Support Issue

I have been trying to communicate with Roll20's support team for days now. This issue started with some purchases I made on the marketplace, some of the asset packs did not look right when fully assembled for various reasons. Roll20 support was somewhat helpful at first, they refunded me but are now refusing to allow any further refunds. This is despite the fact that I have followed all the guidelines perfectly, I have made absolutely sure not to download any content from the Marketplace (Which according to their policy voids refunds). That was fine, I checked everything on the Roll20 VTT and made sure to request the refund within 15 days (It was hours later, I could clearly see it wasn't right very quickly). Now, I have tried to reach out to your team repeatedly on every avenue I can think of. I requested them to rescind their decision, which they refused. Temporary trial of the content, such as a temporary access to an asset pack I was interested in. They would not hear any of that. So I asked to get some contact information for some creators I was interested in and just deal directly with them instead, stonewalled again. You are making it impossible for me to do any business with you guys like this. I've followed all the guidelines and I'm being treated terribly by your support team. I'm hoping that someone here is willing to actually work with me on my issue, I don't understand why this has to be so difficult.

How many refunds have you requested? ...and what was wrong with them? Without knowing anything about this case, it is pretty common that companies agree to a single refund no-questions-asked. However, if the same customer returns with further demands, they might look more closely at the details.

4 in total, everything started with a set that was labeled in a vague way that suggested to me it was modular and then turned out to be maps just broken up into sub sections. After that I checked for some other ones and decided i'd give it a try since they were larger over all and thought I might get my money's worth from them, the pictures made them look decent enough. There some graphical glitches on one that at certain zoom levels were really noticeable. One of them gave me way too hard a time trying to figure out the different elevation levels, whether an incline was going up or down, that sort of thing. The worst part about this whole mess is that there is nothing for me or roll20 to gain from making this difficult. It's not like an opened product from a store that would be written off as a loss on return. This is a pack of virtual art assets that I can't download without voiding the refund entirely. I'm literally just looking through everything to make sure it's alright and keep finding glaring problems. If you could please just talk to your support team and get this sorted out that would be really helpful, i'm trying to do business with you guys.

