Earlier (in this post) I reported that the reporting feature of the App Hub was telling me that on Feb 2, 2011, two of my apps, Fraction Calculator and Decimal2Fraction Converter, had minus 2 downloads.  How does one have negative downloads, I wondered?  I put in a problem report to Microsoft, since there was no explanation for it anywhere I could find in the documentation.  A couple of days ago I finally got the word on what this all meant.

So it wasn’t a bug, it was a feature.  I guess you could say it was an “undocumented” feature.  But it means that I had a “chargeback” on the two apps.  Here’s the report:

Hello Mike,
 
Thank you once again for your patience. I have confirmed that the negative downloads are due to application chargebacks, which occur when a customer contacts their mobile operator to refund the purchase. Please let me know if you have any questions.
 
Best Regards,
Ben
The Windows Phone Marketplace Support Team

So, a customer who bought the apps decided that he or she didn’t like them or want them, and decided to get a refund.  That’s fine!  I surmise that both chargebacks were from the same customer, since it occurred on the same day for related products.  But no matter. 

One part of me is a little surprised that someone would request a refund for an item that only cost 99 cents (I wouldn’t have, for example), but the other part is glad to hear that someone was vehement enough to want a refund for such a small amount!  I only wish I could have gotten some feedback on why, so that I could make relevant improvements.  So far, my customers have only given one of my apps a rating in the Marketplace, and that rating was on Fraction Calculator: four out of five stars.  And no written commentary.  I’ll take 4/5.

It’s all good.