How To Decrease Clickbank Refunds

By: Pawel Reszka

All of us at one time or another has had to return a purchase for various reasons. Wrong size, wrong color, received another just like it as a gift. However in all sales venues there are those that are less than honest about their returns. People have been caught switching price tags, going to a young associate (who may be less knowledgeable about the merchandise pricing) paying the lower price then returning the item a few days later finding someone who appears to be familiar with the merchandise and turning in the item (minus the "lost"' receipt) and receiving a refund of the full price. Due in part to that and other refund fraud scenarios many stores have gone to the store credit as opposed to a cash refund.

The Internet in general and companies like ClickBank specifically face an even greater challenge when it comes to refunds. Because you are selling a download there really is no way to "get it back" yet, since you guarantee satisfaction the money would have to be refunded to an unhappy customer. There are legitimately "unhappy customers"' whether the product just wasn't what they thought it would be or they found something they found more to their liking, however the internet is alive with people who are scam refunders. These are people who found a way to "get something for nothing"'.

Because ClickBank offers a 90-day full refund policy that they adhere to completely they become a real target for the scam refunders. Unfortunately what you have to do is to recognize this as the nature of the beast, doing the best you can to protect yourself. You have to do your best to make sure your website is an honest representation of the product you are selling. This wont stop the scam refunders but it will eliminate many of those that think you are offering something you aren't.. Read your web information over as though you know nothing about the product. Check for anything that might confuse you or seems ambiguous. If you adopt this attitude it wont be quite so upsetting when the refund request comes in. You cannot take it personally, it isn't a reflection of you, your website or your product. Even taking as much precaution as you can you can still figure about five percent of your sales to result in a refund.

Many ideas have been put forth to try to stop this fraud. One popular thought is to set up a list of these scammers. You would not really have access to the list but you could set your account to not accept orders from those buyers. This would be similar to E-Bay's blocked bidder list. Although this would be a big help, the biggest problem with this solution is that it isn't all that hard to set up multiple Internet identities.

You work hard to build your business and scam refunds are annoying but on the plus side the effect a no hassle refund policy has on making people comfortable ordering from you far outweighs the annoyance of the refunds.