Hello everyone, I hope this message is taken in the right way, and someone can help me understand how to deal with this situation.
Here’s the story: a while ago, I managed to get a few niche themes approved on Envato, made a bit of money, and then stepped away from the marketplace for a few years. recently, I decided to return and focus seriously on item releases. After a year of work, I launched my first major theme. It started off strong - great sales, featured status, “best seller” among new items for the month, lots of positive reviews, and so on.
However, all of these positives are overshadowed by a recurring issue: every 10–20 sales, we encounter a problematic customer who kicks things off by demanding a refund. We’ve had few such cases so far, based on our recent experience, we’ve started just blindly approving them, but the first two were declined, and both customers left negative ratings (1 and 2 stars) immediately after tht. While we’re open to fair and constructive criticism, let me explain why this situation is so disheartening:
- We’ve been closely monitoring several themes from power elite authors in the same category, and I’ve seen at least a dozen similar ratings just vanish.
- Feedback submitted as part of these ratings is not verified in any way. Nobody seems to care that these ratings often come right after a refund refusal. Our explanations, proof that we went out of our way to help, and evidence of customer manipulation are simply ignored. Even something as straightforward as a customer openly threatening to leave a 1-star review if we declin their refund doesn’t concern anyone in Author Support (that case is no longer relevant because we ended up approving the refund, but the frustration remains).
- We wrote a detailed message to Envato Author Support on each such case, complete with proof that the rating was manipulative and intended to pressure us into approving a refund. Their response? A copy-paste reply saying that the customer has the right to share their opinion.
Less than a month since our item was approved, we now feel forced to approve refunds for anyone who asks, fearing the consequences of another bad rating. This is on top of 8 reversal sales that happened for no apparent reason. We’re hesitant to decline refund requests because we’ve learned the hard way that no one cares about the author’s side when we have “just” few sales.
We decided to write this post after the latest incident. Here’s what happened: a customer left a 1-star feedback in turkish, which included offensive religious remarks, and submitted it immediately after we declined their refund (The review text explicitly stated that this review was a direct consequence of a declined refund). Envato Author Support removed it, but the customer then resubmitted it, this time removing the offensive language and leaving a vague comment like “bad theme, I don’t like it” in Turkish. When we asked for it to be removed again, we were told no - because the customer now has the right to express their opinion.
So, am I understanding this correctly? A customer can behave inappropriately, harm our reputation, and as long as they slightly tweak their comment, it’s suddenly valid feedback that potential buyers will see?
It’s incredibly discouraging that when manipulative, dishonest customers clash with such small and insignificant authors, who are actively contributing to the marketplace, the authors end up on the losing side every time. Sure, we’re not doing tens of thousands of sales yet, but we’re highly motivated to get there. This kind of treatment, though, makes us want to give up on development and support entirely, and instead spend all our time dealing with unreasonable customers. Because in the end, we just don’t get proper support. There are some really great people in Author Support who genuinely try to help, but most of the time, we receive a copy-paste response that doesn’t resolve any disputes.
Share your ideas and similar experiences on this matter - how do you handle situations like this?
Thank You