I believe that a sign up depends of the credibility of the seller.
it depends how you look at it
but it is like you say
a client always looks at things that a host is missing
and as it is just not possible that all the clients knows who you are does it depends on differend things
to provide a example
i first check the tos and if i do not like the tos then i wont even try to sign up
then i check the livechat ( if there is a livechat) to ask a few questions (depends from host or what i need)
then i check for the refund policy (why they provide it , dit it provided problems before , what terms falls under refund and so on )
a client is a strange persone
they always find someting that you are missing , trusting some1 those days is hard for every1
but it is not excluded that a refund policy can do damage
to provide a exelent example
my first hosting package was for 1$ for a great package ( 10GB space ) as i was just reselling from a reseller
but the clients just refused to sign up as they dit not trust the price/offer (its to mutch to be true , confirmed with a lot of friends that even refused to sign up because of it )
on the other side , i sell basicly the same thing but for 5$ (10GB space ) but in my case from a dedicated webserver
and now i got a lot more clients that are willing to pay 5$ instead 1$
reason they do is because 5$ seems more real then 1$ for the same package
so it is not only the refund policy , but basicly everything in general
the refund policy depends to on what price the refund policy count
if you are providing a refund policy for 1$ ?? then i will ask a lot of questions to (who cares about 1$ ??)
so if you ask me , if you want to ignore my other post and want to post the refund public , then it realy depends where the refund policy is counting for
make it that it is trusted , so a user know that you provide refunds when something goes bad but that they mostly does not need it
if they ask me if i provide refunds then i say that they got 7 days full refund with out questions , and then pro rated depending on the reason (need a valid reason)
as if a user is happy after 7 days , why not after 2 years ??
so my final post
it realy depends where it is used for , how it is used , when it is used , what rules it has and a lot of other things that are involved and makes it looks strange
let it looks like just a extra service (and not just a need to have ) then i am sure it will even give more clients then clients that leave
hopely this explained my vision about your post Fcolor
Greets From PowerChaos