Frustration! Refund for apps that don't do what they are supposed to?

Question

How quickly a $2 app turns into a $50 waste of time!
I purchased a $2 unit converter app to use at work and whenever else I needed it. After playing with it for about 20-30 minutes, I realized that there were several calculation errors. The unit converter simply didn't do correct conversions! (1 foot equals 11.986 inches!?) Now, If I'm noticing some simple conversion errors myself, how many conversion errors are happening that I don't realize? Needless to say, this app is useless to me because I can't trust its data.
So I contacted the dev, and even got a response within a day. I sent a second message where I had done a lot of troubleshooting for them, hoping they could correct the problems. Nothing. No update, no response, nothing.
So this brings me to my question... how can you get a refund for an app that doesn't do what it is supposed to do?
Yes, yes, I realize the "all sales are final" thing. But this is where Apple's usual high level of customer service fails. Am I supposed to buy apps on blind faith that they work, knowing there is no refund? If I was assured that someone was testing these apps and assuring me that they do what they are supposed to, then okay. But that's not happening.
Oh, wait... read reviews before buying? How is that possible for new(er) apps? If nobody buys it because they are waiting for reviews, then nobody can review it. I'd hate to be a dev and make a great app and have nobody buy it because they were afraid it wouldn't work.
Not all apps have free/lite/trial versions.
If this "no refund" policy is to be fair, then there needs to be demo or trial periods on all apps, to be certain that they actually do what they are supposed to! Until then, I want my $2 back so I can buy a unit converter that doesn't have calculation errors. I won't hold my breath for that... or for the ~$50 of my time wasted testing someone else’s app to no avail, and trying to find a contact source for Apple to request a refund.

Answer 1

I do see where you are coming from.
However I'm just personally against people buying something with the intent of taking it back and that's what would worry me here. I'm talking about girls I know who buy 4 dresses to take home and try out (and perhaps wear) and then take some or all of them back. Now that's one way to shop but I don't agree with it as I think it makes it more expensive for the rest of us as there is a cost involved in customer service and repackaging returned items. Note that is an example and I don't particularly care about buying dresses myself - except on Fridays when I log on as BettyDP
And you mention you only want this for broken apps (i.e. ones that fail to deliver what the are for), rather than apps you bought and decided you didn't like/need. But this is a fine line and some people would use such a system to try to claim money back on an app they bought and thought wasn't that good, even if it did what it said. So who's to judge where that line is? And to have Apple employing people to make that call would push up the cost to all the apps.
Now you genuinely have an issue with this particular app and, in my opinion, deserve your money back. However if you buy 100s of apps and end up wanting your money back on a large proportion of them then I do not agree with you, for the above reasons. When spending money, in my opinion, you should do your research and read reviews to make sure it suits. Sometimes, for a new app, you can't do as much in which case you either take a risk or hope you can get your money back if it doesn't suit. Yes, an item sold should do what it says to meet basic trading standards (and otherwise it's basically fraud), but, IMHO, there should also be a level of caveat emptor (buyer beware).
Ultimately, for $2, I personally would probably chalk it up to experience and not try to reclaim it - thinking that the time spent trying to claim it back would be more hassle than it's worth. But then maybe that's just me.
Now your demo point is a good one. Some app developers make a demo or lite version of their app to give you a free preview. That's their choice and not something Apple enforces and they think the extra coding to make this version is worth it in that it hopefully will drive up more sales. I agree it would be nice if Apple put some funky time limit on ALL apps so developers don't have to do this, and so you get it for free for 24hours to trial. It would certainly help in your situation and I myself would also find this useful.
Finally the time you spent debugging the app is your time. You didn't need to do that and I don't think that's really that relevant here (I presume you aren't expecting to get you $2 back AND some extra because you spent some time fiddling with it?)
Anyway, now I've made my opinion known (which you are perfectly entitled to disagree with), I'll get off my high horse and actually point you out to something helpful:
http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/2009/07/09/iphone-app-refund/
(note I did read your comment about this form not working but I'd say try it again later or on another browser).
Also note the interesting comments on this link which give more reasons (from a Developers point of view) why this is possibly a bad idea...