Question about Deposit Expiry

I deposited $20 in October last year and my statement says about the deposit: Expires 04 Oct 09

Now, say I bought $12 worth and left with $8, and today I deposit another $20 to bring me up to $28.

If I don’t spend it for several months, does $20 vanish from my account on Oct 4 to leave me at $8 again (because of $20 expiry), or does only $8 vanish on Oct 4?

Let’s say I spend $5 of my $28 right now to bring me to $23. Does $3 vanish on Oct 4 or does $20 vanish?

In other words, what I am asking is, whenever you spend money, is it understood that you are automatically spending money-soon-to-be-expired first before dipping into money that expires later?

The reason I ask is because of how credit cards work. Whenever you make a credit card payment, they always seem to enjoy applying your payment to the low APR fraction of the balance instead of the high APR fraction of the balance. Credit cards are a scam anyway.

Great site by the way!

Thanks, David

.. in other words, what I am asking is, whenever you spend money, is it understood that you are automatically spending money-soon-to-be-expired first before dipping into money that expires later?

The reason for expiring deposits is simply so that Envato does not have to maintain hundreds of old accounts when members who no longer plan to buy here just just walk away leaving trivial amounts in them. So I believe it is not so much an individual block of money that expires if it is not spent in a year, but the members account which expires if it is not accessed for a year.

If I am correct then every time you make a purchase, or new deposit all your money is safe for another year. (That is just my understanding. Please let an admin confirm or refute it)

Hey David!

Yes, the cash that you’re spending from your account is always the first to expire, so it is as you’ve described.

Also, if you have earnings from sales or referrals it’ll spend your deposits first (which you can’t withdraw) before it starts spending your earnings (which you can withdraw).

So there you go!

I have seen people return here and complain if money disappearing but they obviously still have access to their accounts so accounts do not expire. The reasoning for the expiring money has been argued back and forth but no real reason for this rule was never really given. Money should never disappear. If you have money in your Paypal account, that means its your real money that you put there and it belongs to you. If Envato has a system where they force the user to deposit amounts above what they plan on spending here then they should reassure the buyer that their money will not walk away after any period of time. Why is this rule set that way?

I agree joykill, but for some reason its standard on all stock sites. I guess its a nice little extra money earner. Even massive companies do this, skype comes to mind. It seems a little strange as its just discourages buyers from depositing large amounts.

It’s probably because they don’t want to keep track of everyone’s left over money when their account is not active for a while – hoping that one day they will come back for it. Imagine having to keep $10 for someone for 10 years hoping that they’d come back to their account and use it. For all we know that person might have been hit by a bus or something. Also probably to avoid people from using this site as some kind of bank account. Anyways there’s probably legal reasons why FD can’t keep your funds longer than a year – you probably have to be an authorized financial institution to do this.

I would like to post a link to my thread … does anyone else get how bad this makes the site look to potential customers? Why can’t they set the price for the work plus fees since it was explained in another thread that they charge more because of paypal fees…. I think $8 on a $12 purchase is a bit much but that is what it will end up being for me because I only want one program. And the worst part for me is …. I ASKED ABOUT this sort of thing before I decided to go with this. Everyone was so nice and helpful then, now that I am asking about this I get ” get over it”.

http://www.flashden.net/forums/thread/newbie-question-regarding-banner-rotator/11379

and they wouldn’t have to keep track of anyone’s extra money if they just let you pay for what you want !

It’s midnight where I am now, and I’m getting sleepy… So allow me to give an ingenious… suggestion…

The money MR.X deposited to flashDen 12 months ago was processed through Paypal/moneybookers or whatever.

If the money “expired” from FlashDen, why not send it back where it came from? Is it not possible to resend the money back through the same method it was deposited?

an ingenious… suggestion…

I can see the method in your thinking but you cant really expect envato to keep track of everyones account expiry, then refund to everyones original method of payment-covering fees and employing someone full time to keep track of this…...

an ingenious… suggestion…

I can see the method in your thinking but you cant really expect envato to keep track of everyones account expiry, then refund to everyones original method of payment-covering fees and employing someone full time to keep track of this…...

...That’s exactly why I need some sleep now…

Good night

One last ingenious suggestion... Collect all the expired money in a certain month and donate it to kiva.org or other charities. Everyone wins.