No Response from Customer Services to Refund Request

[SteveLV]

On Jun 27 I took advantage of a special offer and renewed by CCleaner sub by taking out a two year subscription to CCleaner Premium, ref 405171233, for £119.95. 

Unfortunately, I got confused and did the same on Aug 4 under ref 411374470. This has now been refunded.

However, on Fri Sep 8 an automatic payment of £79.95 has been taken from my Paypal account for a 1 year subscription for the same product. The ref is 412209065.

Would you please refund this payment as soon as possible.

In addition, I am still awaiting my £40 cashback.

I have emailed Support twice about this but apart from an automatic response I have heard nothing.

Thank you

[nukecad]

Support are very busy at the moment and replies are taking much longer than we are normally used to seeing them take.

The cashback offer is still well within the '30 days from claiming' period for paying it back.

The automatic payment may well be PayPal and not CCleaner.
(And from what you say then it looks like a subscription that you had taken out previously, last year or before).

We do see it where an automatic reccuring (subscription)  payment has been set up with PayPal, so you need to check if that is what has happened in your case.

If that is the case then even if/when you cancel your subscription with CCleaner PayPal will still take an automatic payment from you each year unless you also cancel that automatic payment with PayPal as well.

In those cases CCleaner are not requesting payment. it's PayPal who have taken the money automatically and who should refund it, see this for how to cancel a PayPal automatic (subscription) payment:
https://www.wikihow.com/Cancel-a-PayPal-Subscription

[SteveLV]

I accept it was an automatic payment by Paypal (now cancelled) but the money must have been paid to Cleverbridge so why cannot they refund it?

[nukecad]

I think that PayPal would still have the money, however I am not totally sure how it works with Cleverbridge being sat in the middle?

What have PayPal said about a refund? Did you ask them for one?

If you had cancelled your account with CCleaner then there would be no account at CCleaner to send the money to. But is it then still sat in an 'interim' account at Cleverbridge? (I don't know).

If you want to chase a refund from Cleverbridge then they have a refund request form, with 'Unwanted Auto-Renewal' as one of the refund reasons that you can select:
https://www.cleverbridge.com/refund

PS. It would be interesting to know how you get on, and knowing what happens could help others in future.

[SteveLV]

Thanks for the heads up for the refund request form. Unfortunately, my request is unable to be done automatically and I have to submit it manually on another form and this I have done, saying the same thing I have done in three emails.

I don't see that Paypal will still have the money as it is no different to a bank standing order. Once actioned the money should go straight to the recipient.

I will keep you posted.

[SteveLV]

On 15/09/2023 at 10:33, nukecad said:

PS. It would be interesting to know how you get on, and knowing what happens could help others in future.

Not having any response from Cleverbridge/CCleaner Support to emails or a refund request form I raised the matter with Paypal and they resolved the matter in two days. I have had three emails from Cleverbridge and a refund to my Paypal account.

A quick perusal of the subject headings in the Community Forum seems to suggest others are having issues with refunds, but I have not looked at any in detail.

[nukecad]

Thanks for letting us know.

It appears to be like I suspected:

Quote

If you had cancelled your account with CCleaner then there would be no account at CCleaner to send the money to. But is it then still sat in an 'interim' account at Cleverbridge? (I don't know)

From what you say it was Cleverbridge where the money was sat, but because that money had been sent to them from Paypal you couldn't request it from Cleverbridge yourself.
Instead it needed a refund request from Paypal to Cleverbridge to get it sent back to Paypal.

Which when you think about it is exactly how it should work if you have used Paypal.
You use Paypal  to keep your bank account and/or card details from the seller.
So all monies going out, or refunds coming back, should only go through Paypal.

(Equally, CCleaner don't want to know or hold your bank/card details. So they use Cleverbridge as a buffer much like you use Paypal as a buffer).

You request  a refund from Paypal, who then request it from whoever they sent the money to.
They then refund it to Paypal, Paypal then refund it to you, or you can leave it in your Paypal account for future use.

If you hadn't used Paypal but had paid Cleverbridge yourself that would be when the Cleverbridge refund form would be the way to go.

 

As you note there are often posts on here about refunds, usually it's just a case of requests being made initially to the wrong place and so finding what the correct refund procedure to use is. As you have found then once the request is made to the right place then it should be sorted out quickly.
Sometimes though it does take an extra step or two for CCleaner to work out just what a customer has done and then authorise Cleverbridge to make the refund.