The people behind this theme are fraud. They have cheated me for $66. They do not advertise that their theme is not compatible with any of the recipe plugin that any of the food bloggers might be using in their existing blog. And that the blogger will have to rewrite all the recipes again in their theme.
When I learned this on the very first day after the purchase, I requested a refund and all I got is their bogus refund policy and their attitude to do whatever we won’t refund.
Folks, if you have a running food blog, do not fall for this theme. you will only lose your money and get nothing in return. Or you should be ready to redo all your recipes in their format.
I hope Envao is listening. My trust on themeforest is now lost.
I might reply not knowing the whole story, but following your logic, do they advertise that their theme is compatible with a recipe plugin?
Also did you ask them about plugin compatibility or did you tell them what you were planning to do with their theme? All this before the purchase, of course.
As an author, I do not feel alright to simply refund after someone purchased the theme and then changed its mind because at the end of the day he might get both the theme and his money.
I don’t think cheating is the right word, if the theme is not as advertised or as presented in the demo, then yes, you should get a refund, but otherwise, I would reject a refund request also.
Thank you for expressing your views. When I tried buying the theme, all I could see what that I can only write to support and ask questions when I purchase the theme. I as a non-tech person did not understand that the recipe plugin (which is a core of any food blog) will become a problem.
Here are my questions:
Tell me if the recipe blog will exist without recipe plugin?
If the theme is just not compatible with any existing recipe plugin or there is no api to pull data from recipe plugins to their interface, should they not advertise it?
If they were not in condition to support any recipe plugin data extraction, why should any exiting food blog buy their theme.
why do you think that I am keeping their theme. They have a purchase code, change it. The theme is anyways is not for me.
I bought the theme, because I liked the way it looked in demo, but if I cannot convert my existing blog into the way their demo looks, the theme is not worth to me.
And if achieving their demo means that I have to re-write all my 80 recipes, then somebody might be kidding.
And when somebody says that it is your mistake you did not ask the question in the first place clearly means that you were waiting for a customer to make mistake and take advantage of it.
I do not know the details, but I can guess it exists if the theme is approved, right? I mean, I don’t think they would approve an incomplete theme.
I’m not sure about it. Usually you advertise what your product can do, not what it can’t. I don’t release a new car on the market and advertise that it can’t fly, right?
I’m not sure, but I guess an existing blog should buy other theme if this theme cannot support a plugin and a startup or someone who is able to rewrite the recipes could buy it.
I don’t know, the purchase code is not important, you might still use it (I’m not implying that you will, just speaking in general).
Same answer as before.
You know better.
Nobody is waiting for a customer to make a mistake, but you are responsible for your purchase, there are thousands of plugins on the market, an author cannot make a list with all of them and tell you which works and which not. If you buy a phone, a car, you read it specs before, right? If you assume it will have the specs (plugins) you want and it turns out it doesn’t, it is your mistake, isn’t it?
Again, I am sorry if I am mistaken as I do not know all the details, I simply reply based on logic.
Food blogs use recipe plugins. However, in Foodbook, they are not using a plugin rather they have their own interface. If an existing blog buys their blog, the recipes needs to be migrated in their interface. And if they are not using an external plugin, they need to make the user able to migrate the recipes in their interface. Is that simple. However, it is not the way the theme is setup for. User is supposed to write all the recipes again in their interface.
Usually you dont advertise what your product cannot do. Agreed. But if it is something which will completely change the way your earlier blog then it is your duty to inform the same. Right?
Correct, exiting blog should buy other themes. Since they do not support any recipe plugin, they should simply give a disclaimer that no recipe plugin supported. That’s about it.
If purchase code is not important, then there has to be a medium that you can verify people not misusing the refund policy. I am sure and understand your part on this and I understand it is hard work from the theme maker. However, from my perspective, If I am not able to use the theme what good it is for me.
I understand that clearly, nobody is waiting for a customer to make mistake. But mistakes happen and should not be used for advantage. Sure there are thousands of plugins and an author cannot keep an account of every plugin avaialble in the market. But if your theme does not support any recipe plugin, just mention it. If the manufacturer is making a new phone for the market, but the phone is not 4G ready, they will mention in their specs before Right? If the car manufacturer is making a new car for the market but the car has a fuel tank which is just 10 gallons, the car owner needs to mention in the specs right? Thats all I am saying.
