Should I grant a "good will" refund or not?

[Karimbo]

I have an event equipment hire business, recently we have been trialling some interactive display stands for demonstrations.

Client has a app store magazine they wanted to feature, we purchased iPads and iPads stands specifically for them.

Unfortunately their magazine kept crashing, possibly because of bad conversion to Apple news stand format.

Also the magazine stupidly requires it to connect to the internet before launching, perhaps an anti-piracy measure. Although, I'm aware that newsstand magazines and newspapers tend to have that issue in general. Apple fixed the problem but requires all publishers to update their magazines to work.

Anyway, long story short.

The magazine was plagued with problems on the day, no wifi connection available on the day, we supplied them with 3G ipads and the 3G connection was weak so it wasn't available for some time which prevented the magazine from working.

They decided to throw in the towel after the iPad failed at the start of the day (caused by 3G connection problems), so didn't bother to retry it for the rest of the day at all.

Honestly it's nothing to do with us, we provided the hardware and loaded the software they had asked us to. It's in our contract, we cannot be held responsible for failure of apps or operating system (this is down to app makers and Apple).

Now they're asking for a refund, I don't know how to break it to them. it's their own bloody app that failed nothing to do with us.

If I suspected that we would do business with them in future, I would offer them a partial refund. But I suspect we probably wont do business again (partially because it's a annual event for them so they wont do anything until next year).

Your response is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[ethical PR]

I think it's best to refer them back to your terms and conditions and explain (if that's what it says) that it's not refundable - you provided the service in line with your T&Cs and contract. Unfortunately they were not able to use it because of failings of their software.

 

[StevensOnln1]

If it was all beyond your control, I would only offer a refund if you think they're likely to bring you future business. Otherwise you don't gain anything.

 

[TotallySport]

agree with above, state you provided everything as required, and the failure was down to elements you were responsible for, and refer them to the terms and conditions.

Stay strong, there is no harm in them asking for a refund, but that doesn't mean you have to give them one.

 

[Deleted member 138423]

Offering a refund, albeit partial, shows that you are in fact responsible and that you admit it.

Respectfully remind them that the problems were associated with their side and that, if you then have to, remind them of your terms and conditions.

If you have explained things well and respectfully, they then should have no issue with you, but if perhaps they don't then that perhaps shows that you shouldn't spend any more time explaining things to them.

 

[tony84]

You dont say how much your talking about, if its £100 is it worth the hassle of the argument and losing good will?

If its more like £1000 then i would probably be more inclined to argue it. Maybe, offer them the same next year for a 50% discount - as a gesture of good will.

 

[Karimbo]

Thanks for the responses, I am going to stick by my guns and refuse to refund them. I will probably not do business with them anyway (it's not a recurring thing, it's a one off seasonal event for them). If it was a PR company that I work on a regular basis I wouldn't mind helping them out.

At first I thought I had a buggy ipad on my hand, I spent a great deal of time on this and took the iPad to apple store, found out from them how to get bug reports and had a look at it, and then figured out what went wrong.

The invoiced amount isn't much, but I put too much time into this for my own good to now give money back for their own shortcomings.

 

[Cheapwebdesign]

Hi Karimbo,

I have had a similar situation before where a customer is clearly in the wrong and wanted a refund regardless. I think the best thing would be to very apologetically explain that the service you provided to them was the display stand and use of a functioning iPad. The fact that their magazine was not compatible offline and there was no reception at the venue is down to the customer, not your service and unfortunately you are not able to offer a refund. It is worth perhaps learning from this though, if this is a regular product you sell, to check for wireless reception at venues before hand or pre-emptively explain to the customer before.

Hope it works out ok!

 

[jolia]

This seems a funny question to ask doesn't it. Are you testing our morals. If you haven't delivered on your promised service, whether its your suppliers fault or not, you are responsible to your customer and your supplier is responsible to you. That's the legal stance on it, without whether you want to give good will gestures.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

If the contract specified that you would provide an internet connection, and you didn't, then they could argue a refund on that basis alone. i don't think thi is as cut and dried as you think, so have a real good think about what was said on emails etc, because if they have asked you if there will be internet connections and you have said yes, then you may unwittingly have varied the contract.

 

[TotallySport]

my experience of expos is its the exhibition that provides the internet (sold through the premises), and you have to pay to use it.

I have never been able to by the connection from the people I have rented any racking, or display equipment from.

 

[Karimbo]

If the contract specified that you would provide an internet connection, and you didn't, then they could argue a refund on that basis alone. i don't think thi is as cut and dried as you think, so have a real good think about what was said on emails etc, because if they have asked you if there will be internet connections and you have said yes, then you may unwittingly have varied the contract.

Good questions.

Honestly, they didn't ask for internet connection and how much internet is required. They did ask us for an iPad with 3G and 3G sim which we provided.

I looked at the network coverage in the area and found that EE has the strongest network there so I supplied them with that Sim.

During the event it got really busy just before mid day and the 3G network must have gone overloaded and the internet stopped working.

We have met out obligation as far as that is concerned. To be honest I didn't even know that this app needed the internet at all and this was not stressed to us. I later found out after running diagnostics that the newsstand magazine requires an internet connection just before lauching and it also checks for an internet connection every hour or so.

I don't think the buyers even knew that. Very easy to miss because 9/10 times people read magazines at their leisure at home which has a wifi connection so they would not have come across this problem before. Neither did we because when we tested it in our office the app ran fan.

We've hired out laptops in the past and clients ordered 3G sim (expensive add on) and we found that they just use 3MB or something low. I don't think they needed it - just asked for it becasuse it's nice to have.

