Title: [Pearl Shop] Allow more/unlimited Item refunds

Family Name: HellaSketchy
Region (NA/EU): EU

Suggestion/Comments:

Hello everyone. I'd like to give some feedback/criticism to the current refund policies for pearl items in place, found in the Operational Policies and the way refunds for these pearl items are handled right now. Specifically the amount of refunds available to the user, per month.

As of right now, the way it works is that you're able to refund your purchase of a pearl item once a month per family via contacting support or the self-refund system introduced in-game, found under F3>Purchase History. Doing so will convert your purchase back to pearls, a virtual currency offered by PA. This only works for as long as the items in question have not been tampered with and are in a state where they can be withdrawn (Boxed, Unused, etc.), or the purchase itself is refundable in the first place.

As such I'd like to ask the team over at Pearl Abyss to remove or alter this limitation of once per month and lower the refund grace period down to 48h - 72h. We have this easy to use self-refund system already in place in-game, but it's potential seems wasted to me. Lifting this limitation would free up more human resources too, since refund requests through the ticket-system would be lowered, or non-existent. The current requirements for a refund already prevent any negative impact on game balance. Any potential financial damage is already avoided by the conversion of real money into a virtual currency vacuum (in this case: Pearls) and the terms you agree to when converting, and since refunding a purchase of a pearl item will only refund you pearls, no harm done.

I think acting on this feedback will have positive impact on the satisfaction of customers and adds a nice QoL to the pearl shop, while freeing up GMs/CMs to do other work. We already have this Purchase History feature, why not make it do the heavy lifting?

Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong or add onto the discussion/feedback in a constructive manner. I will add other suggestions I deem good or interesting below!

Suggestions by other users within this Thread:

@WolfRocket: A family-wide cash shop inventory. A cash shop inventory where purchased items are held until you manually claim them on a character of your choice, similar to the system found in the MMORPG Lost Ark and many other. This would require a new system of preventing claiming purchases on ineligible characters however.

@Thyrnan: A Token-based refund system. A refund system that uses tokens which can be used up for refunds. Each month a specific amount of tokens (e.g. 1) is given to each user until a certain maximum amount of tokens is reached (e.g. 3). Tokens that have not been spent, roll over to the next month, as long as the maximum amount is not exceeded. For example: If you have three tokens and decide to use two of them, you are left with one token that you get to keep for the coming month. Once that next month comes around, an additional token is provided, leaving you with two.

EDIT #4: added new suggestion from Thyrnan
BUMP #4

haven't said jackshit on forums since i started playing bdo in march 2016 but i'll have to agree. Kakao-games used to handle these sort of things much, much better back when they were publisher + now we have better solutions in place and are still sitting in stone age with support in some areas

weight limit is char-bound cuz it's restricted to 1x per char, being able to move them would circumvent that. Not sure if there would be a different way to fix that 

They are char bound and you can only buy 1 per char, because otherwise you could have chars with realy heigh weight limit.

basically what i said, but also not point of this feedback, yeah.

Thank you for your insight. Makes sense!

Refund is not supposed to be a hold untill you see a better deal to buy function, hence the time limit. Also it would certanly not be ideal from support's point of view to deal with players asking refund for 2+years old purchases.

this is probably one of the dumbest things I have ever read, ANY business would fail if they allowed unlimited refunds of paid goods, Its honestly laughable that you feel so entitled that you think you should have unlimited access to refunds.

common sense really, no business can stay in business by having a unlimited return/ refund policy, most stores may offer a 15 day or 30 day return policy for unopened pysical goods however they do that because goods are a limited supply and they can restock it but they usually charge a restocking fee, Purchasing virtual goods is not something you can exchange and no company treats it as such. Purchases are as is and at any moment you could lose access to all your purchases if the company chooses to either ban you or close the game. Buying virtual goods in an MMO doesnt entitle you to anything its just pixels on a screen and you dont actually own any of it your just purchasing a temporary license to use it that can be revoked at any time for any reason. If you want the ability to own something, sell it then buy something that isnt pixels on a screen. Dont spend money on virtual goods if you cant afford to throw away the money.

WolfRocket's and your replies show me that you did not fully read or comprehend what this is about. Please read again.

Spoiler: the time limit is not the issue.

This is also not entitlement and I don't need a lecture in business practices. If you bothered to read you'd learn that:
I am fine with the fact, that the request has to be made within 7 days from the date of purchase.
I am fine with the fact, that the purchase in question needs to be in a state where it can be withdrawn (whatever that may entail).
I am NOT fine with the fact, that I can only refund ONE purchase WITHIN these constraints/requirements, in a 1-month period. It's not sensible to me.

it is absolutely entitlement an absurd level of it too

I would argue 1 refund a month is too high it should be at most 3 per account like it is with league of legends

Ideally game developers shouldnt have to offer ANY refunds or exchanges and all sales should be final but unfortunately some people feel entitled to change their mind about what pixels they buy

platforms like steam force game developers to offer refunds despite steam also taking a massive cut of all revenue, regulations need to be updated to prevent refunds from being abused for virtual goods and not expanded.

Assumed you were referring to refunds back to your wallet and not a refund to pearls if you are indeed referring to a refund to pearls then unlimited with a 48h time limit would make more sense