026-refund-fees.rst (2298B)
1 DD 26: Refunds and Fees 2 ####################### 3 4 :Design status: Accepted 5 :Implementation status: Implemented 6 :DD shepherd: TBD 7 :Historical contributors: Christian Grothoff, Florian Dold 8 :First published: 2021-12-07 9 :Last substantive change: 2023-09-15 10 :Implementation evidence: merchant (2022-07-09) 11 :Normative references: :doc:`../core/api-exchange` 12 13 .. note:: 14 15 This is implemented (as of 2023-09-15). 16 17 Summary 18 ======= 19 20 This document discusses what should happen with deposit fees when a 21 deposit is refunded. 22 23 24 Motivation 25 ========== 26 27 When a user receives a refund, we have to decide what happens to the deposit 28 fee that was originally paid on the associated deposit. Originally, we said 29 that the deposit fee is waived when any refund happens. However, if the 30 refund fee is zero and the deposit fee is non-zero, this results in a 31 problematic scenario where merchants issue minuscule refunds that primarily 32 enable customers to effectively obtain the deposit fee. 33 34 35 Requirements 36 ============ 37 38 * If the refund and refresh fees are zero, it should be possible for 39 consumers to get 100% of their digital cash back on refunds. 40 * This should not result in a problematic situation where merchants 41 conspire with consumers and issue minuscule refunds to allow consumers 42 to work around deposit fees. 43 44 Proposed Solution 45 ================= 46 47 * Only waive the deposit fee for full refunds where for the 48 specific coin (!) the refunded amount is the total value of the 49 refunded deposit. 50 51 Alternatives 52 ============ 53 54 * Only waive the deposit fee for full refunds where for the 55 specific coin the refunded amount is the total value of the 56 denomination of the coin. This may slightly simplify the 57 logic, but has the problem that it does not enable 100% 58 refunds if the original payment already required a refresh 59 because the coin's value exceeded the paid amount. 60 * Waive the deposit fee on any (including partial) refund. 61 This creates a bad incentive structure if combined refresh 62 and refund fees are below deposit fees. 63 64 Drawbacks 65 ========= 66 67 * We need to update and test an already complex fee calculation 68 logic. 69 70 71 Discussion / Q&A 72 ================ 73 74 (This should be filled in with results from discussions on mailing lists / personal communication.)