It doesn’t happen often but when a buyer has a problem with one of my files. (It usually has to do with a plugin not working)
I refund immediately through PayPal. I feel it is my responsibility to make sure my project works as expected. However this means I actually lose money… Paying back envato’s charge. My question is… How long does Envato take to provide a refund. (If I were to tell them to ask for a refund through Envato). I don’t believe I can get reimbursed by my paying back the buyer directly, correct?
No, you’ve kind of subverted the official refund process, so I guess any amount you pay to the buyer is on you. And if you get a ‘dodgy’ buyer, then there would be nothing stopping them from requesting a refund from Envato as well!
If it was me, I’d provide the buyer all the information they need to request a refund from Envato. Only if they refuse to provide a refund, would I then consider providing a refund directly.
Another thing to note… bad reviews get removed if Envato refund the money, they don’t if you refund the money. Sure, they might not have left a bad review… but there’s nothing stopping them from doing so after you’ve issued the refund.
Bottom line… best to keep everything official and on the level. Which also means you’ll be losing less money!
good advice SpaceStock… I will follow that in the future. Fortunately its only happens about once a year, but still why
lose money. Would be nice if there was a fast refund method that we could control through Envato.
There is if you’re on Themeforest… authors can handle refunds and approve them immediately. I don’t think that means they get the refund immediately, but still a lot quicker than having to go through support.