Template Monster
Reviews and Complaints

Bought template "Starbis"

Paid for 6 months additional support.

Subscribed to Novi website builder

Installed Novi

Uploaded template

Novi reports coding error in the website and invites me to correct it

How would I know to do that?

No reply to ticket

Support phone line voice mailbox is full

:Throws up hands:

I need a website, not a problem.

Now, seems the system wants me to whine and complain about how hard done by I am. So I need to stamp my feet and complain like a child. I need to make threats, wail, cry myself to sleep over the agony of being a victim hard done by. I need to dictate the sleepless nights this problem is causing me, and bemoan the fact that TM are a bunch of xyz artists who sxxk and how I wish them to roast in the fires of Hell... but really.. I won't do that. Y'see TM can dry up and blow away. I have been telling all my friends and customers about how excited I am to install my new website and display my rebranded profile... and no that isn't gonna happen. I don't have to do anything more... I'm just gonna buy another template and be done with TM. I won't give them another thought. TM isn't worth the brain space. My customers will all know. The matter isn't worth the hundred bucks that was mine to begin with which I can replace. Why would I lose sleep? Nope.

Stupidity Tax or Tuition fee...?

The choice is mine.

Bye TM

After having bought a theme from template monster, I found out it was not compatible with my host.

Having contacted support they insinuated I might be stealing their content, and as such do not refund. I was allowed to buy another package with my money ...

Pfff, seriously, as a consumer I am in my rights.

Their product required specifications that were not listed on the product page.

Bunch of con artists.

From the second I purchased this product the experience was a disaster. First, I received 2 random, alarming emails regarding changes to my purchase that I was told to simply "disregard." I tried to call the phone number provided for support and the mailbox was full (this should have been my first sign not to deal with these jokers). "Support" tells you to contact the author (even though said "support" is allegedly covered in the price.

The website advertises you can "make any changes to the website you want by adding, reordering and removing the elements like products, collections and banners etc." My template does not allow me to move, remove or reorder any of the sections on the side of my template, and I was told by customer service that this is an additional fee.

Before purchasing the product, I was assured by 2 separate agents that I could keep my current Shopify homepage by simply "linking it in a subfolder." Shopify assured me this was not possible.

In the end, after talking with 6 customer service reps, the final result was that they refuse to make any of the changes they promised on unless we pay more money.

Highly recommend you go with another service. the support at www.shopibuffet.com has been wonderful!

I contacted this company, explicitly explaining that my site was attacked by a virus.

They advised me to purchase the product, above mentioned, not only they did not solve the problem, which in fact i solved by myself eliminating the theme, but after 3 days when i was waiting for updates, they did not know how to proceed to restore the site and start my business.

Their messages were: "we are waiting for updates. We will contact you asap."

after 4 days i asked to be refunded, still today they don't answer adequately and repeat me

the same message

"we will contact you as soon as possible".

I am in contact with the authorities that manage the online security and i am determined to receive a refund.

Even 70% but at least a refund that explains their little loyalty and custumer care.

The basis of this company, from an internet search, both in arabia, the company that receives payments with new york office, phones do not answer. They will answer you from ukraine, and a thousand names in bulk.

It seems to be just an entry from a control unit with automatic answers.

A real scam !.

The ra site is clean, the suggestions of the siteground staff were exceptional (they reply immediately, competent and professional)

and the templatemonsters staff obviously in total silence

Wish I would have seen this board before I wasted and afternoon trying to get one of their templates to work. Normally Wordpress Themes are a one click upload and activate. Okay some extra steps not a problem. But many, many more problems after, with plugins not working, breaking website, having to manually edit out PHP of plugin to get something up, and then the next problem with the next step. Their primary business is scamming would be my opinion, with any actual product delivered that worked being a sideline.

