More Information: Batch Sales Reversals.

Envato Announcements
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Hi everyone,

Matt here, I’ve just spoken to Kat, who is the finance systems manager here at Envato. I’m here to provide a little bit more information on the sales reversals that occurred yesterday which many authors have asked about.

Yesterday we processed a backlog of sales reversals to a number of authors.

Sales reversals happen as a result of payment processors reversing transactions that have previously been cleared. Rest assured, they are not Envato implementing a refund on behalf of a customer, or 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 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’ve created this thread so we can centralise the discussion and reply as required.

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Cool! Thank you for your concern. I am very pleased that the envato values its authors.
But however products continue to use the money for the license returned. :worried:

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i agree that you cannot prevent 100% sale reversal but at least you should allow us to encrypt a little part of script that do not affect script function or usage but that can allow us to control those kind of people who get refund and use our product for free.

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They weren’t refunds mate. They were reversals, Matt explained it in his original post :slight_smile:

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i understand completely what Matt say but im my point of view someone who cause a sale reversal is in fact a fraud person usually they contest payment in their account and the bank ( paypal or other ) simply refund them and send a refund cancellation to the seller ( evanto ). I am currently not a rocket scientist but that is how they do and that is how they should not do. And that is what make me hesitate to put new product i have code on this marketplace.

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I would ban accounts which get the reversal if the theme was downloaded simple as that. The question here is why this happens as BoomCoding stated who is behind the reversal initiation. And anyone that already downloaded the product and after that used such system to get there money back should be banned immediately and the paypal, bank, credit card should be flagged so if he creates another account it does not help. After couple of those slowly you would eliminate this kind of behaviour. And communicate to community that this kind of actions will not be tolerated. And the ones that got the excuse that there credit card or whatever got stolen… well file a report and then investigation can start. The main point is that products got stolen.

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wait wait wait… if the buyer open a dispute on paypal (he want money back), it not means that buyer will get automatically his money back. Paypal will contact the seller (Envato) first… So, if Envato responds to Paypal dispute, they would send us an email copy of whole comunication with paypal… we want to know, why paypal refunded the buyer after few months and copy of comunication is a good proof i think…

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@Anps, @BoomCoding, it does not work that way. If a buyer does that his account is disabled until the investigation is complete. That means, no access to items, no support, no downloads, no purchases. Buyers are not allowed to game the system without serious repercussions to their accounts.

Regarding PayPal @LLmotion is quite correct. Envato have Terms of Service the buyer agrees to when creating an account that he’s breaching when he disputes externally.

These things are solved in house by Envato using their Terms of Serivce. Users that abuse it are disabled. It’s not that easy guys. Please stop believing the story that Everyone can activate a reversal as fast as they sneeze, if that would be true, we’d be ending up paying buyers for our items :laughing: . Furthermore, the number of buyers that do try this, is incredibly small,

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Why? If the system allows for a reversal on a digital product which already was downloaded for example, without much questions or investigations then envato is well in its rights to ban this kind of users until they have proven that they are not guilty. Its the same as soft disabling authors on DMCA notice or any notice at all with almost no warning.

We do not need purchases from people that manipulate system in this way. And these days you can check how many purchases he had until that time and when you see 1 purchase 1 reversal or any number of purchases with big amount of reversals in comparison then just ban him simple as that, if you can do it to authors you can do it to them.

Everything is so complicated when they need to put extra effort into this. Lets face it there is no interest to do that at all. But when you need to implement html, cms and one day wp into elements that’s done rapidly all from gathering products to placing it on sale.

The amount that envato gets from us authors is the higher of all markets that work in the same field, but the tools we have are just hilarious and the protections is ridiculous. We have to do our own marketing, our own product protection our own accounting, refunding, support (even have our own platforms for which we pay envato for what?) and more.

Al we want is to take this kind of notions seriously at the least we could have been notified that backlog was made and after i don’t know how many days we will proceed with sale reversals.

As i sad the communications is bad, and when its done its shady and false reasons are made to cover the real reasons.

Sorry i am bashing out lately but the recent happenings are just destroying everything i love about this market and it makes me angry, and this kind of flukes that are not by them self’s so terrible just trips me over the edge.

Cheers

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Who said they don’t disable these users? They do :slight_smile: [quote=“Anps, post:9, topic:69679”]
We do not need purchases from people that manipulate system in this way. And these days you can check how many purchases he had until that time and when you see 1 purchase 1 reversal or any number of purchases with big amount of reversals in comparison then just ban him simple as that, if you can do it to authors you can do it to them.
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They can’t manipulate the system. They get disabled out of their accounts and their downloads / support / credits frozen. [quote=“Anps, post:9, topic:69679”]
The amount that envato gets from us authors is the higher of all markets that work in the same field, but the tools we have are just hilarious and the protections is ridiculous. We have to do our own marketing, our own product protection our own accounting, refunding, support (even have our own platforms for which we pay envato for what?) and more.
[/quote]

Like, Envato is the only market that automatically disables account of anyone who tries to game the Terms of System. I’ve never head of other markets do this, and I’m quite on top of their Terms of Serivce.

