An Analysis Of “Due To The Nature Of This Service” Claims

Have you ever read the policy of a service you were considering, only for them to claim that, “Due to the nature of this service, we cannot offer a refund”?

These types of claims are especially prevalent in online marketing. However, what’s perplexing to the average buyer about these claims is that similar service will often offer refunds whereas a few sellers of that type of service will not. Therefore, it’s not really due to the nature of the service, is it? Indeed, I once confronted a seller about this, but they claimed that it was due to the nature of their service, which did not fully clarify the matter further, but instead suggested that they were just unwilling to offer refunds.

So why would a seller be unwilling to offer refunds in the first place? Well, many times it comes down to the inexperience of the seller, but there are a few different reasons for this.

Penny-Pinching Behaviour

Some sellers are against offering a refund because they’re under the notion that once they have the money in their accounts, it’s their money. Whilst I can understand this isn’t immediately obvious, any good business will set aside funds in the event of a refund, as businesses often set aside funds for various other necessities, such as taxes and advertising budgets.

When a seller goes as far as refusing to refund a customer who didn’t receive what they paid for, this should always be seen as a red flag.

Lack Of Confidence In The Product Or Service

Whenever a seller doesn’t have faith in the success of their product, they’ll often deny refund requests. This sometimes comes along with penny-pinching behaviour, although by itself, an unconfident seller will simply just be in denial. They get the idea that because they’ve never had to issue a refund, nothing is wrong with their service. This goes on until someone either takes legal action on them or they’re removed from whichever platform they stay on.

Too Much Confidence In The Product Or Service

I’ve seen this one come up a couple of times in the past. There was one incident I recall where a seller claimed to offer a refund no matter what and for any reason. Pretty straightforward, right? Well no, because when someone did request a refund because they didn’t like the service, the seller said that the request was ridiculous and that they can’t request a refund just because they do not like the service. As you can imagine, their refund policy was changed shortly after.

Scamming

In the cases where a seller is scamming, they usually couple the “due to the nature of this service” claims with a requirement to pay via a non-refundable method, such as through PayPal’s friends and family or through cryptocurrency.

Conclusion

The next time you come across a service claiming that they cannot issue a refund due to its nature, consider the contents of this article. Whilst not every service that makes this claim is up to no good, and some services genuinely have a valid reason for not offering refunds; comparing them to their competitors can help you decide whether or not the product or service is worth pursuing.