Very disappointing. I use to like these guys, the templates I found out has bugs in it but worst of all is their service. After I bought a template, they kept insisting that I get an install from a professional so I wouldn't have to worry and they said they would take care of everything. I even asked if their was any guarantees and after assuring me that it would only take a 3 to 24 hours I paid the, U.S $99. I have wasted hours with them on chat with the siteground hosting company to try and install the template. They had no idea what was going on. I kept getting transfered between techs and they blamed it on everyone else but themselves. Even the techs at both bluehost and siteground thought they were very unskilled to be having so much trouble with simple tasks. Now, its been 4 days with no progress.. I've been told that a Daniel Dawson who is the manager there was going to get back to me, but haven't heard anything back from him..
a few days after posting this, I got a phone call from template monsters asking if they could exchange the refund for another service or keep it in credit which I respectfully declined and asked them for the refund which they reluctantly offered, but a week went by without a word or refund. Then I got a call again today telling me that they would only refund us if I took down the review. I told them it was extortion and they didn't disagree. Instead they implied that it would be hard to refund if I didn't take the review down. I thought they were just incompetent but now their also criminally negligible. I am still fighting to get my refund back and I have their conversation on a recording app I installed on my phone, and for legal reason have indicated to them that it was being recorded. I will keep this if legal charges need to be brought up.

We bought wordpress/woocommerce template (name FairyStyle) from Templatemonster.com. Paid to company JETIMPEX, INC who operate Templatemonster.com

They sold unworking / old version of software which not working with current releases of Wordpress 5 / Woocommerce 3.5 software. Templatemonster.com hidden information that template not updated / not supported by them for last two years and cannot use with current versions of Wordpress / Woocommerce software.
Purchased software files last time modified in May 2017 year (near two year ago!).

I am professional developer and my colleague, other professional developer, cannot install that template which we bought on our new server. We tried different ways but every time received message from Wordpress/Wocommerce that need to contact with author of software for receive updated version.

We spoke with Seller by phone - Seller confirmed that this software not working with latest version of Wordpress/Woccommerce and
offer to use old version of Wordpress/Woccommerce. We don't agree on it. Nobody use old versions of Wordpress/Woccommerce because they have security issues and all sites recommend to update to latest version of software.
For example many articles on internet strongly recommend to update WooCommerce to versions 3.4.6 or higher (Versions 3.4.5 and earlier are affected by a handful of issues that allow Shop Managers to exceed their capabilities and perform malicious actions). But Seller told us to use version WooCommerce 3.0

I recommend to everybody file a complain against JETIMPEX, INC. (owner of templatemonster.com) on Better Business Bureau - goto on bbb.com, find JETIMPEX, INC., 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE 19808 and click to "File A Complain"
https://www.bbb.org/us/de/wilmington/profile/web-design/jetimpex-inc-0251-32003341

One star would be too generous. I bought their "Writer" theme 52949 for $75. I should have known this would be a nightmare when they started spamming me -and a few days later offered the same theme for $53!

TM advertises the theme as no skills needed. I probably have better skills than most, having installed and used several other wordpress themes over the years. But I could not figure out how to customize the home page. When I uploaded a photo to replace the chatty looking young man in the demo, it did not work. The photo showed up as being uploaded in the header, but the chatty young man remained.

Also, there was some text advertising their wedding templates embedded in the footer with no clear way to remove it (I was told later that this would involve re-coding). It wasn't even there in a logical place.

The Moto editor was not user friendly, and I could not figure out how to make what should have been minor tweaks to the home page design. So I called TM and asked if they had a service to fix the picture issue, replace the blue and purple background in the news section, and add one box to the 'books section'. First they said they had a $149 package, but when I looked at the details it did not include formatting. When I pointed that out, they quoted nearly $400 for what should have required no skills.

So I checked with a local wordpress design firm to make the changes, and once they looked into it more closely they told me that the theme had not been updated to anywhere near the most recent wordpress specs, and was built on an obsolete, unsupported version of bootstrap. That was the final straw. I requested a refund and got NO reply.

A couple weeks later, I tried again through chat. The agent said he would transfer me to tech support and sent me into limbo. I then filed a support ticket. This time they did reply and said they would help fix it. I said no, it was too late and it was unfixable because the framework was obsolete.

They called and offered a credit with additional support for another template. By this time I have NO interest in any products from these clowns, and again asked for a refund. They said it was their policy not to refund after 14 days. Well, it took longer than that to learn the full extent of the problems. Probably what they count on.

They continue to insist that there are no problems with the theme.

I just filed a Better Business Bureau complaint and discovered several other similar experiences. I am filing a refund request through my credit card.

I wish wish wish I had done a search on TemplateMonster complaints before buying this.

