IOS – In-App Purchases – How to know who did the charge-back

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App purchases and in-app purchases can be cancelled with charge-back if you send a message to iTunes Store Support within a time frame of a few days and provide them a good reason.

I'd like to know if is possible to know what Apple-ID or User did the charge-back.

Take the following behavior of an User. (you in this case means the app developer):

  1. User makes a $99 in-app purchase and receive YYY 'Gold Coins';
  2. User buys in-app stuff using the 'Gold Coins' (Potion, cards, whatever);
  3. User receives the items and requests a charge-back;
  4. Apple accepts the request and gives user the $99 back;
  5. Apple informs you that you received a charge-back, but does not specify anything related to user like device's UDID, account or anything;
  6. Without user info, you can't remove the in-game items user got through the purchased coins;
  7. User shares this behavior with other users;
  8. Everyone does the same;

What will happen? Game/app 'economy' becomes hell and you get nothing.

So, is there any secret way (or a not so simple to notice option that I've missed somewhere) on iTunes Connect that allows you to know WHO did that so you can act properly by removing the items/cash/whatever (or even temp/perma ban if the behavior continues)?

Best Answer

You are not privy to customer details from any of Apple's App stores unless you are selling a subscription and the user opts in to sharing data.

Other than requiring the users to make an account to play and working within Apple's UUID / temporary device ID framework, you have no realistic way to determine who is spending money or who is asking Apple for a refund.

Have your lawyer (or you if you're the business person responsible for agreements) look over the terms and conditions that explain when you do and do not get customer data.

Barring that, you can always open a support ticket with developer support since you are a paid developer to ask them to look into any patterns of unusual sales for your specific application. When there is a problem, I've found them to be very helpful in sorting out what's proper and how to adjust things to fit the App Store rules into your business model.

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