Pokémon GO Raid Pass Refunds: What 63 Reviews Show (2026)

A remote raid pass in Pokémon GO is a paid item. You buy PokéCoins with real money, you spend the coins on the pass, and the pass lets you join a raid you are not standing next to. In the 4,000 most recent US Google Play reviews, 63 people describe the same transaction going wrong: the pass was spent, the raid failed, and nothing came back.

Came back to try again and regret it, DO NOT SPEND MONEY. Their servers failed during Finale and wasted our remote raid passes, and support refuses to reimburse them. These are items that cost REAL money and support basically says too bad.

Raids sometimes get bugged and don't let you even attack. Making them impossible to complete, but they still use up your raid pass. Scamming you of your pass or coins (which you can spend real money on) used to get the pass.

That complaint exists in every month we read. What makes it worth a piece is what happened in the first week of September 2026, when its share of all negative reviews went up more than tenfold.

What We Read

We pulled the 4,000 most recent US Google Play reviews for Pokémon GO on 9 September 2026, along with the live store metadata. The listing shows 3.55 stars from 15,373,009 ratings on more than 500 million installs, at version 0.427.0. On the App Store the same game holds 4.00 from 652,566 ratings.

Pokémon GO collects reviews very fast, so 4,000 of them only reach back to 12 July 2026, a 57 day window ending 8 September 2026. Of them, 2,337 were 1-3 stars, and 1,324 were long enough to describe something at 120 characters or more. Every count below comes from those 1,324.

Two caveats before the numbers. First, 1,663 of the 4,000 were 4 or 5 stars, so these are shares of complaints, not shares of players. Second, and more important for this piece: 57 days is a short window, and we are not going to use it to claim a long term trend. It is long enough to compare three months to each other. It is not long enough to say the game is getting worse over years, and we do not say that anywhere below.

Quick Answer: Does Pokémon GO Refund a Lost Raid Pass?

Not in this corpus. A keyword screen for a pass being lost, wasted, consumed or deducted returned 69 of the 1,324 substantial complaints. We read all 69 and removed 6 that were about something else: two blame other players for leaving a lobby, two are about catch rates rather than a failure, one is a false match on the phrase "go pass", and one is about monetisation in general. That leaves 63 verified reports, 4.8% of everything substantial, and 53 of them, 84.1%, are one star. Thirty nine of the 63 name a remote raid pass specifically rather than the free daily pass. Twelve say support declined to replace it. Five reviews in the whole 1,324 mention getting a refund at all, and reading them, not one describes a lost pass being cleanly returned.

The September Step

Split the 63 by month and the picture stops being background noise.

Thirty seven reports in eight days against eight in the whole of August. The overall score moves with it: the average of every review we pulled is 2.90 in July, 2.93 in August and 2.34 in September, and the 1-3 star share goes from 56.2% and 56.2% to 70.7%.

Reviewers name the occasion themselves. Fifteen of the 63 mention the Mega Finale weekend or the Armored Mewtwo raids, and thirteen describe a server problem rather than their own connection.

Game and servers crashed in US and raids couldn't be completed during Mega Finale weekend. Wasted 2-3 remote raid passes and checked Twitch to realize it was happening to everyone in the US. Waste of time and money.

I used two remote raid passes during this Mega Raid event for the Armored Mewtwo and both times the battle was frozen, my Pokemon couldn't attack and eventually the time ran out and said we lost the raid.

burned $5 on remote raid passes for armour Mewtwo but the combat wouldn't even load. scam

The Build Table

Google Play attaches the reviewer's installed build to most reviews, which gives a second, independent way to look at the same week.

The raid column is grouped by release family because that is how the point release pairs behave. Eight builds sit between 2.88 and 3.40 with raids named in 18% to 29% of their substantial complaints. Then 0.427.0 lands at 2.17 with raids named in 48.2%, nearly double the previous high.

Two measures moving together is stronger evidence than either one alone, and the build number is not a number the reviewer chose to type. But we are going to be honest about what this table cannot separate: 0.427.0 shipped into the same week as the event, so the build and the weekend are the same window. We cannot tell you whether the code or the load was the problem. What the table does establish is that the September complaints are not a mood. They are attached to a specific release and a specific set of raids.

1. How the Pass Actually Gets Consumed

Nineteen of the 63 describe a freeze that leaves the player in the raid but unable to act. Sixteen describe being crashed or kicked out. In both shapes the timer keeps running, the raid is scored as a loss or as complete, and the pass is gone.