I have nothing positive to say about this company. All I know that their main interest is your money, not what kind of service and information will be provided to customers. By the way, the customer service itself is terrible, each time you call you hear different stories and get no help from them.
Unfortunately, I was unlucky dealing with them because everything they did for me was horrible.

I'm a contract I.T. trainer and web developer and decided to try using a template with Zen Cart.

The Zen Cart installation was a breeze.

I paid for the TM template, the download went smoothly (although I was very irritated that, before I could untick the contact subscription checkbox, that section of the page collapsed and couldn't be retrieved), and I followed the documentation link.

I was surprised that I had to only copy one folder to the server, but I did as directed. Hey presto - when I tried to access the site and the Zen Cart admin, I received a 500 error. With a little thought I realised that what the documentation should have said was to copy the CONTENTS of the include folder into the existing folder.

I then spent an utterly miserable 1 hour and 46 minutes online with their live chat trying to work out why, contrary to the documentation, there's no TM MegaMenu option in the Zen Cart admin configuration menu.

I've been told that "senior technicians" will contact me. I'll let you know how it goes.

But if I'd seen their paltry documentation before buying the template, I wouldn't be typing this now.

I bought this theme from Template Monster. Initially I thought that it was a lovely theme, but when trying to work with it, I realised that it is not what it claims to be.

Upon attempting to set my site up to look very similar to the demo theme, each time I tried to change the demo theme to look the way I wanted it to look, it kept reverting back to the demo theme. I handed it over to an experienced web designer to set up for me, and even he told me that it is reverting back. He told me that it's the Cherry Plugin that is part of the theme's integrated plugins that is buggy, but it makes working with the them a nightmare.

I asked for a refund, which I was told would be returned within 24 hours. That was a lie. I bought another theme from FlyThemes which once I submitted a claim to Paypal I discovered is also owned by the same man called Liam Tornhill. When downloading the FlyThemes theme the download was interrupted and so not all files were downloaded (unbeknownst to me). When trying to upload I kept getting an error message and so I wrote and asked for a refund. I'm in Australia so my emails weren't being responded to due to the fact that I was likely writing when people in America are asleep. There have been no posts on FlyTheme's blog since 2014 and so I was quite concerned that I would never get a refund.

Anyway, I ask for help from a guy on fiverr.com who lived in India, and he helped me by asking me to redownload the theme from FlyThemes, which I'd previously tried to do but it hadn't worked. Well this time it worked, and so I managed to get the theme uploaded and formatted the way I want. So the $39 theme from FlyThemes is now my site's theme. I wrote back to FlyThemes saying that I now had been able to upload and format the theme, and that a refund wasn't necessary.

I then went to Paypal and set up a dispute regarding the theme that I bought from Templatemonster. The price of that theme was $75 - a large difference to the price of the other theme - yet when the seller responded, it turned out to be the SAME man running both sites, and he mixed up the communication from both interactions and sent a copy of when I told him that I didn't need a refund ... but it was the communication for the $39 FashionBuzz theme, not the $75 World of Charity Theme. He was trying to show Paypal that I didn't want a refund anymore. In that process he gave away the fact that he is the owner of BOTH template sites - FlyThemes and TemplateMonster.

In his communication to me at FlyThemes, he told me that I wouldn't get a refund to my credit card, just a credit with FlyThemes. Thank God I paid by Paypal who have buyer protection when I bought World of Charity at TemplateMonster. He would have tried to rip me off there as well.

I did the right thing and told the truth throughout, but as my web designer said, I'd have very little chance of getting a refund, and the company would try to say that it was the guy's fault who is working on the site, or it is the hosting company's fault. I have FIFTEEN sites hosted with crazydomains and NONE of them cause me problems like the World of Charity theme does. It is NOT the fault of crazydomains, whose service has been pretty good. In fact, very close to excellent most times.

Don't do business with either TemplateMonster or FlyThemes. You'll lose your money if you ever have an issue with their themes and you pay by credit card. They are not honest.

I have purchased a Wordpress template from www.templatemonster.com and was very disappointed with everything. Nothing was working properly, I had many problems and when I contacted TemplateMonster customer service they said how sorry they were and that's actually it.
Every time they said that they were sorry, but actually never did anything to help me. Their rep seemed nice and polite, but was absolutely useless. I had many bugs and errors and never got any help from them.