So when this client ordered 3G I assumed the same too so I just supplied it to them. Had they stressed that an internet connection is so crucial for the running of this app I would have given them a vodafone, three and o2 as backups in a mifi device.

 

[Karimbo]

my experience of expos is its the exhibition that provides the internet (sold through the premises), and you have to pay to use it.

I have never been able to by the connection from the people I have rented any racking, or display equipment from.

yes it's very expensive too. At excel it's about £150 for one device starting, they charge more depending on the industry.

E.g. if its a small business exhibition they may just charge the £150, if it's an international weapons fair consisiting of companies worth billions they might just charge £500 per device for wifi access on the event.

Some people want to do it on the cheap so they use 3G mobile - which is hit and miss. They could have always paid a premium for the wifi access at the centre (which will be unnamed for privacy reasons).

I think the problem is that they thought the hardware was faulty and they threw in the towel, they didn't even know themselves that their own app needed an internet connection to work. If they had known perhaps they would have bought wifi passes for the devices.

 

[TotallySport]

yes it's very expensive too. At excel it's about £150 for one device starting, they charge more depending on the industry.

E.g. if its a small business exhibition they may just charge the £150, if it's an international weapons fair consisiting of companies worth billions they might just charge £500 per device for wifi access on the event.

Some people want to do it on the cheap so they use 3G mobile - which is hit and miss. They could have always paid a premium for the wifi access at the centre (which will be unnamed for privacy reasons).

I think the problem is that they thought the hardware was faulty and they threw in the towel, they didn't even know themselves that their own app needed an internet connection to work. If they had known perhaps they would have bought wifi passes for the devices.

It is very expensive, which is why we never purchased it, but you would have thought they would have arrange a better supplier for a product that is dependent on it.

Which is why I wouldn't give the refund.

 

[pen2670]

Good questions.

Honestly, they didn't ask for internet connection and how much internet is required. They did ask us for an iPad with 3G and 3G sim which we provided.

Hmmm in their shoes if I'd asked for an iPad with 3G sim I'd have considered myself to have asked for an internet connection. Depending on whether you came accross as a Techie or not I might have expected you to come back with any possible issues with the 3G sim not being able to be relied upon before the day...

 

[Karimbo]

Hmmm in their shoes if I'd asked for an iPad with 3G sim I'd have considered myself to have asked for an internet connection. Depending on whether you came accross as a Techie or not I might have expected you to come back with any possible issues with the 3G sim not being able to be relied upon before the day...

To be honest, I think you're overestimating our involvement in the tech in this. We're just an equipment supplier we do not provide technical support, nor are we supposed to. We just charge for the hire of equipment and do not even invoice them for setup or anything else.

We weren't even told about the name of the event or how many people will be there, for all we know this could be just a small event with investors and publishers not a full scale public access event.

So our scope is very limited here.

I emailed them and told them exactly where we stand and explained in depth what caused the problem etc. They responded that they're happy with our explanation and even admitted they weren't even aware that a downloaded magazine requires internet access for verification. Had they known this they may have been able to fix something in the event.

Also I don't think they actually ordered an "internet connection", they ordered a "iPad wifi + 3G". We added a 3G sim card to their order assuming that if they're ordering a 3G iPad then they'll need sim cards too, without really asking them about the specfic internet requirements.

 

[sebsuma]

depends on weather it brings bad publicity really, do they have connections in the media?

 

[Karimbo]

depends on weather it brings bad publicity really, do they have connections in the media?

they ARE a media company. But regardless of that, we have adhered to the contract. We're more than happy to refund in full if we were at fault. But we're not. Read all the posts in the thread before replying.

 

[Concept Vehicle Leasing]

I would say - ask and see what they can do for you. Be polite and understanding and they should offer you a little something back in return for the problems you faced. Sorry it didn't work out for you!

I have an event equipment hire business, recently we have been trialling some interactive display stands for demonstrations.

Client has a app store magazine they wanted to feature, we purchased iPads and iPads stands specifically for them.

Unfortunately their magazine kept crashing, possibly because of bad conversion to Apple news stand format.

Also the magazine stupidly requires it to connect to the internet before launching, perhaps an anti-piracy measure. Although, I'm aware that newsstand magazines and newspapers tend to have that issue in general. Apple fixed the problem but requires all publishers to update their magazines to work.

Anyway, long story short.

The magazine was plagued with problems on the day, no wifi connection available on the day, we supplied them with 3G ipads and the 3G connection was weak so it wasn't available for some time which prevented the magazine from working.

They decided to throw in the towel after the iPad failed at the start of the day (caused by 3G connection problems), so didn't bother to retry it for the rest of the day at all.

Honestly it's nothing to do with us, we provided the hardware and loaded the software they had asked us to. It's in our contract, we cannot be held responsible for failure of apps or operating system (this is down to app makers and Apple).

Now they're asking for a refund, I don't know how to break it to them. it's their own bloody app that failed nothing to do with us.

If I suspected that we would do business with them in future, I would offer them a partial refund. But I suspect we probably wont do business again (partially because it's a annual event for them so they wont do anything until next year).

Your response is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Ash-CBO]

Agree with the above regarding not refunding if you genuinely aren't responsible. A tough one because of course you always half an eye on whether there is a slim chance of repeat business.

I too would refer them to your contract T &C's firstly and have a sensible discussion on what the real problem was. The issue I suppose is a continued complaint at which point im sure many would refund and of course this is your call. Personally if there is no real likelihood of repeat business and you aren't at fault I would stick to your guns