6 years of digital purchases locked! After disputing charge for broken digital item

[deionna]

Idaho, USA

Hello,

The company in question is http//themeforest.net/ Envato Market. They sell digital products for designers. I have had an account for over 5 years and over those years have purchased over 70 items from them. I have never disputed a purchase prior to this incident.

I purchased a Wordpress Theme that was significantly not as described. I tried to solve the issue with Envato Market directly. After 9 days where no solution at all was discussed; I opened a PapPal Dispute.

Envato Market immediately locked me out of my account and access to all my 70+ purchases! I also have an account balance with them for $17.00 not much, but I cannot touch my money.

They are threatening me saying that until I close my PayPal dispute they will not release my purchase or money. This is their explanation:
"Due to the digital nature of Market files, this is sadly a required security step. As once downloaded, you've taken ownership of that premium product. So when a chargeback/dispute is started, the Market automatically locks an account to prevent abuse of our platform."

I am only disputing one purchase. After trying to work with them without progress. Is this legal and what recourse do I have to regain my purchased digital items and account balance?

PayPal Decided in my favor for the dispute and I am still locked out of the account despite sending two emails. One to their to their help department. The second to the person handling my case. No reply from either.

 

[Zigner]

Idaho, USA

Hello,

The company in question is http//themeforest.net/ Envato Market. They sell digital products for designers. I have had an account for over 5 years and over those years have purchased over 70 items from them. I have never disputed a purchase prior to this incident.

I purchased a Wordpress Theme that was significantly not as described. I tried to solve the issue with Envato Market directly. After 9 days where no solution at all was discussed; I opened a PapPal Dispute.

Envato Market immediately locked me out of my account and access to all my 70+ purchases! I also have an account balance with them for $17.00 not much, but I cannot touch my money.

They are threatening me saying that until I close my PayPal dispute they will not release my purchase or money. This is their explanation:
"Due to the digital nature of Market files, this is sadly a required security step. As once downloaded, you've taken ownership of that premium product. So when a chargeback/dispute is started, the Market automatically locks an account to prevent abuse of our platform."

I am only disputing one purchase. After trying to work with them without progress. Is this legal and what recourse do I have to regain my purchased digital items and account balance?

PayPal Decided in my favor for the dispute and I am still locked out of the account despite sending two emails. One to their to their help department. The second to the person handling my case. No reply from either.

I would suggest that you pay for what you bought.

I'm curious, how much money are we talking about? How much of an effort did you put in with the author in resolving this matter?

You may want to review this page: http://themeforest.net/page/customer_refund_policy. Pay particular attention to the last item:

Resolving disputes

If you and an author can't come to an agreement about a refund, you can raise a dispute and have Envato investigate the matter. We will make a decision based on all available information and you agree that our decision is final.(emphasis added)

 

[tranquility]

I fundamentally disagree with Zigner. In the first place, there is no "dispute" about the purchased IP as far as I know. There is a dispute about a certain part of the property. Not only that, such a term as "we will decide and then you can just stuff it", will almost assuredly be found void as against public policy.

That being said, when you pay for intellectual property, most people would think the benefit of that bargain is that you own that property. That is not true. What you purchase is a license to use that property. Even that is...problematical and a great big old darn deal in litigation right now. The content providers believe that whatever they say in the 9 billion page license is enforceable in detail, while customers believe there are reasonable restrictions to what they would expect. Legally, right now the obtuse language on the 95th page that was not read by the purchaser (Nor could be understood even if read.) seems to be the rights that have been transferred. There are cases that differ and all issues have not been resolved at even an appellate level, but IP is surely in the hands of those who pay legislators for "access".

Heck, I have a business machine that Microsoft wants me to touch a button that comes up every day to move to Windows 10. I know I tried to update another machine in the office and bricked it. Microsoft does not care, nor do they have any liability. They told me to back everything up. They told me they would not be responsible. They told me it was free, just click the button.

It was a lie. I suspect a far worse lie to others.

Me? I had backed everything up. I know enough about computers to be able to make an exact copy of a drive. Once the computer was bricked, I put the hard drive into another computer and made it the same as it was before the change. (Don't get me wrong, I like the new windows. It's just that sometimes it can be bad.) Problem solved. Many, many hours to fix things--many hours. But, after a ton of work and a bunch of dead time of an employee, up and running as before. I can't bill anyone for the time. Why? The license I clicked on.

I completely understand your frustration. More and more suffer it. Even more will as time goes along and the IP people want is licensed in a way to ever increase profits of the creator. While you might just have some remedies according to the facts, availing yourself to the remedy might cost more than it is worth and is why so many get away with such things. What to do is more of a personal matter than a legal one. If it becomes personally imperative, then it becomes a legal one as you are ready to pony up the bucks to deal with the nonsense. (If it is nonsense.) At the end of the day, think of a random 12 people. What would they say? It will cost you tens of thousands to ask.