I added an in-app product that removes ads to my app. When I get a refund request, I thought it would be okay to check the "Remove entitlement" check box on the play console and refund it, but Google refunded it even before I did. In this case, is there a way to check if the refund has been made on the client's app? Or is there a way to consume items using tokens on the administrator app?
Please help.
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I'm not specifically looking to have the option to refund a user for an in app purchase of a consumable, but just in the odd case that a user asks for a refund, either through google, or through the developer of an in app purchase of a consumable.
There does not seem any way of handling refunds through the In App Billing api V3. All documentation points to V2 of the api using broadcast receivers. This does not help me in least bit.
So how are refunds handled in the In App Billing v3 api? I'm assuming for a non consumable, the refund is processed, and then google handles the processing through their backend, and then when a getPurchaseState() is conducted, it would return a value of 2 (refunded). If so, this works great for a NON CONSUMABLE product.
When a getPurchaseState() call to a consumable purchase is made, it returns null. That's assuming if the purchase was previously successful, and that the item was consumed and provisioned. I figure I could store the purchase items locally within the app, but then there is still no way of receiving a refund notification for that product. I can check for purchase state, but again, it will return null, as long as it was consumed and provisioned already.
A slight workaround I can think of right now, is to not consume the purchase on provisioning. So that it remains "unconsumed" according to google, and remains in their database. Now, if a refund is requested, I am assuming a call to getPurchaseState() for that consumable will return refunded, thus the application logic can then subtract/deduct the provisioned consumable from user's inventory. If a user would want to repurchase that consumable again, then before the IAB api call is made for the purchase, get the purchaseState() and/or hasPurchase(), and if there is already a purchase there, consume that item without provisioning, this will let the user repurchase that consumable. Only issue with this workaround, is that if A user wants to re purchase the same consumable product, as soon as the select the option to repurchase, the item must be consumed regardless of whether they successfully repurchase the product or not. So if the user does not complete the purchase, the product is already consumed, and I end up back where I am now with inability to check for refund state on the consumable.
I can't think of any other way to do a refund for a consumable in app product, and that is what I ask here. Is the way I thought of sufficient, or is there a proper way to handle refunds using IAP v3 on consumables?
I was thinking I have 3 options:
Don't offer refunds for consumables, no/little exceptions, but the issue with this is if a user requests refund through google, and not through developer, leading to option 3 below)
Find a workaround (either properly through the api, or with my proposed workaround)
Offer refunds, but have no application logic to subtract/deduct the consumable. In this scenario, users could end up taking advantage of free purchases.
I know this is a super late response to this issue, but it took me quite some time to track down info on this issue, so hopefully it can help someone else out. There are a few ways of doing this... In the Google Play Developer console you can click on the left nav saying "Order Management" which will bring up a list of all recent orders though your app. If you need to refund one you can click on it, or multi select them and refund them in this view. Just a heads up... you will most likely need permissions from your account admin to see this view and refund users.
Your other option is though the API docs here. You will need to set up your API account though the Android console, which I will say is a massive pain and not clear. But once that's set up and your "Server Applications" is set up you will need to make sure it has proper permissions as well. Then you should be able to use a library such as this to do the heavy lifting for you, because from what I've read the JWT auth process though the google API is not super straightforward, and their docs are a mess. I hope this helps someone and comment if you have questions... I will do my best to answer.
This same API also can be used to find items that were purchased by users and then refunded, so you can remove these items from those users' apps. Also you can do server side purchase validation through this as well, which is highly recommended, because rooted phones can inject fake purchase requests making your app believe that it's hearing back from the google play store, but in reality it's not. You then send back to your server the purchase token and SKU of the item being purchased and then on your server you just run this. This will give you back a 400 error if it's invalid, and a 200 with a some JSON data if it's a successful purchase.
When I try to use a in-app billing item its api show that: “The publisher cannot purchase this item”
I want to check in my app if the user is myself, a google Play Store user and the publisher of app, to put all inapp billings items free for me, so how could I check programmatically if the who user is trying to buy in-app billing item is its publisher?