At the begging of remote raids in the Mewtwo armor event, the game was stuck between my pokemon and the raid boss. I couldn't do anything no matter how many times I tap to attack, I tried to back out but the game wouldn't let me so I reboot the game and

Great game when it works. I can't do any raiding at all. The game goes to infinite loading icon when I join a raid. Lost remote passes which paid money for. Garbage game if you pay money and content doesn't even work. Literally stealing my money.

Gotta love that when a raid crashes while you are using a remote raid pass then you end up coming back to it later when close enough to use a non remote raid pass that they will not do anything to help you.

spent an hour trying to pay the game but can't die to no internet. weird how the shop works and I can post this review/ do everything else using the internet apart from play the game. what's the point in an app that involves working if it doesn't work when your traveling. and it's used let me use 3 remote raid passes to join raids I've been invited too but soon as the raid pass starts it takes the pass than says the raid isn't available and doesn't return the pass. refund the passes I paid for

There is a second, quieter version where the raid is won and the pass still buys nothing, because the game drops the catch encounter that the pass was for.

Games fun until you spend money on raid passes, complete the raid and win, proceed to catch the pokemon and get a white screen and sent back to the map with no encounter. I spent real money and didn't even get a chance to catch my latios AND LATIAS. THIS HAS HAPPENED MORE THEN ONCE. Very very annoying.

Bad Pokemon Go Support. I created two tickets saying that I finished the Mega raid but the game crashed when trying to go to the Pokemon Capture encounter and I restarted the app and was not able to go to the pokemon capture encounter to at least have a chance to catch the raid Pokemon that my team finished.

Uninstalled recently after playing again from 2024. Game became laggy, freezing after catch, raid, etc. So frustrating. Used 3 remote raid pass for Mewtwo, 2 froze after reward screen and failed to go to encounter. Support said I got reimbursed already...

And one review describes the accounting going the other way, with the wrong pass spent:

I bought 3 remote raid passes then did local raids to use my normal raid pass. should have had the 3 still! but it used my remote pass! it didn't mention it and I was at gym! contact support, they said that they investigated it and the remote was returned It was never returned!!!

2. What Support Says

Fifty three of the 1,324 substantial complaints mention opening a ticket, an appeal or a complaint. Eighty two, 6.2%, describe the reply as automated, a bot, an AI or a copy and paste, and 73 of those 82, 89.0%, are one star.

Inside the 63 pass reports, twelve say a replacement was refused outright. The recurring detail is not rudeness. It is that the system tells the player their raid was completed.

terrible customer support. whole server was down for 90min during an event and i lost a remote pass. submitted a ticket and was told that i completed the raid. i absolutely did not. bad organization of events and a total money grab of a game.

Pokemon go did not compensate my remote raid pass even though support told me they would then they said "After further investigation we decided you did get the raid for Mega Raichu X" And now I have just lost my remote raid pass for nothing.

officially tired of the game issues and lack of customer support. constantly being kicked out of raids or force closing and losing passes just for the AI support to tell me that they reviewed it and did not see an issue. fix the game and take care of your players.

9/5/26 there was a huge glitch with raids for a couple of hours resulting in lost raid passes. customer support refuses to refund passes lost and sends everyone effected the same copy paste message. Just to report the issue to customer support you needed a screenshot, but by then it was too late for "proof" for most people reporting the problem.

One review reports the opposite problem, a compensation programme that existed and then did not apply:

the recent mega raid finale technical issues offered compensation to players who wasted paid raid passes but in fact many players claiming compensation were told they were not eligible (even though they were).

We looked hard for the counter examples and there are almost none. A keyword screen for having received a refund, reimbursement, compensation or a replacement pass returns five reviews out of 1,324. Read individually, all five are describing a failure: one was promised compensation and then told the raid counted, one was told they had already been reimbursed when they had not, one had a coin package refunded and their balance put 1,700 coins into the negative, and two simply say they were not compensated. That is not proof that nobody is ever refunded. It is a strong hint that people who are refunded do not write one star reviews, and that the ones who write them are not being refunded.

The game haa Always been Addictive,@Least to me to me. Now that Scopley Took over, it's 10x As Addictive, There Greedy. & Intentionally Create FOMO. With events and tickets to events. Keepingthe the best Pokémon behind a Paywall wth Events, tickets & Remote Raid Passes & Bundles & Coins to get more Remote Raid Paases that Fail to work. I asked for a refund for the first time ever!, they refunded the Money for 1 coin pkg, Then Put My Account -1700 coins!? I Love this game. Hate the Greed.

