Out of support.... out of sale.

Envato Authors Author Hangout
1

Hello all,

With the new reccuring payments for renewals, Envato gave to the Authors a good reason to give support. I must admit that the old, one time payment, in addition to the low prices, was not a good reason for authors to give support.

But what happen? Still the same bad quality support. Not from all, but from the most authors. Let me share my bad experiance today (even there are several others from the past).

Some hours ago I bought a script. Not a cheap one. $30 is not a cheap script here. I read the documentation, the requirements, and I did the installation which was successful (green checkmarks in all tests for requirements, database connection, and finall the “Installation successful” at the end).

After all I tried to access the admin area (this script has only admin area). Blank page. I checked the data in database, everything ok. I checked some other settings in txt files on the web, all ok. After wasting hours trying to figure out what’s going wrong, I tried a new installation in subdirectory this time. Again the same. All correct, but blank page.

And here comes the funny when I tried to get support “This author is away and may not respond to your support questions until they return in 21 days”. So, I paid today to get support (if I get in 21 days). Not say that from the 6 months support then one month will gone. Sure I send email but didn’t got a reply. For the same reason that I didn’t got a reply in my pre-sales question some days ago.

To make the long story short. My opinion is: “Yes, the author has the right to be out for as many days he wants. Not only days but even months. But the fair is that for the same period the product must be out of sales”. 90% of the buyers need support the first days. Now I must wait 21 days. That’s not fair.

And a big fault from Envato. Put the same message in the “Product Details” tab and not in comments. If I’ve seen this message before, I should never placed my order.

Chris

PS 1: At least I was more fair. When last year I’ve some health problems and I had to stay hospitalization for unknown time, I asked the team to remove my scripts from sale. It was easy to let them here unsupported and getting money from sales.

PS 2: I’m not adding the script name or the author’s name as I’m not against him/them, but against the way that support works here.

2

From this I can conclude that the person who to blame the least is author and its support since he did all what he can and what he must to inform you that he is away so it is not the issue of the support but with the envato design.

3

The Author did nothing. Didn’t replied to my pre-sales question some days before, didn’t replied to my support requests. Actually when I visited his site I seen another 2 scripts that I bought from here without knowing that they belong to him (they’re not appearing on his portfolio here). For all those 2 scripts still waiting support for months.

The reason that I’m not posting the script name and the author’s name is because I don’t want to involve in endless fight. Actually is also my mistake as didn’t noticed that he’ll be out of support for 21 days. But never thought to go to comments section.

My complain mainly goes to Envato. It’s easy to change the system and when an author puts a warning for out of support for xx days, to hide the product.

4

Well if he was not away and you asked for support and did not get any reply then it is a different story but from your first post this can’t not be concluded since never was mentioned.

I agree not to call out any names or items. I believe in communication and what ever the problem is if both sides just communicate in a decent way and remove unnecessary insults ( even frustrated ) everything can be solved.

I do not agree for hiding the product only to display message more appropriate since maybe someone wants to purchase and is ready to wait for the support until the author is returned. Since as I recall if the support is expired and item has a bug author must respond to that and fix it. To me this charging of support is stupid and useless.