Guild Wars 2

So, someone asked on reddit about how the refund policy works for items bought with gems, as they where refused a refund on a copper fed salvage o matic,

The reply from the dev was its roughly 30 days, but they don’t hold you exactly to that etc,

But the reply the OP got on the topic was that they have had fair use of the item, and a refund would not be issued,

How do they define fair usage, sure I bought a copper fed salvage o matic when they came out and have used it 10,000s+ im sure, so ive had fair usage, but what about that Infinite Continue Coin, I got to use that about 20 times and haven’t been able to use it again since, surely that cannot be deemed as fair usage……

Did anyone successfully get a refund on the coin, seeing as you could only use it for like 2 weeks, and we wont beable to use it again?

EDIT: Link to the reddit topic https://np.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/41wd77/so_has_anyone_actually_gotten_a_refund_for_their/

“Fair use” is probably a misleading phrase. It’s meant to cover the philosophy behind the policy, not the details, since those vary depending on the context. The idea is to look at the opportunity-for-use rather than the amortization (cost/use)

• For folks buying shared inventory slots, the idea is to offer refunds if the infinite-use items were bought within the month. Anyone owning them for longer had plenty of chances to use them.
• For continue coin, the opportunity to use them was limited in the first place to only when SAB was available, so arguably, everyone buying them had ‘fair use’, even if bought on the final day, since the end date was already announced. (At least, that’s how I understand it.)

The policy also allows for exceptions, e.g. someone who bought an infinite-use tool 35 days before buying a shared slot or maybe someone who bought eight of them 3 months before. Companies always share the hard cutoff date and are never going to share a soft one (if it exists): once the soft date (or circumstances) are known, it becomes the new hard cutoff.

Is this the ‘right’ policy? Is it appropriately implemented for the Continue Coin? That’s a matter of opinion, not of fact.

tl;dr ignore the term ‘fair usage’ and stick with the details: no refunds for continue coins and refunds for shared-slot buyers with infinite-use tools bought within 30 days, with appropriate exceptions for extreme or borderline cases.

GW2’s refund policy when it comes to refunding the game or gems is 30 days. For purchased gem store items, it’s more like 1, maybe 2 weeks.

Fair use is entirely based on time (current date – purchase date).

The game is evolving, new items are being created as the game grows. Anet is being generous and offering a limited refund for those who want it. With the unlimited salvage kits, they are account bound, you could have always choose to move them from character to character. It was your choice (convenience) to buy multiple sets when you didn’t have to. The shared inventory slots are also convenience items. If you have unlimited salvage kits on every character you don’t need the shared inventory slot for them.

As for the continue coin, it was another voluntary purchase. I lived in the SAB when it was out, I never bought one or even needed it. I still have the regular continue coins left over sitting in my bank. As far as I know Anet has never said that SAB will never come back, its just got coding issues with the current game. What if they refund the coins today and plans change and SAB returns 6 months from now? What if they decide not to offer the continue coin again? Everyone that got refunded will want it back.

Gator.5729:

The game is evolving, new items are being created as the game grows. Anet is being generous and offering a limited refund for those who want it. With the unlimited salvage kits, they are account bound, you could have always choose to move them from character to character. It was your choice (convenience) to buy multiple sets when you didn’t have to. […]

Of course it’s your choice and technically they aren’t obliged to refund anything. Calling it generous is still a long shot in my opinion. It’s just a bad precedent.
What if in a few months they add shared bag slots (which people mistook the shared slots for as it is) and the answer is ‘well, bummer, but you didn’t have to buy shared slots, could have speculated that bag slots were coming!‘.
Sure. But then I’d rather not buy anything in the gem store if I then run risk of sitting on a useless item / service afterwards. And that’s why their current refund policy is not great.

What constitutes fair use? I bought a tool and didn’t log in for 2 months due to real life and haven’t used it at all. So I don’t get a refund because of the time that has passed? Buying multiple copies of account bound things only happened because of a lack of shared slots in the past. They were bought with money or gold for gems, which drives up gem prices and gives incentive to convert gems to gold. It’s revenue that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and just saying ‘oh well’ surely puts people who buy multiples in a wary stance.

I get that it’s undesired to flood the market with refund gems, but it would be simple to find a solution, i.e. a sale. It’s what they did when they offered the HoT ultimate pre-order. Offer people a somewhat good deal on excess gems they may not really need and dangle an ‘anniversary sale’ in front of them, bumping them over the edge to say ‘what gives’ and buy the package. Then have a super disappointing sale with slashings on stuff nobody needs or asked for to flush gems out of the economy with impulse buys.

Bottom line is, if they wanted to, they could have a better refund policy and easily work around the effects and customers would feel valued instead of left alone or ripped off.

I think it undesirable for ANet to foster a culture where players expect a refund for anything and everything. These games have to move and change and inevitably there will be some stuff that becomes obsolete or just less useful. I don’t get a refund on my car when the new model comes out with a few more gadgets fitted.

Refunds for game items should be very, very rare imho.

Gem Refunds

If you purchased Guild Wars 2 Gems from the Gem Store and would like a refund, please submit a request to our Support team within 30 days of the purchase and provide the following information:

• The amount of gems purchased.
• Your billing zip code or postal code.
• If the payment was attempted by credit/debit card, please provide ONLY the last 4 digits of the credit/debit card used.
• If the payment was attempted using PayPal®, the invoice ID from your PayPal® payment history for the transaction.

Note: If you have used the purchased gems, you may not be eligible for a refund.

http://help.guildwars2.com/entries/27697743-Refunds

They’ll refund you for what you directly purchased with your money (i.e. Gems) but not what you decide to do with them. There may be exceptions but it seems those are on a case-by-case basis.