Tower Simulator Refund - Promising News

[Guest frozen]

Anyone who may have been following my reviews of Tower Simulator will note that I have, so far, been unsuccessful in achieving a refund from Wilco Publishing.However, I have contacted EU Trading Standards and their feedback has been very promising wrt the legality of Wilco's standpoint of "we do not refund downloads". I am awaiting confirmation that EU Trading Standards are willing to let me publish/release their communications to a wider audience, but the thrust of their messages so far is there is consumer protection available. That said, I am hesitant to release full details as unscrupulous customers may use this to ask for a refund for EVERYTHING - a point that I'm not sure Wilco have yet grasped.Wilco, in the mean time, have stopped responding to my e-mails and today, when I sought final confirmation that they were unwilling to give me a refund despite apparently contradicting EU law, they deleted my e-mail unopened. I am not sure whether EU law is of use to US customers, but will ask as the case progresses.Scoob - I know you read this forum and will probably read this message. Fred needs to e-mail me soonest as, after my last e-mail was deleted, EU Trading Standards wrote back to me, having looked at your website, and continue to tell me Wilco are in the wrong. I am happy to forward this e-mail to Wilco if you start acting like grown-ups! I have also advised EU Trading Standards of Wilco's intransigence (deleting e-mails) and have asked for advice on how to take the matter further.I am pleased to say that the law in this case does indeed seem to support the underlying spirit of justice I had hoped for. Watch this space for details.

[mgh 89]

Will you let us know the address of the EU Trading Standards you contacted? Whoever they are, I doubt if they have any legal pwwers in a case like this. Individual countries would have to take action.I admit to being doubtful about getting a refund for software. UK law (based on an EU Directive) explitly excludes software that has been "unsealed." Clearly this is aimed at softwar - in effect getting their software free. I think the same principle would apporof by having obtained a key from the supplier.Anyway, I'll watch this space with interest.

[Guest frozen]

mghI went to www.ukecc.net and sent a general enquiry e-mail. I'm almost certain you're right re: their lack of powers, but they've provided some solid legal advice so far on the matter, which I'm reasonably hopeful a lawyer would be able to use as the basis for a case. Put another way, they don't enforce European Law, but seem to know all about it!I can understand the developer's reluctance to open up the floodgates by offering a refund, and I truly am in two minds about publicising what I'm up to too widely, as it could cause them all sorts of problems if it proves true that they're trading contrary to legislation. However, I'm also angry that they have seen fit to release very poor, expensive software, only to duck behind a potentially illegal download/refund policy, hoping to get away with it.My free, knowledgeable, experts in law have looked at Wilco's site and genuinely surprised me with their strong reinforcement of my consumer rights. And while I'm also conscious of softwar issues, I am sure there is a balance between protecting the publisher from unscrupulous consumers and vice versa. I'll certainly be asking.

[mgh 89]

Thanks for the response.I checked Wilco site and found this:"RETURN POLICYIf your purchase arrived damaged, is not what you ordered or is defective, please contact us to receive a Return Authorization. Returns without a prior authorization from Wilco Publishing will not be accepted. If you want, unopened product may be returned for store credit or exchange, less shipping charges. Open item is not returnable unless proven defective. Incomplete or items damaged in return shipping are subject to 30% restocking fee."Frankly, that seems to comply with the law and current practice. As I've said, the law on refunds explicitly excludes software, and music or video, on unsealed CDs. It also excludes newspapers and magazines amonst other things. The purpose is obvious and is to ensure that purchasers can't retain the benefits while not paying for them. Incidentally, in the UK, shops don't give a refund on softare that's been unsealed unless it's defective, in which case the shops will offer a replacement set of disks.This means that you have to fall back on the general law. In the UK this is the various Sale of Goods Acts. After re-reading tour detailed review in another thread, I suggest there would be great difficulty in ]proving to a court that Tower Simulation isn't as described. Given the vagueness of the descriptions on Wilco's site. The question is "what doesn't it do that the description said it should? The fact that it doesn't them they way you expected doesn't make it legally defective.Also, to take action against a developer in the UK, or any country, you'd have to establish it had a presence in that country to serve papers on them. Even if you did that, there's the question of enforcing any judgement you might get. The courts won't do it for you. Unless it has assets in the UK you won't be able to recover anything. Unfortunately, the likelihood is that you'd end up spending money with little chance of getting it back. The minimum court fee is