sale reversal after almost one month, just incredible!

Envato Authors Author Hangout
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This is incredible , i already have a whole lot of trouble to understand that there can be reversals, especially in a digital market but this time, i have just had a reversal from a sale that was made on January 4th, today is January, 29th!!! after almost one month! After that, we will be surprised if we get cheated …

i don’t get it, envato doesn’t have insurance to cover these sorts of issues and to make sure that guys , at least , do not lose their money when something like this actually turns out to happen?

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I think the time limit for reversals is usually 90 days. A reversal on the last working day of the month is probably pretty common… I guess it’s the time that statements are going out and if it’s a legitimate reversal then people are saying “hey, what’s this Envato payment on my statement, I don’t recognise that?”

And if it’s not a legitimate reversal then they still want it to look like a legitimate reversal, so they’re still saying “hey, what’s this Envato payment on my statement, I don’t recognise that?”

As for insurance, I’m not sure what they could implement to cover such instances… there’s nothing that they can do to stop reversals happening, so if you were to come up with a solution that meant authors and Envato didn’t lose out when reversals are made, I think Envato should send you a big pile of cash for your trouble! :grinning:

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well , for insurance, i am not either , but in other words, between pirate sites and reversals , we have a a whole lot of way to get cheated … this is fortunate that some buyers are still honest …otherwise we would have no sale at all lol

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exacly - from 90 even to 180 or 365 days - It depends what You bought, what company etc. One of my friends get refund from some customer in January from item buyed in September :slight_smile: but not in this store. If we are sellers, whe should have also something to say and presenting arguments, and if buyer doesn’t agree with them, go to court. I once time get refund after month and company even refused to tell me who is the operator of credit cards system on their shop, to make a complaint. In Poland it is not unthinkable. Each company is required to tell (wrote in regulations) for each request, who supports payments on their side.

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getting that long a delay is just making the whole cheating thing even easier and for me that just makes no sense at all. Try to imagine, this is like u go to shop u have a costume made, u se it for months and afterwards u call for a refund, that’s kind of funny a concept all the same … not to mention that in the numerical world u know what people are likely to do with your files … (and it makes it even worst …)

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I wonder how this is even possible. Buyer downloads a theme and then open a dispute or whatever. How is that possible? Shouldn’t all sales be final if user downloaded an item? As far as i understand, user’s license expires after reversal, but user still has the product. If authors are copyright holders, this is unacceptable that envato allows this.

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There is a difference between a “sales refund” and a “sales reversal”.

A “sales refund” is processed and granted by Envato itself, and requires the buyer to contact Envato. After outlining why the buyer should receive a refund (based on the buyers explanation/justification), Envato might grant that refund, or not. In most cases, Envato will contact the author and get his/her opinion on whether a refund is justified, or not. Therefore, any “sale refunds” are fully under Envato’s control and are usually only granted if the item hasn’t been downloaded yet, or serious problems arose when using the item. Envato also only grants “sales refunds” for a short period after purchase. “Sales refunds” also only happen to legit buyers with a fully approved and processed payment.

A “sales reversal” happens from outside Envato, and occurs when the buyer goes through the payment platform s/he used for the purchase (i.e. Paypal). All it takes is for the buyer to claim to the payment processor, that the purchase is fraudulent, which will cause the payment platform to automatically request the money back from Envato. And naturally, if Envato has to give back the money it received, it will also take back the money you received from the purchase.

Most payment platforms give generous time frames during which a buyer can claim a charge as fraudulent, which is the main reason why a “sales reversal” can happen up to three months after the actual purchase occurred. There is absolutely nothing Envato can do about “sale reversals”, as those happen outside of Envato’s control.

Often times, many buyers who “feel the need” to claim a purchase as fraudulent, usually either did not attempt an official sales refund first, or had their request for a sales refund denied by Envato.

That is not to say that there is the occasional case, where a 3rd parties credit card information were stolen and used by others to purchase items, which makes a “sales reversal” legally required by the payment processor. And because most payment platforms don’t want to go through the lengthy (and sometimes impossible) process of having to prove to the buyer that the charge is legit, they simply opt to take the buyers word, and grant the “sales reversal” automatically.

In the end, bad buyers like this are unfortunately part of doing business (believe me, I had my fair share of those myself), and there is really nothing that Envato can do to prevent “sales reversals”. Only after one such “sales reversal” happened, can Envato disable and block the user account for further usage, which they usually do immediately.

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Reversals or charge backs happen in all digital markets. It’s just part of the game.

