Roku Developer Program

[kbenson]

"SolveLLC" wrote:

It's not a refund, there are no refunds via the Roku payment system.

Isn't that what the credits/reversals field in the sales activity report is for? In any case, I understand what you are referring to now.

The problem is say this. The channel is $1.99. The customers bill date is 2 days from now. The customer is charged $.18 (which I don't think that amount is billable via Paypal or CC). The customer watches for a day and a half and then removes the channel. The next month, the customer does the same thing (it's always something less than $1.99 as long as they cancel before the billing date).

I imagine this is less a purposeful act than an accident of timing. It would require customers know the monthly bill date in advance, and then make the decision to attempt to exploit it to make it purposeful. I imagine more Roku users don't necessarily know the exact bill date.

If the channel in question is event bases (such as a sporting event) that happens somewhat infrequently during the month, if en event happens close to the bill date, it seems like it may be inevitable to see signups and cancellations spike around that, and the total subscription fee would be small.

Maybe a good solution is that if it's close to the end of a billing period (5 or 10 days), then cancellation requests work for the period after the upcoming period. Customers would have to be warned this on signup though.

[RokuVince]

Yes you are correct. The customer isn’t getting a refund, they have paid for a pro-rated period are basically canceling their subscription before it auto-renews.

If it were not implemented this way it would be very confusing for the customer. For example, if we charged the entire subscription amount a customer’s subscriptions would be renewing on different days. This would result in a customer not really having a clear understanding of when they need to cancel before a subscription auto-renews. Another option would be to charge them the prorated amount plus the next month. However, we would be fielding a large number of inquiries because we’d be committing the user to more than a month’s purchase.

There is the possibility some users could try to use this to their advantage. Yes, they can watch for a couple days and then cancel. However, most users won’t be doing that and it is our hope that subscription channels are providing enough compelling content that the customers actually will want to keep the channel.

You do raise a good point though and we’ll explore ways that we can prevent this from occurring.

The problem is say this. The channel is $1.99. The customers bill date is 2 days from now. The customer is charged $.18 (which I don't think that amount is billable via Paypal or CC). The customer watches for a day and a half and then removes the channel. The next month, the customer does the same thing (it's always something less than $1.99 as long as they cancel before the billing date).

[SolveLLC]

"RokuVince" wrote:
Yes you are correct. The customer isn’t getting a refund, they have paid for a pro-rated period are basically canceling their subscription before it auto-renews.

If it were not implemented this way it would be very confusing for the customer. For example, if we charged the entire subscription amount a customer’s subscriptions would be renewing on different days. This would result in a customer not really having a clear understanding of when they need to cancel before a subscription auto-renews. Another option would be to charge them the prorated amount plus the next month. However, we would be fielding a large number of inquiries because we’d be committing the user to more than a month’s purchase.

There is the possibility some users could try to use this to their advantage. Yes, they can watch for a couple days and then cancel. However, most users won’t be doing that and it is our hope that subscription channels are providing enough compelling content that the customers actually will want to keep the channel.

You do raise a good point though and we’ll explore ways that we can prevent this from occurring.

Well, with the way that the billing is set up now, there is no way that we could even know if it is happening because Roku doesn't share customer information for people that are buying *our* product.

[kbenson]

"RokuVince" wrote:

There is the possibility some users could try to use this to their advantage. Yes, they can watch for a couple days and then cancel. However, most users won’t be doing that and it is our hope that subscription channels are providing enough compelling content that the customers actually will want to keep the channel.

I think the major problem, as tensen pointed out, is for subscription channels that have major events. Theoretically access to the major event is paid by the subscriptions fees averages out for the month. Adding the channel right before the event and cancelling afterwards, when the event happens to be close to the end of a billing cycle, puts quite a burden on the content provider.

I'll butt out now. It's obvious I'm not the one actually being affected by this, so my ramblings should hold less weight.