3. The Proof Problem

This is the part with the most practical value, and it comes from a small group: sixteen reviews mention a screenshot, a video or proof. Read together they describe a burden of evidence that the failure itself makes hard to meet.

Absolutely love this game! Very disappointed with the amount of remote raid passes wasted just in the last month! It's already difficult to get enough players for a raid, then the games kicks me out before I get a chance to battle. Support is just as bad!! Whenever I attempt to upload my screenshot to at the very least get my pass returned, the app closes! Raiding used to be fun 😔

terrible experience, was enjoying until I spent money to buy a remote raid pass to join an armored mewtwo raid which the 9 of us won but two of us did not even receive the option to catch the pokemon since it froze and said raid battle ended and kicked us out buy the other people got to catch the pokemon and there's no proof of any of this in my pokemon journal so they can't/won't issue a refund.

Three separate obstacles show up. The app closes while the screenshot is being uploaded. The lag that caused the problem also stops you capturing it. And in one case the in game Journal, which is the record support checks, has no entry for the raid at all, so there is nothing to point at.

That is the reasoning behind the steps below. They are not a fix, because nothing in 1,324 reviews reads like a fix. They are the order that gives a claim its best chance, derived from what these reviewers say went wrong with theirs.

Step 1: Capture Evidence Before You Leave the Raid Screen

Every refused claim in this corpus is refused for the same reason: the server thinks the raid was fine. Take the screenshot while the frozen screen is still in front of you, with the timer visible, and take a second one of the result screen. One reviewer says the app closed while they were trying to upload the screenshot, so save it to your gallery first and attach it later rather than capturing inside the support flow. If your phone is lagging too hard to screenshot, use a screen recording or a second device.

Step 2: Check Your Journal Before You Write the Ticket

The in game Journal is what support checks against. One reviewer's claim collapsed because the raid they paid for left no trace there at all. Open the Journal immediately, before more entries push the window out of view, and note exactly what it does and does not say. If the Journal shows the raid as completed and you never got the encounter, say that in the ticket in those words. That contradiction is the whole of your case, and it is more useful than describing how the freeze felt.

Step 3: Open One Ticket, With Times and Item Names

Reviewers who got nowhere tend to describe a general complaint. File through in game Settings and open Support rather than replying to store reviews or email. Give the date and local time, the raid boss, the exact item spent, remote raid pass or premium pass or the free daily pass, and one sentence on what the screen did. Do not open a second ticket for the same incident, because two of these reviewers describe duplicate tickets each getting their own automated closure.

Step 4: If It Was a Widespread Outage, Say So and Wait for the Announcement

Thirteen of these 63 reviews describe a failure that hit everyone at once, and one reviewer says they checked Twitch to confirm it was not their connection. When an outage is acknowledged, compensation tends to arrive as a batch rather than per ticket, and reviewers who chased individually got the copy and paste reply. Check the official channels for an acknowledgement of that window, and if there is one, reference it in your ticket rather than arguing your case alone.

Step 5: If the Charge Itself Failed, Go to Google Play Instead

Niantic and Scopely control raid passes. They do not control the coin purchase. If the failure is on the money side, PokéCoins paid for and never delivered, or a package charged twice, that is a Google Play problem and Google Play has its own refund request flow with a strict window. Four reviews here mention that route or a chargeback. This does not work for a pass consumed by a game bug, because the coins were delivered and you did spend them. It only works when the purchase itself did not complete.

The Same Complaint in Nine Languages

We repeated the pull across 24 Google Play storefronts. Three returned reviews we already had, a known duplication in Play's international feeds. The remaining stores added 4,200 unique reviews, 762 of them substantial negatives. The pass and refund complaint appears in every large market we checked, and the September event shows up in the dates.

German

Habe heute einige Raids gemacht, 2x kein Pokémon danach erschienen die restlichen 4 mit einer Fangrate gefühlt von 0. Anfrage an den Support endete mit einer KI wo mir der Anspruch auf Entschädigung abgesprochen wurde, sehr Spielerfreundlich.

German

Über die Jahre hat sich das Spiel so dermassen verschlechtert was Bugs und Crashes angeht. Hauptsache Raidpässe für 2€/Stk und Monatspässe für Events um 20€ verkaufen, aber nichts am Spiel verbessern. Zzt schmiert das Spiel jede Viertelstunde ab.

