Unfair and false ratings

Envato Authors Author Hangout
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Hi guys,

I’d like to start a topic about unfair ratings from buyers. I know many of you have experienced that but can not do anything about it.

Recently we’ve got two 1-star ratings with totally stupid comments. First 1 star was because the buyer didn’t unpack downloaded package and was trying to install it as a Wordpress theme. The second 1 star was with comment “after downloading the theme they forced me to purchase another widget. Really bad experience”. We didn’t force anybody to buy anything and we have very clear item description where it’s stated that some plugins are additionaly paid, which ones and what they do. So the buyer first bought it and then read the description.

First we tried to contact the buyers explaining them the situation and offered help but they didn’t respond. So we wrote to Envato support to have a look at these ratings and asked them to remove them because their false, have nothing to do with theme and basically it’s not our fault that buyers do not read item description or documentation and this is what we’ve got as a reply:

Thanks for getting in touch with support about your item rating comments. I have looked over the review provided by your buyer and believe that this is a first step to help provide more information to authors about their buyer’s experience.

Although you might not always agree with it, honest and unhindered buyer feedback is valuable and a great way to get insights into over all improvement.

The rating comments are private and for your eyes only and we hope you will consider all reviews and ratings with an open mind and that it will contribute to the future success of your business as an author.

If you do have any other concerns, please do not hesitate to let me know.

So we replied back and now we’re waiting, but we don’t believe it will change anything.

I completely don’t agree with you. I think you don’t undertsand the problem. These ratings have nothing to do with our themes at all. It doesn’t matter it’s for our eyes only, it’s not about the comment but about 1 star! Our overall rating is getting lower because of that. So basically buyers can write any bullshit they want and it’s still will be ok for you guys!

Don’t you have any rules? Where is taking care of authors? Read the forums, it’s full of posts from authors about not defending us at all. Any lies or false feedbacks or something not caused by authors should be removed. This problem is for years and nobody in Envato done anything about it.

You said “I have looked over the review provided by your buyer and believe that this is a first step to help provide more information to authors about their buyer’s experience.” so please tell me, what other information should we put in the desciption? Everything is in the documentation and we can not be responsible for people not reading it!

Would you like to share your experience with similar situations? I’d like Envato to notice the problem.

1 Like
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Any news about that situation?

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I have the same experience from past days, received two star rating with message that mockup doesnt include preview logos… Guy didnt response to my response.

Trying contact support (just asking what is this rating system good for), but the rules are strict although unfair. There are more threads regarding this, but all authors with same experience.

And another story is that someone buy product for low cost price, author get the half of that price and that guy is enough stupid to leave bad rating just to hit somebody because his needs are not satisfied in a second. People are strange :slightly_smiling:

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Envato support removed one rating about the zip unpacking and installing item, but they left the other one saying it’s user experience. Well, if the lack of reading skills with understanding or just simple laziness is a bad user experience then no surprise that buyers can write any BS they want.

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we all know that this system is not reflecting anything really faithfully and that the whole evaluation system is underrating all guys from the roster and their items because of all strange things happening … for some guys the fact that they have to pay for something simply means that they need to be given it all , they pay no attention to what they buy and what is in the description and complain out of failing to do what it took … tons of guys have complianed about all this already and the addition of being able to answer is of no use at all … it basically does not change anything at all. besides the legitimacy of such a system in which some guys completely break down some items that they have selected and considered as very good in the first place is a complete nonsense. lets face it u can be somehow some way disappointed with an item about some features, no doubt about it, but u cannot shift from liking an item (and acknowledging as being allegedly good) and buy it to having an item recognized as a supposed cr@p being rated 1 star or something like this.

besides enabling such a system is a complete insult to review teams as it basically states that the guy in charge did not get the job done properly and let go an item not worth the drive , which is completely out of this world as selections are definitely stricter and stricter

in addition this is also quite ludicrous to see some combinations of very different ratings with one stating 5 stars and the other one 1. having such a system is just meaning that there is a flaw in the system in my view this is not the reflection of the quality of an author or an item …

2 Likes
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Yes, nice said. There are things which could be changed over the market, this is one of those, but you know, we are small players here… :slightly_smiling:

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yes buddy u are right on the other hand if we all think this way and do not make our individual voices heard (so that other guys who feel the same nod and or let it know that they feel the same) then the voice of no author will be heard indeed and things that will be brought to the table are going to be made for the purpose of the marketplace mainly , authors will be second or third best … this is a fact in many cases if u want things to evolve or change u are going to have to fight for this in most cases …

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Yes, you are right - we are creating and making the profit for market. But there is one thing - unless you are elite, you are not making so much to be important, once you are elite, you dont care so much about these kind of things :slight_smile:

And the last thing: market earns Quarter Billion Dollars and I dont want to say it is wrong, but still cant understand changes as moving to US, which makes problems to a lot of authors. You know money can change people and the good things too.

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I know this thread is a little bit older, but I just emailed support (hope there was someone on the other end) about this problem.

I only have 3 ratings after almost 200 sales for a VideoHive project, 2 of which are the buyer’s fault.

1 buyer didn’t check the file information, and he is running a version of software that is about 6 major releases behind the current production environment.

Another buyer got some file errors, which I outlined a resolution for in the FAQ of the project description (very simple fix, to do with language settings). Instead of looking at the FAQ, or even asking me for support, which I’ve gladly given to a half a dozen other people, he left a 1 star rating because he was ‘in a hurry’.

Has anyone had any success in getting resolution to these issues?