[esw]

Their site was up and running, receiving traffic for the duration.

>Would you get your money back if you called up the cable company and said, hey sorry I didn't watch TV for the last 12 months, so I'd like my money back please. It is the same thing they are asking you to do.

I've had the same thought, and I wish there was an elegant and professional way to communicate that sentiment.

[davismwfl]

Knowing that, I would call whomever is requesting it and talk to them like a person not a business. Say something like, look, I understand you meant to cancel, but the fact is you actually had your site running all the way up to X date. Meaning I incurred real costs to run it and be available to help you with any issues. And while I understand you are saying you had intentions to cancel it prior, you never communicated that and you didn't take the actions necessary to move your site, therefore I had no knowledge until your recent request. Given that, there is just no way I can refund you for 12 months of service that you received and I incurred costs for.

And tell them the cable analogy or something similar. I think sometimes we get caught up thinking as though we have to be "businesses" and forget that it is another human on the other side. They may not even be aware that there was service going on for 12 months, as someone on their side might have just told them to go see if they can get a refund.

I had a fairly small client once that the manager of the team I worked with was new. He didn't understand what we did for them yet so he asked their accounting person to get a refund from us for the last 3 months because we didn't do anything. What he didn't understand is that everyday we were the ones keeping their site alive and functioning while his team was rebuilding it. After my initial feeling of anger subsided I called the lady from accounting back and explained what we did, and said there is no way I can or will refund that money as we provided the services in the contract. She had no idea and said yea, I wouldn't either, let me talk to him and make sure we are all on the same page. They were a small business and just didn't communicate clearly, maybe you have something similar going on here. For us it worked out great, hopefully it will for you too.