So I've bought a few themes from TemplateMonster in the past and i've never really had an issue (scroll to the bottom if you don't want to know all the details and only want to read a small review). However - i'm making a new website for a client and they wanted to have a website that had a store as well as a YouTube background and all the bells and whistles. Anyway, Black Friday sale, great discount on Monsteroid had everything I wanted what else can I ask for right? I proceed to purchase and I pay but when I come back to the TM store it says my payment failed but i've got a PayPal receipt and a SMS from my bank to say i've paid. I contacted customer support explained the situation and they told me to send a screenshot of my PayPal and my bank which I did. 24 hours pass and i'm waiting for a response...I get told that the payment failed and they have not collected any fund. I contact customer support and explain again that my bank has taken the funds and PayPal has paid them, they tell me they will be in touch etc etc etc. Its now 3 days later and I get really frustrated as the project is being delayed so I just purchase the template again and I log a PayPal claim for the first purchase (which is a long process in itself). Within a few hours I get an email from PayPal saying my money has been refunded - after customer support told me they didn't receive the funds, so if I didn't make a PayPal claim I probably wouldn't have got my money back. Anyway - happy times I now have the theme right? Wrong. This was the beginning. It's not a couple of weeks later and I have time to start the project again - i've now taken the clients site offline and i've installed Wordpress and I use their very helpful Monsteroid installer. Everything is going well until I am importing the sample data - there's an error. Great. So I contact customer support and explain the situation and send screenshots. Talking to customer support to just explain the situation itself is a nightmare as they take ages to reply and 9/10 times they just send you a link for a video. Anyway - a ticket gets created and I get a video link for manual install (which I have already tried, but hey I maybe I was doing something wrong) so I deleted all of Wordpress and decided to start over just in case. It still didn't work so I got in touch with the customer support again...went through the whole process again and a few hours later I get another video for manual advanced install. I follow the steps (bearing in mind this is like a day later now) and it works. Now, I wanted the homepage to have a YouTube video background and Monsteroid sample data already has a page for this. I proceed to edit the video link and ooops. Suddenly the fullscreen video background became half the size with a black box playing a YouTube video inside. I contacted customer support again...went through the steps again (btw first line support know nothing, i've learnt this by now) I send them to the page, I show them the original video then I change the link and show them the difference (this process alone took 20 mins). They log a ticket and send it to second line support. Now my project is being delayed so I have another slider that I previously purchased with another Theme from another website so I decided to use that instead of using the slider that was provided. I install it and everything works the way I want it to amazing. Is that it? Of course not. Now the Motopress Content Editor has stopped working and i've logged a ticket yet again and spoken to the ever so helpful support (not)! I'm awaiting a reply. Let's see i'm not holding my breath. I'm going to wait till the morning or else I am going to buy a new theme. Moral of the story - TM are good if you never ever need support and your product works 100% OK. If you are one of the unlucky ones, the first line support is useless. They are have no technical knowledge and cannot guide you through the simplest of mistakes. Sometimes they decide to transfer you to a new person mid conversation so you have to start again because their shift is over! Based on this experience I would never purchase from TM ever again even though i've used them many times before. As a person with a tight schedule I don't want to talk to customer support and wait for replies for days on end. I purchased a theme so that I can have an active website within a few hours worst case scenario a few days. If I had weeks I would have written the theme myself!

I cannot stress enough how much of a scam this place is. I was never able to even install the theme on my Wordpress. Went through the live chat with over 4 operators who are all incompetent and obvious don't know anything about technology. I am a graphic designer and computer technician so I am extremely knowledgeable and even I nor my employer who is a freaking programer could get this to work. I went through the whole "help" ticket, live chat and even called the billing department which is all a joke and still I have received no help and am trying to get a refund. Since Template Monster refuses to refund me for their faulty product I have started a dispute with my bank.
STAY AWAY AT ALL COSTS!"

I viewed a Web based E-commerce Template at TempateMonster.com (JetImpex Inc). A member of their sales team appeared on the the screen via their online chat system. After answering a series of my questions. I purchased the template via Pay Pal.

