Google Goes With Cash Over Credit

Google is switching gears on how to refund customers of its now-defunct Google Video
download-to-own service. They will get cash as well as credit.

Customers who purchased the video downloads can also keep the Google Checkout credit Google originally offered instead of a refund. Google said it would continue to support playing purchased videos for another six months.

On top of it all, Google offered up an apology on its blog, saying sorry about all the confusion over how to give customers their money back.

Earlier this month, Google announced plans to
shutter its download-to-own/download-to-rent (DTO/DTR) business.

But instead of offering a full refund, Google decided that all users
who purchased any video content after the service’s inception in
early 2006 through July 17 would receive credit equal to a full
refund to spend on any of the multitude of merchants registered with
Google Checkout. Any user with purchases after July 18 will receive
a full refund.

Users were upset.

“Congratulations for just taking a big f**ing crap on my trust in
you,” one user wrote on Google’s discussion boards.

“I am seriously looking into options to get my Gmail archives out of
your system. Obviously I can never be able to entrust anything
remotely important to Google Docs. I either own my data, or I don’t.
Obviously it is Google’s opinion that I don’t,” this user wrote.

Attorney Thomas Ciarlone of Shalove Stone Bonner & Rocco told
internetnews.com his firm was investigating the fairness of
Google’s rebate.

Today, Google owned up to its mistake.

“We make mistakes; we do our best not to repeat them — and we really
do try to fix the ones we make,” Google Video Product Manager Bindu
Reddy wrote on the company’s official blog.

Reddy explained that Google went with the Google Checkout refund
because “we weren’t sure if we had all the correct addresses, latest
credit card information, and other billing challenges. We thought
offering the refund in the form of Google Checkout credits would
entail fewer steps and offer a better user experience. Our bad.”

But for many customers’ experiences, Google found, cash is preferred over credit.

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