Stefan Mileschin

Being an Apple reseller is probably not the happiest job in the world, but it seems that Jobs' Mob has just moved to make their lives more miserable.

According to Reuters, the fruity cargo cult has decided to cut in half the time it takes to give refunds to online store customers who want to return their iPhones and other gadgets.

While this does not seem much, and will probably cost Apple a bomb, it is part of Jobs' Mobs moves to get more people to buy direct from its website. This will be taking online customers away from retailers such as Amazon.com and Best Buy.

According to retail-intelligence firm StellaService, customers who buy a product from Apple's online store can get a refund in under a week, versus 10 days previously.

Apple is using an expedited service, FedEx 2Day, to let customers ship returned items with prepaid labels to its warehouse in three days.

The move had been seen as early as December but many thought that it was just a temporary move for the busy holiday season. The company, which orders items from Apple's website several times a day for research purposes, also discovered that packages were stamped with FedEx 2Day, rather than a Newgistics prepaid label.

Last year it was estimated that Apple experienced a 24 percent increase in online sales to $18.3 billion.

http://news.techeye.net/business/app...e-a-quick-buck