Themeforest

I purchased a WordPress theme from Envato - Themeforest, and here's what happened. The theme is called Vankine - Insurance & Consulting Business, created by SteelThemes. As soon as I bought it, I wanted to return it because the theme was very inadequate.

However, SteelThemes refused to refund my payment. In response, I gave them a one-star rating and left a comment. This is my natural right, and users should know about this. But Envato - Themeforest immediately banned my account. Now, I cannot access any of the licenses I previously purchased. This is unprofessional.

Themeforest (Envato) offers some unique WP themes, but its system is designed to cater to the developers, not the customers. Where I come from, that's backwards.

Case and point:

I recently purchased Pandia from a developer named Peerapong - http://themeforest.net/item/pandia-for-portfolio-agency-creative-business/*******?WT.ac=portfolio_thumb&WT.seg_1=portfolio_thumb&WT.z_author=peerapong.

It's a very nice design. I spent a lot of time and created over 100 pages with this theme. I began to discover issues like the theme would not display correctly on specific computers, depending on IE explorer settings. I posted a comment on Themeforest and was told to open up a support ticket on Themegoods. I did. It sat there for over 20 days with no response. I posted again on Themeforest website where Peerapong said "nothing is wrong, it's my device."

Then a larger issue arose. You can't create separate blogs or categories. I wanted Blog A to post from Category A and Blog B to post from Category B - common stuff. It wouldn't work with Peerapong's Pandia. Blog A & B would BOTH post from Categories A & B.

I submitted several comments on Themeforest and Peerapong offered no support. I then opened up a support ticket on Themegoods for the same issue. This is where is starts to get good. Peeraong's response to my support ticket was, "I do not have to offer support, I can offer support if I choose to but only offer support to those with the right attitude." Wow. Really?

What followed this was my support accounts at Themegoods being erased by Peerapong. Any negative comment on Themeforest about Peerapong was removed, and my entire Envato Account was disabled, which doesn't allow me access to any of my other purchases from Codecanyon. All because I had purchased a defective WP theme from Themeforest by Peerapong.

Classy. I don't know any company can do business in this fashion but I predict it will not last.

To anyone considering any purchases from Themeforest - Caveat Emptor.

Update 2015 - Peerapong is still doing business with ThemeForest. However, interestingly he changed his name 1 year ago from Peerapong to Themegoods. Here's his portfolio - http://themeforest.net/user/themegoods. Since this issue I have had better luck with Themeforest. There continues to be "turds" of authors. It is imperative that you do your do diligence and read the comments for the file you are interested in. You will get a good idea of what kind of author they are by rereading as many comments as you can. However, Themeforest (Envato) continues to allow comments to be reviewed and removed whenever an author requests it... so be cognitive of that fact.