A developer cannot purchase anything from herself. To fully test, you will need to create a test account in the Developer Console and then install your app on a device where that is the primary account. There is no other way. See
http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_testing.html
Previously, using Google Checkout, I was able to make and cancel test in-app purchases made from my Android app using in-app purchasing. Since Google checkout was closed and migrated to Google Wallet, I cannot cancel test purchases. If I view a recent test purchase, the refund button is greyed out.
Does anybody know if and how such purchases may be cancelled in Google Wallet?
This refers to in-app purchases made using a Google play account registered as a test account in my Developer Console settings.
Yes, they can.
Go to your orders page, select one of them and in the upper right corner there's a "Refund" button.
Edit: Don't know why it's greyed in your case, I could with no problem.
Give it a couple hours.
Hope it helps ;)
I have working app that sells in-app products (InApp billing v3).
Recently I've made an update for this app and made a terrible mistake there: I consumed some of purchases I didn't want to consume.
I issued an update and users updated the app and then wrote me they have no purchased access. (As I found later, I consumed wrong items).
So I have some questions now:
Is there a way to restore consumed purchases or I should return payments to my users?
Is there a way to find out how many and which purchases were consumed?
If returning payments, is there a way to find out if user still has the product or is it consumed with out changing the app (through google services)?
Thanks.
According to what I have understood from your question, It seems like you want to purchase product only once.
What I wished to ask: is there a way to request information about consumed products like about owned products.
you can get response or it's information in any type(Managed Product, Unmanaged Product, Subscription) in the onActivityResult method() check my below link.
In-app billing-v3 error in activity result
but I would not prefer you to manage it customly as you told for one time purchase product(not consumable product). You should go with the Manage product.
Managed In-app Products:
Managed in-app products are items that have their ownership
information tracked and managed by Google Play. When a user purchases
a managed in-app item, Google Play stores the purchase information for
each item on a per-user basis. This enables you to later query Google
Play at any time to restore the state of the items a specific user has
purchased. This information is persistent on the Google Play servers
even if the user uninstalls the application or if they change devices.
for more information about product type
you can query any time you want and you will get the product information, and even you don't need to manage if user has already purchase this product or not.
Is there a way to restore cnsumed purchases or I should return payments to my users?
Better option is you should give the payments back to the user and for the next time check the whole app once using dummy product "android.test.purchased" and update your app.
Is there a wat to find out how many and which purchases were consumed?
You have to check in the Google wallet because all transaction should be handle by the it, check if it gives you product type or not. Using your google developer console credential you can signed into google wallet.
If returning payments is there a way to find out if user stil has the product or is it consumed with out changing the app (through google services)?
as per above answer you have to check in google wallet, according to my knowledge they are provide us all of information about product type with user detail.
Let me know if I have not properly understood your question.
Hope it will solve your problem.
During our efforts to design InApp Billing for our Android App, we came up with the following scenario;
Customer has rooted/manipulatable device (so Market app + my app can't be trusted)
Customer purchases a product
Purchase state 0 (purchased) is send to our backoffice (all is checked and ok), we give credits.
Customer refunds that purchase
Customer has manipulated our app or the market app to locally confirm the refund and thereby prevent the refund notification to reach our backoffice server.
Is this scenario possible? How can we fix this?
It's been 7 years since this questions was asked but still I will provide an answer as it might be useful to some.
The part that is missing in your diagram is your BackOfficeServer to perform server side validation before granting the credits (goods) to the user. As nothing on the client side can be trusted (neither your app nor the app store) your only solution is to integrate your BackOfficeServer with the Purchase Verification API that Google provide. Only when you receive a response from them stating that the purchase is valid should you grant the goods.
The same would apply for refunds. If the user issues a refund you would need to revoke the goods. For this you again can only trust your BackOfficeServer. Google provide Real time Developer Notifications and Void API that can fulfill that requirement.
First: if the user asks for a refund you receive also an email.
Second: the purchases on in-app billing are not refundable directly by the user. If a user wants a refund, he must contact you and then you can proceed manually to refund with your google wallet account.
So i think that your scenario neve happen.
Secondly if possible i suggest you to use managed purchases, in that case if the user asks for a refund, google market will remember it, and you can use a RESTORE_TRANSACTION to check if some refunds occurred (but again: you must grant a refund).