This was a system error mate, as Matt said. They discovered it and had to process it instantly. These are legal things. A one day announcement for us could possibly have meant a lot of damage to Envato.

You’re not bashing out. You’re reading between the lines mate. You keep posting the same message and the questions you ask have already been answered numerous times. Sorry to be so up front! :slight_smile:

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I disagree those legal things waited because of those system errors for a while… conduct towards authors have also “legal things”. If nothing else the moral responsibility.

If the fact you stated that those buyers are immediately disabled… then cool, cheers for that and i apologise! But somehow with the track record of envato back logging everything lately i doubt it :stuck_out_tongue:

And why am i repeating my self? Because all we get on our questions is sand into eyes. No relevant facts and mostly fiction that indeed are not as they sad it will be.

Cheers

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I’m sure you disagree, but the fact that Envato agrees is probably why the marketplace isn’t getting sued and it’s why it’s running. Moral responsibilities sadly have nothing to do with legal obligations. And this is something authors fail to see. A great moral attitude toward authors could lead to a shutdown.

Doing something illegal that is moral toward you will leave you without a place to sell your items. So this situation should be pretty easy to understand.

As Matt explained, and you again didn’t read it it mate!!! This was a one time thing that happened due to an error in the system and had to be processed immediately.

Legal facts are sand in your eyes mate? Come on! I know you’re a logical personal and I want to see that side of you on the forums. What more can Envato do if they have legal obligations? They’re stuck between pleasing the authors and pleasing legal teams. It’s not really that hard of a choice, now, is it? :slight_smile:

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Put the point you made about “legal things” as i sad and you do not read :stuck_out_tongue: the backlog was 1 time here but there are backlogs all over the envato services from elite care packs, to review times… and nothing was communicated ahead on when things started to go bad… only when god knows how many authors complained we got any response. This is my point.

I did not say legal fact… so get your facts strait :stuck_out_tongue: I sad communications which announce things for example envato elements was announced way ahead and they said that its going to be a graphic assets subscription model and now they push basically almost everything there. So they directly miss leaded us.

Same here… they new about the backlogs… since they have piled up for some time it did not happen overnight since there are older reversals am i right? So why didn’t they at least tweet about it (attention: your money will go by by soon). Same thing with review times we warned Envato when it went over 7 days and over 10 days and over 15 days and until things went 25+ days poop hit the fan and then promises till the end of summer and i bet you that they knew they will not make it. Absolutely no responsibility shown all we got ups very sorry we are doing everything we can so hang on.

My point is that every time a “one time happens” we get out of the loop until enough people notice it, they have stats, monitoring systems which alert them so we should know whats going on at least a bit earlier.

To put it in perspective, we have few clients for which we manage network system, computers, server etc. We monitor it… when we see an little one time issue we explore it if it has potential to do bigger bad things…

Now i know they do to but to many mistakes, upses, one time system errors happened, choices that brought authors to the level it is.

You are here longer then i am as author but I’ve been following the community the same time. I remember the devotion towards authors when i was a year into it. The community had a big part in everything, we had next to nothing in income but i loved this community… but again this is out of the topic, bit is it really?

Logically you are right… but if they really wanted they could have changed the system drastically a while a go… for example introduce credits with which you buy products. In that system sale reversal is impossible since you do not have the bill for the item itself but buy credits, hence you cannot request an official reversal… as far as i know, for example we could not do it with playstation when we bought a game online, but then it would mean envato pays us provision meening they pay more tax :sunglasses:. But i do admit this is a huge undertaking for envato… since the site is not yet fully responsive, how can we expect something drastically :stuck_out_tongue: For god sake even something trivial as this is not fixed for ages on firefox

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But here i am rumbling on about thing’s that do not go into this post… maybe you are right my logic went out the window and my emotions took over :stuck_out_tongue: should calm down and retire from this forum as it is useless to complain nothing is achieved just my focus gets stolen. Back to work :stuck_out_tongue:

Cheers

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Oh yes! Same for chrome on windows!

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Anps, I agree Envato’s communication when they have issues is really poor but it’s understandable as they are now much bigger when they started out with just a couple of staff, stuff has to go through multiple people and only takes one person to be busy and that line of comms breaks down entirely.