Of course they're gonna stonewall you if you ask for artist's private contact information, man... they don't want you doing private business with people, because Roll20 takes a cut. Not to say you can't do private business, but you'll have to research the creators you're interested in yourself or private message them on the forums because everyone does have an account in order to be a marketplace creator. You know who else takes a cut? Paypal. I'm not sure if refund shenanigans are entirely cost-free for Roll20. Anyway, in the end, you can always request a refund through Paypal, who will almost always side with you. Such shenanigans will come at a price. Roll20 might utterly refuse to do business with you if you start doing that. The graphical glitches, sure, that sounds like a reasonable reason. The elevation being unclear? Ehhh, just make a decision yourself and slap in an arrow if you're confused. I mean you're paying for $5 art kits, I've charged hundreds of dollars for single custom maps, I'm kind of feeling like... yeah... you get what you pay for... people aren't making their best art to sell here, they're making relatively fast and generic art that could fit into many settings, they use for their own games and are sharing their own tools, or experimenting, or just really passionate about sharing with other RPG fans (I know I saw one token creator who said they spend more on the 3D art they use to make their assets than they make back in return). Perhaps it would be helpful if all creators could tag a half a dozen of their assets in a pack as 'free sample' for prospective purchasers to test, perhaps it would be helpful if a watermarked variation of each set was available to 'test' in a demo map, perhaps it would be cool if Roll20 would have people set up a demo with the elements in place on a game board that people could view but not use for an actual game... but all these would take time to implement. From what I understand they have a small team. I don't know if they're on the forum every day, or able to answer emails every day, let alone add a few cool new features to an area of the site that doesn't really bring them in the bucks. Their support likely prioritizes people who have problems with the large branded packs containing entire RPGs, which is where their money is. If they cut you off, even though you're a paying customer, that suggests to me they're triaging, and something else is of greater importance. Since they have a lot higher cost products than the Marketplace offerings, they have to make decisions on who to deal with and your $20 of map purchases are just small fries. Remember, Roll20 doesn't get most of that. The artist gets a bigger cut. So you're fussing over what to them might be $5 a month. Yeah, it adds up in the long term. However, I know I've seen them say in the past that the Marketplace is only a small fraction of the money they make. They keep it up for the love of the artists more than the profit. From that perspective, constant refund requests may be frustrating, because it's disheartening to the artists and time consuming from the side of the business where their dinner comes from. If it is a simple misunderstanding I'm sure they'll get back to you as soon as they have time, and if they have truly stonewalled you, then you still have options to get maps for your games and I'm sure you will be welcome to bring those maps into your future Roll20 games. I don't know the math ratio of their value per hour versus the time spent doing a refund. It might be you cost them more than you actually spend. They may just be busy and will get to you eventually, after they fix the bugs on their big money makers and roll out those features that get them the subscribers and whatnot. It really sounds to me like you'd just be happier dealing with an artist one on one, where you can get personal customer service requests quickly and coordinate the end result of the art in a greater way than generic marketplace offerings of varying quality will ever be. You might be best supporting someone via Patreon. (Disclaimer: I do NOT have a Patreon or plans to make one so this isn't really a self-serving pitch). Some people who do them with maps take requests for people who make decent sized monthly donations, if you don't care to own the maps, just want to know they're going to be of the same reliable quality. What I do know is, there's a lot of great mapmakers out there. Some of them are on Roll20 and similar such stores. Some of those people have their own websites or have Patreon subscriptions where you can get access to whatever they make, others do maps on commission. You can definitely do the googling of the names of artists you like here to see if they appear elsewhere on the web without Roll20's permission, because you surely will not get their blessing. They do want your money, I assume. However, If you're not finding what you want here, trudge forth with your money and don't feel bad about it. There will be a source of maps you like somewhere. You may fundamentally need something different than the mass marketplace offers at this point in time. I don't know, maybe you're happy with hundreds of sets you've bought. I don't know your history. If you've just had several bad purchases in a row I can see that getting you down. Ultimately you don't have to be satisfied with the art you found here and they don't have to continue refunding you, and you are allowed to let that bring you to the conclusion of, "I guess I'll take my business elsewhere." Neither of you is in the wrong for deciding that, because we live in a capitalist world. Have you thought of making your own maps? You don't have to draw if you can't. It's not too hard if you get a mapping specific program like Wonderdraft or Other World Mapper or Dungeon Forge, plus there's even free ones with limited capabilities. It's really satisfying, and if you truly can't find anything you trust to work for your vision, it's the only way (other than hiring an artist to work for you). You can even do them in photo editing programs like Photoshop, and there are thousands of free assets that can be assembled into maps both for sale and personal use. Modular maps especially would be simple to get into making, you could just design a few tile bases and then put textures over top of them for different regions. I feel like that might be the happiest ending if you are quite meticulous. Especially if you snag a mapping program, it's fast to set up a dungeon map on a grid. Maybe then you could become a marketplace seller! Or just have the satisfaction of knowing you are fully in control over the results. I can do a fast dungeon in 30 minutes for myself, even if I spend like, 40 hours with some clients. It's good enough for a game. If you can use any computer program you can probably learn to do it and get halfway decent results on par with some marketplace offerings and even the published games. Like, I was playing in a Decent into Averness campaign and I recognized most of the assets as easily discovered freebies that were not custom made for it, that anyone can install into a map program... stock I'd used before and will continue to use in the future. There are so many free looping textures and fantasy style assets that you can use to put on a simple base, and I reckon, just by your posts, that you might feel better about that. I don't know if you have the time for it, but I can just imagine with your particularity, you would begin to get stunning results in a surprisingly fast amount of time. Just a thought. I always like it when people get inspired to make maps, since I love them so much. :) To me that's always the happiest ending. But yeah, Roll20 is a pretty small team, be patient, they may very well get back to you yet. I'm not sure if they'd actually ignore a paying customer, or if it's just their general size of staff getting in the way. Things do seem to happen at a pretty slow pace around here and often issues pop up not due to malice but due to time constraints. I dunno. It could be they're doing business how they have to because they just don't have the time to get through every customer service email with a fast turnaround with their staff size. The moral of this story is: Making maps is fun! You should try it! :D And I do hope you find some good art for your games. I know it's out there, there are hundreds of talented cartographers alive and making art for RPGs today, it's just getting that right artist's work for your taste. Cheers.

