Do the themeforest owners hold authors rights above customers rights?

It seems to me that the themeforest website favours authors massively over customers. From what I can see there are a great deal of rogue authors who are getting away with doing poor work and envarto’s policy seems to be ‘it’s nothing to do with us’ when customers get ripped off.

The whole “you can request a refund” script is getting old. When some of us spend time (in some cases weeks), looking for the right theme only to find out that the support is a sham and the themes are badly built, only to have all that time throw in our faces with “just ask for a refund” is not consolation for wasted time.

There needs to be tougher consequences for authors who consistently bring the quality of the community as a whole down.

I am currently dealing with a situation of extremely poor support over a theme that will not download demo data. I’ve already sold this to my client. A refund is an insult when you think of the consequences of having to find another the that doesnt look like the one pitched to my customer.

What is envarto going to do about this in the future? If the answer is nothing, they leave themselves open to being overtaken by those who would choose to make a name for themselves on the grounds of quality, as opposed to a platform that favours authors on the understanding that them making money from authors is more important than attracting good and regular customer.

Hey there. I’m really sorry to hear about this experience, but I can assure you, Envato favors no one when it comes to quality. Everyone is of equal rights and consequences exist for both sides. Let me elaborate on this!

Indeed, you can get a refund for any issue you find with any item that prevents it from working as advertised, but, after you get a refund, you can also report the broken item to Envato Staff ( use: Envato Market Help and Support ) they will then pass this down to the Quality Team and investigate this. If a claim of a broken item is valid, the item is disabled and the author required to fix it within a fixed timeframe, after which the item is completely disabled. Authors react to this in the quickest possible way, so if you’re facing a situation where an Item is broken and the Author fails to live up to his responsibilities, do report them. The quality factor of the marketplace depends on authors doing their jobs and keeping the product quality as it’s supposed to be.

There are. Authors can get disabled, their earnings frozen, items blocked, buyers refunded for past purchases for security or bug issues. Always be sure to report a broken item. The Quality team will investigate, and will throw your exact scenario at the author.

I completely agree, and this no longer falls under the 6 month support period. In your case, the item is considered broken. An author that says the item works as the demo, but can’t show / provide / help with making the item as is will be contacted and definitely be heavily frowned by the Quality team based on current Terms of Service. On multiple such reports, an author’s item or entire profile can be disabled.

To put things into a general perspective that covers about all use cases.

For Authors.

  • Item doesn’t work - Author is contacted and requested to fix this issue. Depending on severity it can be 24 hours, can be 1 week, after which the item can be disabled ( on first misbehavior, the item is disabled, multiple times the author can be disabled ) - you will of course be refunded
  • Item does work, but author doesn’t provide support - Again, author is contacted, and personally requested to assist you in your case. Again, if the author fails to reply in a specific time, his item or his account can be disabled, and of course, you will be refunded.

Cases of abuse are incredibly rare on both sides, I saw one or two in my entire 10 year career as a moderator so I’ll leave these out since they don’t end up well for either side that starts them.

From my above list, you can see that serious authors are the ones that don’t need a contact from Envato, especially since these will get you notes on your portfolio which will get you thrown out. There is the odd case, like yours, where probably the author has a poor support staff or needs a slap on the wrist. In this case, I definitely recommend you get in touch with Envato Market Help and Support with your full experience. The Customer Success Team and the Quality Team will be on this ASAP.

While I understand this may be frustrating, these cases can be counted on one hand, and with the help of responsible buyers who value the quality of products, authors are educated or removed before they can cause damage to a end-user product.

Envato takes care of serious authors and serious buyers alike, with policies put in place, that have been tested and that work. All you need to do is request help from higher staff using the previous link!

Please let me know if I left anything out.
Cheers! :slight_smile:

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