Android Police made an experiment on the issue of the Google Play Store’s refund time window – because it is, as stated in the Play Store’s support pages, officially at 15 minutes. This means that for purchased apps, the “refund” button should disappear after 15 minutes. Evidence somehow points to a longer window for this process.
Since December 2010, when the Google Play Store was still the “Android Market” (remember that?), it instituted the 15-minute refund window. There was of course no reason to doubt that, and 15 minutes seems like ample time to test out your purchase. But Android Police is acting on online rumors that the window has somehow lengthened to around 2 hours, as other people have tested it out and came to the same conclusion.
The experiment started with a purchase of an app at 9:50AM PST on July 31st, 2014, marked by the purchase confirmation screen above. The user then made a full restart of his device after 16 minutes, at which you would assume that the refund button should be gone. But it was still there, under the “My apps” list with the app that was recently purchased.
The post then posted pictures with time stamps, and sure enough, at 11:51AM – that is a solid two hours after the purchase – the “refund” button promptly disappeared. We don’t know what to make of this yet. Maybe Google is running some sort of test and gathering data on refunds. But unless Google makes any sort of official statement on this, we won’t know for a fact. What’s your take on this? Let us know.
VIA: Android Police
So they allow themselves two hours to issue refunds while allowing us only 15 minutes to cancel a purchase. Seems fair.
I placed an order at 8.22am, went to cancel the order (lost track of time) and had no refund button. However, I uninstalled the app and my order was cancelled at 10.09am. They’re pretty good with this, much better than the “other” app store!
I think it’s a good move to lengthen the time allowed to refund, sometimes you need a little longer to work out if the app is worth it.