After purchasing this template it was sent to me non downloadable. I tried to get customer support from them to help me get it down loaded via internet chat and phone.
I was not contacted until the next day. A member of their tech support team contacted me much later the next day and come to find out he could not speak understandable english. His support and instructions to help me download this product was of no avail.. It was still yet un downloadable. After spent several hours and many attempts to down load and receive more customer support for this product. They were non responsive.
I had repeatedly attempted to contact them by phone after a significant run around.

Finally after much discouragement I asked them for a refund and filed a complaint with pay pal. They declined my request for a refund two days after my original purchase based on the grounds I was unwilling to accept assistance from their support team on this product. According to their policy they claim they will not refund my money.

A) The customer service team for this company is very poor and, most of them do not speak distinguishable english. (Not conducive to adequately support a product of this type).

B) Once you pay for their product/services they are unlikely to give you a refund under any circumstances.

C) this type of business over the internet is legal theft and fraud. Do not do business with these folks. You will not receive what you paid for and will not get a refund for your money.

Let me say this plainly. Do. NOT. purchase from these scam artists.

I could write a book on my recent experience with TM. It all boils down to customer service, tech support, and simple lies as to who they are and what they are.

I purchased a template and followed the installation instructions explicitly. I know enough about systems to know what's right and what's wrong.

After installing, nothing but trouble. Several elements of the template were missing and/or totally inoperative. Add to that before purchasing I asked them twice on their horrible ineffective and misleading chat service some very pointed questions about the template. I made it VERY clear what I wanted to work without the need of going into the HTML to make changes. I was assured things such as background, logo placement and color changes were all there and did not need HTML.

Baldfaced lies. All of it needed HTML.

Then began the tech support odyssey. Without going into lengthy detail, it was misleading at best. They insist there are phone numbers to call for assistance. Not true. These numbers are nothing more than message services and do not connect you at any time to a live person. And they will NOT do everything in their power to call you back promptly.

Their chat services is a massive waste of time. Despite being told several times that all of their support agents are based in America and native English speakers, the syntax and verbiage used made it clearly evident they were merely reading from a computer screen and English was a second or third language. Often they will ask the same questions over and over again and the consistent response is "You will have to submit a ticket for further assistance".

This tickets are viewed through another web site and will take at minimum 2 days to get a response. Once again, you can tell these are not tech agents but former fast food employees and toilet cleaners reading from a screen with no real knowledge. IN every single one of my detailed questions, they responded asking questions that were already answered. I literally had to make the same response and demands 3-4 times before getting anything even closely resembling a proper answer.

It took me 2 weeks to get the information I wanted. They consistently wanted me to give them access to my server and get Admin control to fix the issues. I did this once and they screwed it up even worse. Damned if I was going to give them further ability to make the template unusable.

I demanded explicit, detailed and specific instructions on how to make the necessary changes, including the installation of a video box that was completely missing and they blamed on "improper installation". WHat I got in response, finally, was limited instructions that did not address every issue. That's when I gave up.

Here's an example. The template included a front page video player that, as I noted, was missing. When they were unable to give me any sort of usable response to this, I found a plugin (yes, we're using wordpress) that was able to put a video on the front page. I got a response, 2 days later, saying "it seems as if you have fixed the video issue. Di you still need our help or can we close this ticket?" The video player WAS NOTHING EVEN CLOSELY RESEMBLING what was supposed to be there, indicating they didn't even know what they were talking about.

Now let's get to another lie. I asked several times where they were based, as I will not do business with any company that does not have tech support based in America and speaks native English. They claimed every time to be in Queens NY. Go to their website and do some cursory investigation, and you will find an address listed there.

Dig deeper. That address is a restaurant. I checked it several times. They are based overseas and their tech support is also overseas. They are not native English speaking, and as detailed have absolutely no tech experience at all.

I've managed, by myself, to make the template usable for the time being. I have to or my business shuts down. I also paid via PayPal and won a dispute against them as TM never even responded to PP's request for answers.

Don't be a sap and get pulled in like I did. STAY AWAY. At every possible turn.

Pathetic way of doing business, in todays day and age, there should be a plug to pull to put this mindset out of business. I have had better dealings with thugs holding 7-11's up then with a company who thinks every client is a donut to stick there finger thru.

They don't know what they are selling, have below 0 (zero) support, there is no way to cancel as there cancellation department is a voicemail which I bet some idiot has to delete every morning due to the amounts of calls they can get.