Accidentally saw this topic, just my 2 cents on this:
I am sorry to say this, but I think you are the one responsible for this. From what I understand - you bought their theme assuming that it will be compatible with your plugin, without them advertising it was? No mate, you’re wrong here. Badly wrong.
I think it’s your duty to ask. How would the theme developer know what you want to do with it? It’s your responsibility to ask before buying.
You’re wrong on this one again, mate. Any theme developer would only advertise what the theme is compatible with, not the other way. If you knew you used a plugin it’s your duty to ask if it would work with your content.
As a theme developer, I would never write such a thing. It’s not the way things are done. The customer is always responsible to ask questions and check with the developer via the item comments for example if the theme is compatible with the plugin they wanted, not the other way as you are saying.
Ok. Looks like you don’t understand food blogs and hence your comment. Food blogs will use some or the other theme to load their recipes. I would have agreed, if their theme was not compatible with my plugin but the problem is they are not compatible with any recipe plugin. Isn’t it their duty to say that they don’t support any recipe plugin.
How should I have confirmed this because the only option to reach their support was to buy the theme before hand.
How should I have confirmed this? The possible way that I found was to buy and then only get the ability to connect their support. Which is what I did.
Stop telling me that its only customer responsbility. You are only telling me that as a seller you carry no responsbility and that as a customer I have dealt with people who owe no responsbility of their product. If a customer has made a mistake (picking your words), the customer is now trapped and now needs to be peanalized.
Thanks for telling me all this. Cool stuff though.
No, it is their responsibility to say what their theme IS compatible with. If they don’t show any information about it on the description page it should be taken as “incompatible” as default until they confirm the opposite.
All themes/plugins on the market have a comment form which is used for these things actually.
Support is another thing. The comment form is used for questions related to the product. That is actually what they are for.
It’s your choice as a customer to choose who you buy from and where you buy from. But you cannot say that the theme developer should write that the theme isn’t compatible with something. They can list if their product IS. Like I said above, no information confirming compatibility should be considered non-compatible. That’s just how things work. Your false expectations are your problem.
I don’t know the full story here, but from what I’ve read above - you are wrong.
Thanks Skycore for informing me that I am wrong and seriously that ignorance of knowing how to connect with theme developer has already costed me $66.
I will at least ensure that every other person is aware of what this theme has and what it does not.
Does that satisfy you.
PS: you must be kidding and fooling some food blogger to sell a theme where the food blogger will have to write all their recipes again in a new format. Just think about it.
First of all - we understand the comment based on the fact that we declined the refund request you wanted with no good reason. You threatened us with bad comments and reviews if we don’t give you a refund and here it is.
While we try to offer the best services and products to all customers we cannot provide support or respond for your false expectation in relation to them. We never advertised our product as being compatible the plugin you were using. Advertising the theme as not compatible with all plugins out there is not realistic. What you are saying is that we should test the theme with every plugin on the market and specify if it’s compatible with it. That is simply stupid.
It is your responsibility to ask wether the product is compatible if you do not see the information that it is. Just as you used the comment area to say bad things about us, you could’ve used it for asking about compatibilities and specific things that you were interested in before the purchase. You even had the test-drive option where you could try the theme out. We cannot be held responsible for your content or false expectations about the product and compatibility with third party plugins or your content which was created with another theme/plugin. We’d be glad to help you with any questions you have about the theme options and settings, but we will not create migration scripts on your demand just because your a threatening us with bad reviews and comments.
That being said, we want to say that the theme works perfectly with the functionality shown on the demo, so it works as advertised.
On the other side, the plugin you were using actually works with the theme, it just doesn’t show content with the theme styles as you want. So the problem isn’t even with compatibility here.
This leaves us with the questions of your real intentions, wether you are just looking for any reason, in the end inventing this one to ask for a refund.
Look, in the first place I like to tell you that I have never asked or questioned your compatibility with a particular plugin. My problem is that why on earth you think it is easy to re-write all recipes. I am not sure if you understand the pain that I have will in re-writing all the recipes.
I have no intention to ask for. That is not what I bought the theme for. With support also, I asked for a simplified solution and I was told to install some migration tool and some plugin which according to him is a lot of cost.