Ok, 4 different cases (within a short period of time) would often flag you as a potential problem customer.  I don't know how this relates to you, but one challenge for customer support is the fact that some people are never happy and will demand refund (and/or compensation) again and again.  In many cases they will start with paying back and trusting this was an honest mistake. When you return for your 3rd or 4th mistake, the goodwill is spent. After that point, the product basically needs to be so bad that it should be removed from the marketplace in its current state. You can, or course, make a legal case of it. Many countries have consumer's rights-organizations you can contact.

Well, although it certainly isn't what I was hoping to hear I can see that "Tiffany M." was atleast trying to help me in some way. I don't really have the patience to put that much energy into learning to custom make my own maps though, that's the only reason i'm even still here. I suppose Roll20 just has terrible customer support, not worth trying to do business with them anymore. I had hoped this could be resolved but it's been nearly a week now. I doubt their team has any interest in working with me on this.

Tiffany M. said: I mean you're paying for $5 art kits, I've charged hundreds of dollars for single custom maps, I'm kind of feeling like... yeah... you get what you pay for... people aren't making their best art to sell here, they're making relatively fast and generic art that could fit into many settings, they use for their own games and are sharing their own tools, or experimenting, or just really passionate about sharing with other RPG fans (I know I saw one token creator who said they spend more on the 3D art they use to make their assets than they make back in return).  The following has nothing to do with Percival's problem, but I have to address this statement. I also have charged up to a thousand for a single map, but you are talking about economies of scale. A pack cost $4.99 because you expect to sell many packs. To claim that "you get what you pay for... people aren't making their best art to sell here" is a decidedly unfair statement. Many creators are turning out their very best, doing quality work and on a regular basis. Percival, I hope you find satisfaction. Roll20 is generally very  good about handling returns. I don't know what the specifics are here (and frankly they are none of my business), but I do hope you find some resolution here. Good luck.

Thanks keithcurits, I appreciate it. If they ever get back to me by email i'll let you guys know. Until then i'm not holding my breath, I've tried everything I can think of here.

You should of course get a reply (and I am pretty sure you will). As mentioned earlier, they might look more closely at you case and that takes time. ..sometimes more than a week, depending on when the right person becomes available. (This might include them trying to reconstruct the problems you describe)

Add to the fact that weekends are usually their downtime unless it is an emergency so that cuts into respond time, plus the person you were dealing with could have had an emergency which could have left your case in limbo as someone new has to read up on yours and others then fit it into their work schedule.

Just because you don't offer trials doesn't mean someone shouldn't be entitled to getting their money back if there's a problem. This isn't devaluing anyone's work, if you're saying you can't offer a refund to someone who's saying "Hey look, I just bought this asset pack. There are problem with it that are apparent once you put it together" you've got a bigger problem. You're punishing someone who wanted to find the right thing and got major setbacks in time and effort trying to sort it out. If you're giving a platform for the creators to sell their content on here, you're still responsible for making sure things presented clearly to customers. If you aren't going to give someone a refund for products on your marketplace just because you see some sort of pattern, you should at least do the right thing and fix the problems that caused this to begin with. Either allow people a way to preview this stuff in advance (To avoid any issue like this occurring in the future.) Or you can give us a channel to communicate directly with the creators and other potential buyers (Like some sort of comment and rating system on the individual asset packs) That way people could point out the flaws right on the purchase page and would save everyone a lot frustration. But somehow, I doubt you guys will implement anything like this. You won't do the right thing and remove the restrictions you put on my refunds either. I gave you guys the reasons I requested them, I can go into more detail too. I don't think that has anything to do with it though, you just see me as a problem and want me to leave your platform alone. You can rest assured I won't be trying to do any business with your company again. There are so many ways you guys could fix this and make it right, but you won't. Maybe I just got unlucky with your platform, you seem to have plenty of satisfied customers. But even so, I think this should be a pretty big warning to anyone thinking about purchasing from the marketplace. If these problems can happen to me, they could happen to anyone. You don't buy something thinking it's not going to be right, you eagerly buy something thinking it'll be perfect for what you're going for, then you're filled with disappointment when you put it all together and see the problems you're left with. Think twice before buying a tileset pack, you can never tell exactly how everything is going to look fit together until you buy.

Some other options: Ask here on the forums if anyone else has purchased the set(s) and what they think of them. Some users may even be able to set up a game with elements of a set and invite you to it as a co-GM so you can play around with it some. Personally I find the watermarked thumbnails to be a good way for me to judge how useful a set will be to me, but that's just me. Just to be sure, you know you can click on them to get larger views, right?