A sale reversal means the credit card or PayPal account was stolen. It is out of Envato’s control and of course it’s fraud by the buyer. The money does not go back to the buyer. That is called a refund.
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I’ve just had my first sales reversal on a license bought almost a month ago and was wondering why this is possible? People are able to listen to the track, see all important info and even download the preview before purchasing - so why are refunds allowed??
Any ideas?
I recently had my first reversal myself but the reason was that he accidently bought the same item twice. I asked here on the forum how to deal with reversals and got these links:
Hope this would help!
These articles imply that the author is contacted before a refund is given, but I was never informed about the sales reversal before I saw it this morning. It seems Envato just process it automatically. Is this right?
That’s because sales reversal and refunds aren’t the same thing.
Catch up on sales reveral here:
To be honest, I don’t know. In my case it was the opposite. The customer contacted me and I gave him instructions how to make the request… But he hasn’t done it… Yet!
Ah yes - that’s right, Thanks for your help, it makes more sense now.
I’ve merged several posts together to keep this thread as the primary.
Here’s is Matt’s reply again so you don’t need to scroll up to see it 
Thanks!
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And to add to this, again, a sale reversal is not a refund.
I fully understand your explanation about refund vs sale reversal, and the harsh fact went towards all feature implementations and products envato started.
The backlog occurring is one of minor things that shows there ignorance towards authors… and we are talking on old sale reversals, in my case nobody can block my paypal since i get all my money via swift :P:P:P
I mean there are people that got multiple reversals from one client, now is anyone investigating? The main point is that communications between envato and authors is just lame. And on that rare occasions when envato does admit a mistake there is no consequence what so ever, i am sick and tired of sorry ups… like the review fiasco… now again "backlog occurred ups sorry… chop 300$ ".
Again i do know the difference but this is just one minor thing that brought me and many authors to the tipping point.
You are constantly stating cold facts but ignore to see the pain behind authors cries and frustration.
The interesting thing is why there is never a backlog of sales and we actually get few hundred bucks 
Loves and hugs
Consider one guy purchases more licenses of the same item or more items before the system kicks in. He still doesn’t get the files, but the “chop” is bigger indeed! 
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Again i do know the difference but this is just one minor thing that brought me and many authors to the tipping point.
You are constantly stating cold facts but ignore to see the pain behind authors cries and frustration.
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Don’t forget I’m an author too, and I get them too, and they hurt as heck, but sadly, I know Envato can’t do anything but raise disputes with payment gates. [quote=“Anps, post:90, topic:69507”]
The interesting thing is why there is never a backlog of sales and we actually get few hundred bucks
Loves and hugs
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Because this wasn’t invented yet, haha! Cheers mate, loves and hugs to you too! 
Hi everyone,
Matt here, I’ve just spoke to Kat, who is the finance systems manager here at Envato. As promised, I want to jump in to give a little bit more information on the sales reversals that occurred yesterday.
We did indeed process a backlog of sales reversals yesterday, effecting a number of authors. As quite a few authors have already noted, sales reversals are always a result of payment processors reversing transactions that have previously been cleared. They are not Envato implementing a refund on behalf of a customer, or about Envato trying to gain from authors. Sales reversals can be for a number of reasons, but at the end of the day they are not created by us. Sales Reversals are initiated by a bank or payment processor (paypal, skrill, mastercard and so on) and we (Envato’s finance team) have to adhere to them.
We’re sorry for the pain and confusion around this. What has happened here is a one-off event in which, due to a system issue, these particular sales reversals have occurred as a batch. Because we like to ensure our authors are kept up to date with what they’re earning, our standard (and preferred) way of working is to reverse the sale transaction as soon as possible, usually within a few weeks of the payment. Unfortunately, the way these payment gateways work is that a sale can be reversed up to six months after transaction. This is very rare, but it can happen.
We’ve have an amazing team of people here at Envato dedicated to securing our platforms and preventing this kind of activity, but unfortunately there is no way to completely prevent sales reversals. I hope this answers some of your questions.
PS- Because there have been a number of threads created in relation to this, I’m closing off this thread and creating a new thread in Envato announcements so we can centralise the discussion and reply as required. Please continue the discussion there