Help with a Refund Request

Envato Customers Web and Code
1

Hello guys,

I just want to add a quick note to all the good people from the forum administration - If you delete this information I will hire people to repost it every 10 minutes for 10 years.

So lets begin.
I am a long time customer (probably over 60+ purchases) and author on the Envato marketplace.
Around seven days ago I’ve purchased a WordPress plugin from CodeCanyon for around $33.
The plugin was a top selling one, available on the market from a long long time.

I went ahead and purchased it.
Installed, followed the authors instructions and crash.
The site stoped working, a couple of hours in trying to fix the damn thing but 0 result.
Then I go back to the plugin page to seek help from the author, after all I’ve paid for a year of support or something like that.
And when I opened the comments section it was like +30 people asking, demanding for help and support going back 2-3 months :slight_smile:

Then I went ahead and contacted the good people from Envato for a refund.
I filed a complaint had to wait 5 days (of my life) to hear from the author (which was no where to be found for 2-3 months) but Envato already knew that, see because the other +30 people that suffered like me probably did the same thing.

So 5 days have passed, I have the option to file a dispute with Envato and I am certain that now there will be justice done and I will get my refund.
I’ve spend the long 5 days reading their refund police over and over again and I figured that there was no way they can not issue a refund.

But No, A guy from their support contacts me with the following :

Blockquote
Hi there,

Good day and thank you for taking the time to contact the Envato Customer Success team. My name is Frank and I will be helping you today!

Unfortunately it looks like the author has chosen to remove this item from the Market. You’re welcome to contact them directly for more information.

More information on removed or deleted files can be found in this article: https://help.market.envato.com/hc/en-us/articles/202500244

Although I acknowledge your refund request, it is stated in our member terms that we cannot provide a refund in your case. It saddens me that I am unable to give in to your request but there is just so much that I can do in your case.

Please let me know if you have any other questions and I would be happy to assist.

Kind regards

Blockquote

If you took the time to read the above email from Envato support you will notice that they state that the author has choosen to remove the item from the market !
However if you go a few lines above you will see that the author has been no where to be found for 2-3 months. But Envato somehow tracked him down and made him take down his item.
Again they state that the author choose took down the item :slight_smile:

So we go back to their refund policy where it states that if an item is removed they don’t care and you don’t get sh**
In this case they can go ahead and rip me off with $33
Also I have paid for support which I won’t receive.

So basically they went ahead took down the item themselves (stated the author had done so) and then had the right to scam me.

This is a total scam and I made some research on this.
It turns out that this has been going on for some time now, go ahead and type “scam” in the forum’s search and just let the results flow.

So dear Envato team,
I come from a very poor country where most people live a full week on $33.
Fortunately I have a good amount of resources and time that I am willing to spend on getting my $33
back from you one way or another.
From what I see you won’t get back to me via email on this issue, please do so here if you like.
I will wait no more that 24 hours more for your response, after that I will seek legal action since I
believe that my rights have been violated.
And good luck in getting a written conformation from the author that “he has choosen to take down
the item” :angry:: I have a head start on this statement.

I don’t care how long it will take and how much it will cost I will get my money back plus the legal
interest. After 24 hours my lawyer will begin seeking down every customer you scammed using this
scheme and we will file a collective lawsuit against you.

In the mean time I will forward 20% of my staff’s working time to go on social media and spread this
information, and take the time to promote a better marketplace
Where they don’t have scheme templates to rip of their customers with broken plugins and support
that you pay for and never get.

Thank You for your time.
I expect to hear from you shortly.
Know that you will hear from me -
Postal Address PO Box 16122 Collins Street West.
_ Victoria 3000 Australia_

2 Likes
2

If this is 100% true (I would love to hear the story from other side, but I guess it won’t happen), it’s a shame…

I sold my products on many different platforms, and none of them has such a policy that if item is removed from market, buyers can’t get refunds.

It’s surely a great opportunity to run a scam campaign - create some new item, promote it heavily (so you sell hundreds of copies within few days), remove it from market - profit! Create a new account and repeat…

3

Out of interest if you create an item of true necessary standard to pass review and then sell many copies very quickly giving you the trending badges etc. Why would you remove it?

Would you not make more profit to leave it for sale for longer?

2 Likes
4

Well, it surely applies to legit authors, so you have a good point here.

However, reviewers never test the overall functionality of uploaded item; therefore, some scam artist can submit properly looking item (which even actually works), and then claim the item has hundreds of features (while it hasn’t, because it would take lots of time, skills and efforts to code), and when buyers start complaining about item not being as described - scammer goes away with all his profits.

Of course, it’s just a very basic example.

5

The case here is that Envato said the author chose to take down the item himself. Which is bull crap, cuz the guy is offline for 5 months.
Envato took it down took away his revenu and kept it to themselves plus the freaking support.
If that is not a scam I don’t know what is.

6

Hi there!

Sorry for the sad story but I am pretty confident it will get sorted out as a happy ending!

Side question, was that the only item that author sold?

7

No the guy had like a dozen plugins.
Died or got kidnapped I guess.

8

Unless I’m mistaken, there’s no way to know when an author was last signed in. Although there’s no evidence to support the fact that he removed the item, there’s also no evidence to support the fact that Envato removed it either (apart from Envato telling you the author did it)… unless you know something we don’t.

9

That’s true.
But, the author has a dozen of plugins that were left without any updates or comments for months.
From what I’ve explored the author was constantly providing updates and support, and replying to comments.

10

Hey there Juliano.

When I saw this, it struck me as slightly odd. So I followed up with the help team and they’ve investigated it further. You will have received an email from them explaining the situation, but to cut a long story short: your refund has now been processed.

But please don’t hesitate to give us a shout again if anything in the future strikes you as strange - rest assured - we’re not trying to scam you :wink: If there are issues, we absolutely want to know about them.

8 Likes
11

Told you it’s going to be a happy ending!

We’re a selected Community of talented people sharing the same customer happiness plate.

I am a member on Envato since 2011 and never seen them take part of a scamming scheme- those who don’t comply will get punished quickly.

1 Like
12

Thank you for the assistance Mr. Coxy.
I did receive the refund in my account wallet, and I plan to spend it on somthing working this time.
I will take my time to research the items I buy on the envato market, since clearly the standards and not the same as they once were.
Thank you again.
However I did not receive the email you mentioned.

Regards

3 Likes
13

Hey @JulianoAuditore,

Good to hear the refund’s arrived. If you haven’t received an email from the support team, can you DM me your email address? I’ll chase it up.

Also, the community is pretty good at providing recommendations based on what you’re are looking for. If you’re looking for something specific from a good author, feel free to reach out for guidance in the forums anytime.

14

I’m trying to get a refund too and Envato and the guys make really hard to do this.
First of all, I got an email saying that I should go to comments section where I bought the broke theme and click on an link. Common guys! Just send the link that is just fail UX on purpose! And When I go to the comments section, there is no “raise a dispute” “blue link”. That’s so annoying =/

Really, how should I send the prints that prove that the theme author did not offer any support?

1 Like