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I will add also something called “chargeback” in bank which is offered by mastercard,visa etc. But buyer also must go to bank, bank must contact with card provider which Envato use to support transaction - and with this option, user have from 90 - 365 days to make it. Of course client must give arguments to get refund, with whom the seller does not have to agree. In this case, you can make claim in each type companies like mastercard, visa, etc. accusing the buyer for extortion.
But as You probably know, it’s long paper work :slight_smile:

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i completely agree worth u that’s the bottom line! first of all u have a quality control , which basically means that no bad item should make it in any of the several marketplaces! then, buyers buy something that they chose by themselves and very often can enjoy either comments from professional and also other buyers, so basically they have no possible bad surprise so to speak and they know what they are buying , so how can such a system of refund basically exist in a world that is subject to having guys in the end downloading somethign and finally nonpaying for it ?! that’s the opened door to high way robbery … as i mentioned we are lucky that there are still a lot of honest people , otherwise, no one would have any sale at all …

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for me with this explanation this is even worst … this basically means that all the thing happens in the finance world, with banks, paypal or whatever and that nothing is supposedly possible as regard to activating insurance and making sure that authors do not lose their money. Quite funny when u think about the fact that most of the time banks and insurance are all parts of the same groups … this also basically means that this is always the hard working guys who are made fools of, as they are the only only to get cheated in the end

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maybe that doesn’t mean that this is fair for authors for that matter … the digital / numerical world is kind of particular context , this is not a normal sale thing indeed , as once u have downloaded , people get , u cannot send back the good, if u know what i mean and we all know that this is part of the things which make bad things possible

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As explained, sales reversals are outside Envato’s purview, and as such, blaming Envato for it is “barking up the wrong tree”. Many countries also provide financial protections to online purchases via law, which makes a sales reversal somewhat of a right. I’m not here to argue with you whether a sales reversal is justified, or not. Clearly, some buyers use the provided security for fraud itself, by claiming that a purchase is fraudulent, when in fact it isn’t.

But in a world of international money transactions, some things are just not avoidable, and having a “bad” buyer every once in a while, is unfortunately part of it. I’m an author myself and experienced my fair share of those and also suffer from sales reversals.

In a physical store with physical goods, you would have to deal with theft as well; a sales reversal based on a fraudulent statement about the nature of the underlying transaction is nothing else. Sometimes, you just have to move on, as this is a battle that is pointless the wage and can not be won.

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u are right for many things, however , in a physical store , they have insurances and they normally do not completely get cheated … unlike what happens here in my view …

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The only insurance they would have in a physical store would be CCTV. People can do charge backs on physical goods just like they can digital goods, but nobody would do a charge back on a physical purchase as they’d just check the cameras, see the purchase was made by the owner of the card, and then do them for attempted fraud. Harder to prove in the digital world.

That’s if they’re dodgy, in that example. People do register charge backs when their card has actually been used without their knowledge.

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i don’t know , u may be true, what i can tell u is that we are living in a world where people can easily track anything that u do (especially with internet and bank things) and i am surprised that piracy is not being that disturbed that much, unless people who are not cheating / are cheated … .

by the way, as i mentioned previously , digital markets and digital world are not the same, u are done when the product has been downloaded , so that should be taken into account by all systems and laws, because basically that means that u allow guys to be stolen and stealers being unpunished … .

A friend of mine had a look at our reversals once and guess what?! the both of uf had the same information, and had been cheated by the same person , but people easily let go because that’s not a big deal that authors get cheated , the problem is that we are not universal studios and we don’t earn millions of dollars so that we say “ok , this is fine, it don’ts matter that much …”

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Sure, I agree with you, but you’re kind of preaching to the choir! I don’t want sale reversals, you don’t want sale reversals, probably every other author doesn’t want sale reversals, and Envato doesn’t want sale reversals. But as long as Envato accept Paypal and/or credit cards as payment sources, there’s nothing that anybody can do to stop reversals taking place. We should take this discussion over to the Paypal forums (if they have any)!

You’ve got to look at it from the other side of the coin as well though… somebody hacks your Paypal account or fraudulently uses your credit card to buy $1000 worth of stuff on Envato… and your payment people just say “Sorry, nothing we can do. That $1000 is gone unfortunately.” You’d probably be starting a thread saying that there should be some kind of insurance for this kind of thing!

Unfortunately, the processes in place to protect us from scammers, are also the processes that allow the scammers to scam us. Ironic, but that’s the way of the world these days.

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Same here.
We are used to have sale reversal from time to time.
But having a reversal 1 month after the sale should not be allowed else we will have reversals for all sales after the customer has got his work done with it.

And the sad thing is that I got by file on pirate sites after this sale.
I checked the purchases on that date just to track it and watch if it will happen again with the same customer and now he simply has his money back :angry:

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That’s the risk we have to face to. :frowning:

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especially if we all accept everything as a fatality indeed …