Chelsea offer refund for Bohemians friendly live stream issues on 5th Stand app

Chelsea are refunding every 5th Stand app user who purchased last night’s £1.99 live stream for Bohemians vs. Chelsea due to multiple reports and complains of problems with the stream. The official website confirms that refunds will process in the next 48 hours, though if you’re on an Apple/iOS device, the refund itself will not be automatic.

On Android, you have no further action to take and the refunds will happen automatically.

On iOS, you will have to go through the following steps (this is an Apple thing, not a Chelsea thing, unfortunately):

1. Go to Apple’s problem reporting page: http://reportaproblem.apple.com/
2. Log in with your Apple ID user name and password. Hopefully you remember those (‘Forgot Password’ if you don’t). Then go through the two-factor verification, with the six-digit code.
3. Select the ‘Apps’ tab near the top (second from left)
4. Click the ‘Report a Problem’ button on the right on the appropriate row
5. In the ‘Choose Problem’ dropdown select I want a refund
6. Enter “Live stream not working” in the reason field and click on ‘Submit’
7. You should hear back from Apple within a few days to a week

Alternatively, you can go through your ‘Purchase History’ on either iTunes or on your phone or mobile device, and follow similar steps there to get your refund. It’s a quick and painless process, annoying as it may be that you actually have to go through them instead of allowing apps to refund you automatically.

So, if you were one of the many who paid the £1.99 to watch Chelsea’s first preseason match of the summer, but was then greeted by nothing but a constantly buffering and stuttering stream, or, worse, just a black screen, you will get the purchase price refunded by the club. And even if you stream did work, you will get your money back anyway! After all, Chelsea made the stream free for everyone eventually yesterday.

If you paid through the website for the whole preseason (£10.99), or, like me, were a subscriber last year and was thus grandfathered in for these streams even though Chelsea TV is now ‘free’, you get nothing back.

Chelsea seem to have issues with the live streams at the start of every preseason. Hopefully they’ll have these problems ironed out by Saturday.

Or better yet, just make them all free.