic downloads

iTunes, Mac App Store, App Store, iBooks Store… The terms are listed here. Nobody needs to get unduly excited because the moment you actually start downloading the stuff you’ve paid for, the automatic right to cancel is lost. There is no buy, try, cancel option.