Spanish

Nuevamente hay fallas masivas en las incursiones y he perdido pases de paga. Esta gente no puede mantener en condiciones este juego.

Spanish

Le doy 1 estrellas porque cuando fui por la incursión de mewtow acorazado se me bugeo el juego y no pude luchar y perdí mis pases al intentar entrar a las incursones qué deseccion tanto promocionar el go fest y pasa esto hoy preciso

Spanish

Ya van varias veces en las que hay problemas con los servidores durante un evento. Y en las que pierdo pases de incursión, ya sean premium o remotos. Después de notificar el problema, me responden un tiempo después diciendo que ya se ha resuelto el problema o se ha producido un reembolso. Y no se a que se refieren con eso porque no me han devuelto ningún pase.

Portuguese

Gran finale 2026 perdi dois passe de raide a distância por conta de problemas de desenvolvimento do jogo.

Portuguese

Meu jogo bugou ao final de uma raide e por conta dessa instabilidade eu perdi o pokemon chefe de raide e meu passe a distância que eu comprei usando coins adquiridos com dinheiro verdadeiro, o but do suporte não responde.

Italian

il gioco è buggatissimo, ti butta fuori dai raid e non ti restituisce i biglietti da remoto che devi ricomprare, assurdo

French

Impossible à jouer correctement : Dès qu'il y a un évènement intéressant il y a un souci. Le dernier en date est le raid Mewtwo où il n'est pas possible de joindre les raids distants. En effet, l'erreur est la suivante : L'arène est trop loin.

Turkish

Destek ekibi çok yetersiz. Oyunun kendi teknik hatası yüzünden raid hakkımı kaybettim, durumu defalarca ayrıntılı anlattım ama sürekli aynı otomatik mesajı gönderiyorlar ve telafi yapmıyorlar.

Korean

왜 현질을 해줘도 리모트 레이드 패스가 날라가죠? 와이파이 데이터 다 멀쩡하고 잘 되는데 왜 오류가 뜨면서 시간은 가는데 포켓몬은 안움직이고 체력은 깎이죠? 이번 메가 피날레 이벤트 메가 뮤츠 X 잡고 싶었는데 기분 다 망쳤네요. 제발 버그 좀 고쳐주세요.

Japanese

3年ぶりに復帰しましたが、ログイン画面?でやたらフリーズするし、リモートレイドパス使っているときに落ちたときには大体パスが返ってきてない時が多くてもう散々です。 もう少しフリーズや、カクツキを直して欲しいです。

Indonesian

tidak seseru yang dulu. tidak ada campfire seperti sebelumnya, waktu join raid jauh, tiba-tiba logout sendiri. tiketku hangus. kecewa

The third Spanish review above is the one we would put in front of a support manager. The player reports the problem, is told it has been resolved or refunded, and then says the passes never came back.

What This Does Not Show

Fifty seven days is not a trend. We can compare July, August and the first week of September to each other. We cannot tell you whether 2026 is worse than 2025, and we did not try.

The build and the event are the same window. 0.427.0 is the worst build in our table by a wide margin, and it is also the build people had installed during the Mega Finale weekend. Anyone claiming to separate those two from store reviews alone is guessing.

We measured Android only. Pokémon GO holds 4.00 from 652,566 App Store ratings against 3.55 from 15,373,009 on Google Play. We did not read a single iOS review, so we have no opinion on whether iPhone players see the same freezes.

Absence of refund reports is not proof refunds do not happen. A satisfied player has no reason to write a one star review. What we can say is that in 1,324 detailed complaints, nobody describes a clean return, and twelve describe an explicit refusal.

We counted what players wrote, we did not test the game. We did not buy a pass, join a raid or file a ticket. Every number here comes from public store reviews.

Read the Full Breakdown

You can read the full negative review breakdown for Pokémon GO on Android, or go straight to the trust check, the parent guide and apps like it. For the same "I paid and the item never arrived" pattern outside gaming, see StubHub tickets that are not delivered and Uber Eats telling customers they are not eligible for a refund. For another game where the money complaint dominates the reviews, see what 145 bad Magic Tiles 3 reviews say about the ads. For the wider category, see what mobile gamers hate most, and for the same automated support wall at a much larger company, see Expedia refund problems and bot support.