Apple gets serious about enforcing new EU refund rules

Apple users in the EU rounded-out last year with the arrival of some good news about consumer rights and how they applied to their digital purchases, as Apple found itself compelled to enact a new two-week, no-questions-asked return policy on many of its digital goods, including apps. Lest you think that such a policy is a free pass to download and return apps as you please, Apple’s rules made clear that your right to return would be lost upon actually downloading any content: you could purchase something and change your mind just fine, but buyer’s remorse after actually installing an app fell short of these new protections. At least, that’s the way the legal fine print said things would work, but as Apple users discovered, the company seemed to be much more willing to give shoppers the benefit of the doubt and allow even post-download refunds. It seems that gravy train isn’t lasting forever, though, and Apple’s now warning users who abuse the system about its no-refunds-after-download rule.To its credit, Apple appears to be acting quite reasonably, and giving users more leeway than it may legally be required to. What seems to be happening is that after shoppers make a couple returns, or Apple otherwise detects that they might be trying to abuse the new two-week return window, subsequent purchases are accompanied by the notification pictured above. With that impossible-to-ignore disclosure, Apple insulates itself from pushback over returns being denied due to that already-downloaded rule.At least, Apple hasn’t formally explained that this is what it’s doing, but from the evidence that we’ve seen so far, that’s how this all looks. If you don’t go crazy with return requests, you may never see the message above, and once you do, well, don’t come crying to us when Apple denies your refund: you’ve been warned.

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