Sales reversals are different than refunds, as reversals happen externally via the payment provider, while refunds happen internally via author/Envato approval.
Most likely, the buyer opened a dispute with his payment provider (Paypal, credit card, etc.), claiming the charge was not authorized (or whatever reason). The payment provide is then usually legally obligated to reverse the charge (although they should investigate the buyers claim as well), which means Envato is required to return the money. And if Envato needs to return the money, they will take your share back as well. With a sales reversals, Envato has no other choice; unless they would decide to simply “eat” your share of the sales price and not charge you for it, but what business would do that voluntarily.
It sucks, especially if it happens so late after a sale, but based on payment provider, the deadline to open a dispute can be up to 6 months after the charge occurred.
Thanks for all your time and support ; but the user already downloaded the product. They got the product for free ; we have nothing. There should be a way to prevent this kind of behavior. What really prevents users from using this as a trick to get files for free?
As I remember, when reversal happens, the account of that user is locked or closed. So, at least that one account can’t do that again to some other author.
I didn’t say it is fair to us authors (I have my fair share of reversals as well), but as long as there is a legal requirement for payment providers to allow charge disputes, there will always be a chance of reversals. The only “good” news is that Envato usually locks user accounts that did have a sales reversal, as users are supposed to go through Envato’s own systems, meaning, they should open a refund request with Envato/author instead.
The “official” reason why charge disputes are often times protected by law, is that they are supposed to protect against fraudulent/unauthorized charges on your account. Otherwise, one would never have any way to get rid of those charges.
Naturally, it stands to reason that in your particular case the charge itself was completely legit, but the buyer simply wanted to do fraud himself/herself, and claimed the charge as unauthorized, in order to get his/her money back, while still having the item s/he bought with it.
The buyer probably knew that going through Envato’s channel and request a refund would not get him/her the money back, as s/he most likely didn’t actually have a legitimate reason for a refund.
Or, also possible, your buyer actually used a stolen credit card/hacked account to make the purchase, and the actual owner of that payment account just now realized the charge.
Either way, you can’t pick your buyers, and every once in a while, you will have a “bad” buyer, and that is just one of the risks of doing business on an anonymized market place like Envato. The only thing to do here is to move on, as you really have no other options.
Other than having his/her account on Envato blocked immediately and losing all download access to his fraudulently purchased items, nothing. But you can’t let a few bad apples among your buyers ruin your overall experience as an author, as the vast majority of buyers are honest people here (at least, I must trust in that in order to do business anywhere).
Yeah, that’s theft trough and through. I had a guy who did a sale reversal on my products. Bought several vector shapes tools for 1$ a piece and reversed it. It’s not even an expensive product, what a scumbag. The only thing I can think of is updating the product, adding stuff or improving, that way they guy who stole will stick with the older version, whiles the new is for legit people.
How do you know he’s a ‘scumbag’? It could have been some dodgy guy using a stolen card and the person who reversed it was the actual card holder, who knew nothing about the purchases. Without further info, it’s impossible to tell if the person reversing the sale is in the wrong.
yesterday a buyer bought two tracks from me and reversed shortly after. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t help thinking that someone has downloaded my wavs and hasn’t paid!
Fine. Whoever the culprit is - he is the scumbag. Obviously I will not insult the innocent - duh. But usually people who steal credit cards, don’t go buy graphic design stuff.