Their new scam is they have a company that you can hire for installation, that I can swear has never in their life scene a website, I am thinking some prison in the Gulag is where their call center is.

Such a sad way of doing business, I pity the poor web designers that put up their gorgeous well designed websites up on this site, that get thrown under the bus, due to the company that resells

I also made the mistake of coming across these individuals and "company". I filled a form with all kinds of questions and also I was requested to give my landline telephone number as they would use this to verify I had not stolen the card. That was annoying enough as I have been making purchases for years in Amazon, flight tickets etc without having to stand by the telephone like a spinster. My bank has additionally extra safety procedures that when the card is used, I still have to enter extra codes for my bank given to me by it. I gave all those details and nobody called me, and I did not get any template. Not only that. I was at the surgery, my working place, a place whose telephone number is on the Yellow Pages, thus, i was very well traceable. Nothing, they did not bother to call. Worst than that, I received an email saying that I should fax them a copy of my credit card but I could cover some numbers if I wanted. So, I had to go through all that rubbish procedure that took me an hour waiting for a call that never came and then they still wanted me to get out of my workplace, and find a scanner and find a fax and send them a copy of my card. That was the peak of rage. I asked them for my money back. They never returned my money, never sent me any template. Additionally I have heard that most of their templates are faulty, don't work, are not genuine, are not made by them, but on the contrary, they take templates from authors and give them a share, (I want to think so) . You are not allowed to contact the authors of the templates. My advice. Stay away. Do not buy anything from them.

On May 9th 2008 I purchased a template for a website I wanted to put together for my new business. Before purchasing I made sure I read through all of the FAQ's and Statement Agreements. I decided everything sounded good enough to purchase. I got my credit card and made the purchase!

Now the fun starts. I get an a message from the website to type in my phone number because an operator will contact me w- a code to input and verify my purchase. Ok, phone rings, pick up, got code, put code in. I receive a link to my template and low and behold nothing shows up. Every page is blank, red x's every where and "can not display page" errors every where.

I then log onto their online chat to speak w- a rep. I'm trying to explain what is happening and w-out telling me they switch me to some one else and I have to repeat myself all over again. I thought that was rude but hey whatever, right?

At this point I was even more upset than when I purchased the blank template for $64. I couldn't get over how my questions were being ignored. Finally "Robert" tells me I have to email Paul for a refund and thanked him and emailed Paul.

Today, May 10th 2006 I check my emails. It's now 1pm and I emailed them about 12 hours ago. Still no response. I contacted CHRONOPAY.COM which is their merchant I guess. (I think they are the same people, they all have the same accent). Anyhow, when I explained what happened she told me to contact them. I said I tried that and I have all different numbers for them. What's going on? I have a NY # then a Ca. # and then you? I don't understand. I tried the # she gave to me low and behold they pick up the phone. No, "hello templatemonster, how can I help you?" Just a dead silence. I had to ask if it was Template monster.

So for the Third time I explained what happened and I was so frustrated from all the hoops I have to jump to get some help I just wanted a refund. Andy wasn't rude at all but didn't seem to have a clue as the rest of the people I either spoke w- via chat log or the one other person on Chronopay.com.

Through out all of this I was very calm and very professional. I thought when I spoke w- Andy I was getting sort of the same. He wasn't extremely professional but obliging. He said he was going to fax me a Waiver of Copyright once I sign and return they would refund me. I said Thank you I will get that back to you ASAP.

I received the waiver, signed and faxed. Then I receive this extremely unnecessary, rude, obnoxious email from Paul. (I will post on the bottom of page for you to read). It was the most ridiculous, unprofessional, unnecessary email I have ever received. He said that I was "black listed" from their site and I wouldn't be able to purchase anything from them again. Haha! As if I would ever make that mistake again! I would never refer anyone to their rip off site or even look at their site again. Is he serious?!?!

I then realized that they work out of their home and bought into some sort of franchise working from their homes. That makes more sense as to all the different #'s and the shady business ethics.

Anyhow, I am extremely sick of these types of pseudo companies ripping me off and then having the nerve to be nasty. Someone needs to publicize these jerks.

Below is a copy of the chat logs between myself and the online operator and then the email Paul sent to me.