Apple cracks down on users who abuse the 14-day return policy for digital content in Europe

Users looking to abuse Apple’s new 14-day return policy for digital purchases in Europe will be in for a bad surprise, as the company has apparently been taking measures against those that want to dishonestly take advantage of the system.

As indicated in the screenshot above, Apple will automatically pop-up an alert when a user — who has refunded a lot of apps and other digital content on the iTunes Store — tries to purchase a new app from the App Store asking them to give up their right on being able to refund this app later on.

More specifically, the message asks for the user to acknowledge he’s giving up his right to a refund every time he wants to buy a new application: “I acknowledge that if I download this app within fourteen days of tapping ‘Buy”, I will no longer be eligible to cancel this purchase.” At that point, the user can cancel or confirm by tapping the Buy button.

The return policy for the UK specifically mentions the following, showing that Apple did foresee such a scenario:

Exception to the right of cancellation: You cannot cancel your order for the supply of digital content if the delivery has started upon your request and acknowledgement that you thereby lose your cancellation right.