Envato can’t do a lot about reverals as the person has gone to their card provider and not through Envato, the money is removed from Envato’s accounts without them accepting it, unfortunately that means authors have to share the burden, the problem lies with card providers believing what their customer says and not doing some research, but I beleive the majority of the transactions would be via stolen cards as why would someone get their envato account, their credit card locked to save $59 when you can download most themes via nulled sites anyway.

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That’s weird. I haven’t seen any except this for a long, long, long time

back·log
noun: backlog; plural noun: backlogs
an accumulation of something, especially uncompleted work or matters that need to be dealt with.

I plan on breaking my left hand next week. I’m informing you something bad will happen without knowing it will. But just in case. Envato worked fluidly until a surge of new authors appeared and Envato dealt with it immediately.

Wrong. Matt just said they happened overnight, due to a system error they were detected and dealt with immediately.

Of course. This was a planed thing. Having a server error is not a planed thing. You can’t know when they happen but you deal with them as fast as possible. And that’s what Envato did, clearly.

Perfectly correct. So Envato should invest a few million dollars to create every possible system prevention that doesn’t happen, right? That’s not how it works mate…

To put in perspective, you, as in you and your partner, Envato, as in 100+ Employees that have to ensure that every change is legal and has to be approved by someone else, and has to be beta tested, and affects a few million members. There’s just one problem with your argument. You … your team … let’s say 10 people … let’s say 10.000 customers. Envato, their team, let’s say the least 100 people, and at least 10.000.000 customers and people around here. It’s a bit different. You can’t compare a small company with anything close to the scale of Envato.

That sounds great. Have you ever heard of IP bans country wide? Let me tell you how it works. Envato has to do something legally, payment wise. Envato doesn’t want to do that for country X. Country X bans Envato’s IP. There’s no company that had problems like this right? I’m not even thinking about Google being banned in China …

My point is simple. you cannot impose your, mine, a persons opinion in a company that has to abide by tons of rules and international regulations. One small modification for us, can lead to a douzine of lawsuits, IP bans and so much more problems including being banned form Payment Gates.

My point is simple. Look at things, legally, from the perspective of a company, not the perspective of an individual. If you haven’t noticed, everything we ever wanted that didn’t have a legal consequence, we got it.

I’m not going to continue this, since it’s impossible to change your point of view or open your perspective to the fact that Envato is not called Mr John and is not an individual in a country. It’s a company, multiple countries, multiple laws, multiple obligations.

Cheers! :slight_smile:

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  1. Really??? Review times, elite care packs? …
  2. Actually no… if you break your left hand you notify me that you wont be finishing the work later on.
  3. Agreed… see you can change my perspective :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:
  4. Yes for those that did happen rarely to prevent the scaling of the issue (gave you the example on review times to late actions)
  5. More customers means more money (a bigger sum difference between expenses and surpluses)
  6. I do not see the relevance with proposed system it works for quite a few markets, deposit photos, playstation etc. …

That’s simply not true!

And there is quite a few things that are illegal in our country for example, that envato has in there therms and practises constantly, but they do know there is a very small % of chance that an individual authors will achieve anything trough court. (and yea its a very small country :stuck_out_tongue: )

Yea i guess in this point its better to agree that we disagree… :stuck_out_tongue:

In any case was a nice chat :stuck_out_tongue: if you any time have time to waste on a debate, do ring me on skype :sunglasses: maybe i’ll learn something and stop being such a pain in the bottom on forums :stuck_out_tongue:

Loves, hugs and kisses :innocent:

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  1. Really. I explained review times, but you still don’t want to read my entire post. Review times happened due to an immense influx of new authors, and new reviewers got hired. They need to be taught how to review, and PS, Envato is the only market that reviews as it does. So yes. really. Elite care packs? Since when is Envato to blame for postal services? This is new

  2. Actually yes. You can’t predict bad things. You can prepare for them, and Envato always prepared quite nicely if you ask me. Search for major company screw ups and you’ll see Envato solved them nicely all the time

  3. Wooppeee! :smiley:

  4. See point 1 for the review part.

  5. Agreed. And if you noticed, Envato reinvests everything in it. Which is awesome!

  6. Depends what the mother country of the company is. Those are the first laws that must be followed then come the international ones as well.

I was referring to features and addons :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m thrilled to talk on Skype whenever you want to. Send me a message with your ID and I’ll gladly add you and we can have a chat over the weekend!

Cheers mate! :slight_smile:

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Here you go got a sale an hour later a reversal and its a company. Now how do i know if item was downloaded?

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You don’t and it’s an obvious fraud, Envato will see what and will do what they can to stop it but they don’t have much leg to stand on when the payment provider swipes the money straight away.