Found out today that the only way you can get a refund on the asset store is to contact the author directly. This is the same as buying a can of beans that’s defective from your local store then being told that you need to contact heinz or the manufacturer instead.
It’s currently the only store I’ve ever used that has this policy, and I think it’s a little absurd, placing pressure on the purchaser to track down the author, argue and in some cases, avoid getting a refund due to fear of confrontation. I will be purchasing very carefully from this point.
While I don’t anticipate many problems, it is a valid gripe in my view.
I concur. It’s a horrible return policy. So rather than an impartial-ish 3rd party doling out refunds, you need to ask the person who directly loses money. Sure Unity itself may lose a few bucks, quid, whatever, but the person making the decision does not.
7 Assets that I have bought which were over $70 each are now not available for me to download any more. When contacting the authors I get either no reply or their website and email are no longer online, as if they have disappeared off the face of the earth.
One pack of models turned out to be an asset from Turbosquid which was free. So I know now that it was removed from the asset store for that reason. I wish they would have told me though, the asset store admins that is.
It’s the law in my country that you’re entitled to a refund regardless if within a set amount of time if it’s not fit for it’s purpose. Still hasn’t changed anything though…
In any case I’ve decided not to bother with the refund. It’s wasting more of my time than what the asset cost. It’s a good asset - just it doesn’t work on my target platform very well. Hardly the author’s fault, but did merit a refund.
So onto the improvements:
allow people who sell assets to have contact details of the person who bought it.
enforce contact details both ways.
take care of product refunds.
I think that would improve matters. I bet a lot of asset authors cry out to be able to tell their customers the latest news but are unable to.
And thats how slowly a company eventually paves the way to turn to shit. It stems from greed, and being anti-customer in favour of maximizing profits and deferring losses onto someone else except themselves.
Old humble UT back in the day would never have made a policy like that, the new corporate powerhouse UT would.
As more time goes by expect to see more and more of that type of thing because they have essentially lost control of the company and now must answer to investors and those demanding return on investment.
OK hang on this isn’t a Hate thread. It’s just pointing out places the service can be improved from our points of view, no need to bring the pitchforks…
It’s nothing to do with “greed” or any of that. The reason is because of people selling assets complaining about people abusing refunds. So they changed the policy to what we have currently, which I’m not sure was really the correct solution (in fact I’m pretty sure it’s not), but it’s not due to wild claims of greed/corruption/etc.
Refunds should go through the Authors first, if denied or ignored within 7 days the Purchaser should be able to contest/escalate it to Unity. Unity could then auto-query the Author for an explanation, if no response within 7 days then auto-refund, otherwise the response would trigger a valid case to review for the refund with both parties already having provided a statement to review.
Thats minimal overhead for Unity, retains the Authors authority and gives the Purchaser his rights.
Local law of any country applies. I’ve been stung a few times by the asset store, whilst generally the money in one instance doesn’t really matter. But keep getting stung and it adds up, unless it’s proven from a well known dev studio I’ll not touch the asset store.
While it’s never been a problem for me, I agree with hippo. Having purchased a fair few things from the store and having also sold a fair few things, it’s a potential pain that there’s no central management of refunds and it’s a bit dodgy from the point of view that, like hippo says, that’s typically expected to be a part of a store’s responsibility.
I’ve only ever had to give one refund, and I’ve only ever had to ask for one refund from someone else, so I guess it hasn’t been a big deal yet.
I suspect that if you can’t contact the author Unity will help you out. Someone once complained to Unity that I couldn’t be contacted in regard to an Asset Store sale (even though that wasn’t really the case) and Unity contacted me on their behalf immediately. So it’s not as if they don’t act on these things.
Well, two things there.
The “as required by law” thing is key. There are circumstances where you’re legally entitled to a refund, and it’s the default position of most stores that no refunds are given otherwise. So the policy isn’t at all unusual, and at least where I live the legal conditions for refunds are pretty fair.
That’s the contract position, but the practical position seems to be far more lenient than that. I was once asked to provide a refund by a customer who had no real reason to ask for one, and when asking what Unity’s position on the matter was the staff member said it was up to me but suggested that I allow the refund unless I had some strong reason not to. I’m guessing that the contract position is a hard line of no refunds more to cover Unity legally rather than specifically because that’s how they intend to run the shop.
Also, the one refund I’ve requested is one that neither Unity nor the seller was obligated to allow, but they were both cool with it. I’ve said it in the past and I’ll say it again - the relationship you have with the people you deal with is often the important thing.
This is important to note - the policy change was due to evidence of abuse/fraud with the old refund policy. I do think there’s a middle ground between the policy right now and what was in place before, though.
Something like this sounds like a good idea, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were working on the infrastructure to make this possible. I imagine a scenario like this:
User hits a refund link on an Asset they have purchased (this link disappears after X days).
Automated refund request is sent to the publisher - the publisher has X days to respond in order to either A) grant the refund B) contest the refund.
If no response, the refund is granted. If the issue is contested, Unity can either grant or deny the refund based on the information given. This would be the final say.
Something like this minimizes chances of fraud, and makes the refund process easier (whether or not you are eligible to request a refund becomes obvious by the presence of the refund link).
I had to whine on the forums for them to remove the $50 asset that was bogus and when I asked for a refund I got the hard line no refunds, then made a forum post and magically they took the asset off the store. It was completely falsely advertised and initially Unity said tough shit until I made a bit noise about it.
Had a similar problem with another asset I lose $65 on and the asset seller ignored me until finally I just bought a different one and ate the $65…
I no longer buy anything that isn’t reviewed unless it’s a 3d model that I can clearly see.
Unity doesn’t just grant refunds for false advertisement…I can tell you from experience that I’ve had and others here as well.
I like the way half.com used to do it (and might still). I purchased some textbooks from them when I was in college and I never received them from the seller. I filed a dispute with Half which is an automated process that contacts the seller. In my case, the seller either never responded or couldn’t prove that they sent the books. Half then issued a refund.
I think that type of system here would be a good compromise. Unity could easily identify those who abuse the system, but it would also allow them to log and identify problem assets. So when you have an asset that doesn’t work for a particular platform and it isn’t specified, they could issue the refund and delist the asset until the author fixes the issue. This would help promote higher quality assets as well as protecting both the buyer and the seller.
Yeah, I like this general concept. At the moment there’s a bit of manual running around for three separate people, where really one person raises a query and then two other people can agree or decline.