Refund denied by Themforest author 1 hour after discovering the theme is Free on Envato Elements

Envato Customers Purchases and Subscriptions
1

Axiom themes has their theme available on both Envato (free with monthly Envato subscription), as well as on ThemeForest $29.

I purchased the Themeforest theme, only to realize (immediately after, within literally minutes), that it was also available (and already paid for) through my Envato monthly subscription.

I requested a refund immediately and was denied by the author. This seems like a “no-brainer” refund.

Additionally, the theme loads much more quickly on their demo than on install. Requesting clarity on this “out-of-the-box” page speed issue, the author offered their site optimization service. After their refund refusal, this feels like a bait-and-switch.

2

Your situation is understandably frustrating, but the author doesn’t really have anything to do with the subscription issue. The author is just selling their theme with support and updates. They don’t have any relation to Envato Elements, which is sold and managed solely by Envato. They can’t even see if you’re a subscriber let alone if you’ve downloaded their theme through it.

You’ll want to open a Help ticket and ask Envato to resolve this for you. I’d say the blame ultimately lies with them for separating the two platforms and failing to inform you that the theme was available in your subscription. Seems like a pretty solid excuse to me.

There is still a difference between the two, with the full marketplace license including technical support and access to all future updates, both benefits which are not offered on Elements. Make sure to keep that in mind if you pursue a refund further.

It’s hard to advise on the page score situation, themes are just one small piece of the puzzle when it comes to how fast a page loads. I’ve seen websites on shared hosting with practically blank pages produce horrible scores. You can certainly ask the author for any specific advice if you’re not interested in their service.

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3

Author has rights to reject your offer if you purchased and downloaded the theme already. It’s your responsibility to check the item if it’s available on Elements or not before purchase.

Apart from that, depending on the servers and their cache plugins, the website may be faster or slower. Speed optimization is another service as well as the author may request additional fee.

4

Fair.

Absolutely fair and excellent points, I appreciate your candor and logic. I revised my original post, the comment, and the review on the author’s page, up from 1 to 4 stars.

In summation and in recognition of your points, unfortunately, the result of a refund policy that’s shockingly one-sided is my now fervantly-shared, now-less-scathing-but-still-disappointed review on both the author’s theme reviews & comments section. While the author may enjoy the favorable legal grounds to refuse the refund, their 100% refusal leaves me with 0% customer satisfaction.

Regardless of Envato’s decision on whether to grant a refund or not in this dispute…

the author

still

chose

0%

customer satisfaction.

Fine, I should’ve read every single word in the refund, and terms and conditions, and identified how shockingly one-sided the policies are…

…but we all sign, on average, more terms and conditions in 1 year than we can literally read in the same period.

It’s just an absurd ask, in an absurd scenario, and that’s not only my opinion, but the opinion of the vast majority of purchasers that may find themselves in this exact scenario.

And please remember, please never forget, you may pour your hearts and souls in to the beautiful designs you create, but without clients, they’re just beautiful, undownloaded assets.

Your clients’ voices matter, too. Our experiences matter, too.

Anyway, I’ve shared my thoughts, and whether it affects much-needed (in my opinion) change remains to be seen. But for $29, it’s already taken up far too much time than it’s worth.

Thanks for all you do (seriously),

Cheers

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5

Happy to help! Good luck on the dispute with Envato.

Yeah, since it’s not possible to “return” assets which are downloaded, Envato’s official rules on refunds are pretty punishing for mistaken purchases. Hopefully they’ll get you squared away with a one-time exception or something like that. :+1:

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