Look: I have loved the way you theme looks in the demo. All I need is support from your team in simplified step by step way to get my site the way your demo looks.
With respect to everyone - all support needs to be via the item author.
Unfortunately if the issue is because of something/a plugin/a function outside their demo then there may only be so much which they can do in terms of offering solutions (as it sounds they have) and definitely would not be expected to resolve something which is not their doing.
We can appreciate the frustration but no theme is going to list full compatibility to different plugins esp. in a category like recipes, page builders, forms etc. where there are so many.
One alternative would be to look on www.studio.envato.com for a freelancer and there maybe (without seeing it all it is impossible to tell) something that could be done with database tables to move some content.
Charlie the question is not to list down the list of supported plugin.
My question is how difficult it is to simply tell customer that you don’t support any recipe plugin out there in the market.
Any customer will appreciate if you are upfront with them and don’t hide things or believe in customer making a mistake just to keep ticking the sales number.
Again with all due respect, I don’t feel this is a suitable conversion for here. Noone has the full info nor will be able to help.
It’s a very bold statement to suggest that the theme ‘does not support any recipe plugin’ given how many there are AND especially as the author states on the item that actually it does support your plugin.
I get your grievance is more that the author didn’t forewarn you about plugin support but no item can or is going to list the things it DOESN’T work with.
How can an author know if a buyer is migrating from another one, and if so which plugin they are using?
How can they test (in this case) all of the recipe plugins out there?
How could they pre-empt if it’s a plugin which works perfectly BUT the buyer has added custom code which breaks the compatibility?
For what it’s worth I am a big buyer and not an author so do regularly sympathise when it comes to getting items up and running, but in this case it does sounds very much like what you are after is custom support for a third party plugin which is outside scope. https://themeforest.net/page/item_support_policy.
Charlie, Appreciate your comment.
But how on earth I am not able to convey a simple fact that the theme does not allow migration of your recipes from any given recipe plugin in the market. And where is the author saying that they support the plugin I have I mean you seem have read it completely wrong?
My grievance is not that the author does not forewarn me about the incompatibility of my plugin. I have problems when the theme does not support migration of recipes from any recipe plugin, it is a major thing to inform the customer, which they kept hidden.
I am sure you understand the food blogs and food blogs do not exist without using a recipe plugin. A theme maker, when making a new recipe theme, was already aware of the fact that every food blog would be using a recipe plugin. When they will buy a new theme, they will need to migrate their existing recipes in the new theme. It was the theme developer duty to let the customer know that they do not support this activity. Period.
Maybe it’s important to know here is that there is two type of recipe themes.
The theme that does not have a built-in recipe section.
The theme that has inbuilt recipe section.
In the first type of theme, the user is free to use a recipe plugin of their choice and use with the theme, for example, NEWSPAPER Theme or Studio Press Themes. The theme developer suggests the best compatible plugin, and then leave the rest to the user to decide which plugin they want to use.
In the other type of theme, the theme author should mention if their theme is capable of migrating the existing recipes to the new theme or not, which FoodBook did not do. And when I found this (just on the very same day), I requested a step by step solution.
Just because they failed to initially inform me about the drawback, and secondly, that I am a non-tech person, does not mean that they will offer me another expensive alternative method to migrate my recipes. In this case, I demanded the refund. What wrong did I do?
Charlie, you are correct, this seems to be a waste of my time here because the way somebody wanted the money they have got it.
I have still asked them if they are ready to support and if they can help me with simplified step by step instructions to work my site the way their demo looks and I will wait for their response.
In true tense hiding things from the customer is not ethical business, come what may.
Also, even if the customer has made a mistake and found it quickly, the seller should be able to empathize and help the customer, not show them the doors of policies. I have been in the corporate world for 20 years of my life with large US Staffing firms and I know how and why policies are made.
The feeling of being cheated, whether true or not, in itself is not a great feeling.
Thanks Anyways.
We are not going to comment more about this on this on external forums, social media, etc. as it’s clear now that we, as a theme provider did nothing wrong. I understand your frustration but accusing us of fraud is wrong and misleading.
Regarding your recipes - it’s all about what and how you want to proceed further. You can always keep the old recipes with the old format and build from there. If you want to migrate the recipes you had created with the old theme to use the new Foodbook meta keys - you would need a migration script. You can maybe find somebody that would do this for you on Envato Studio.