When @buildawhale started, we officially had a no refund policy, but we still handed out hundreds of refunds. 99.9% of these refunds have been the result of user error.
Original @buildawhale rules
The creation of tools that allow users to see up to the minute and down to the $1 has created a unique problem for @buildawhale. These tools do not check for things like post submitted that are older than 6 days 8 hours, posts that were previously already voted on, invalid URL, bid too small, or any of the other common issues. This results in the tools reporting more bids in the queue than there really is.
This has become more and more of a problem lately, where we are handing out 10+ refunds a day for mostly tiny amounts that cost time to confirm and validate.
As the mistakes get larger, they affect our bidding windows even more. We do not own our SP and currently lease it, and as you may know, leasing SP is extremely expensive. Each of these refunds is not like going to a store and returning a Teddy bear that we can sell to another customer. Each refund adjusts the window and distributes the value to other bidders. When we have to refund after the fact, we take it out of our pocket. We pay around 8500 steem a week to lease Steem Power, it is getting harder and harder to break even. We also have a PreVote Club which provides additional votes the moment a bid comes in.
At this point, we have decided we need to stick firmly to our no refund policy. This is the same policy almost all crypto has already. When making trades or transferring money on steem, there are no refunds. We have tried to go above and beyond what is expected of us. I have personally responded to hundreds of people personally refunding every request regardless of who's fault it was.
It is not something I want to do, but as much as we love the tool @yabapmatt made available, it creates a unique problem where we are losing more and more money due to incorrect bids and transfers.
Please confirm all your transfers for 1 SBD minimum bid, a valid URL, a post that is not 6 days 8 hours or older, and that you are sending SBD and not steem.
I agree with this action. This will be the action of @bellyrub as well as stated in the post, the refund policy was stated from the start, but felt it was too harsh from the beginning but with the new tools it is diffcult to continue this policy, The no refund policy is a way to continue them. Please read the post again to be clear with the actions taken.
Voted for visibility.
I sent 0.5 sbd by mistake,but never requested for refund,because it was my fault.buildawhale is best amongst all bots,THANKS
hi,
can you please help me out by telling me the process, how to get upvote from buildwhale?
Send 2 SBD+ to @buildawhale, use the post you want to promote in the MEMO field.
Be sure not to submit anything older than 6 days, and use 2 SBD or more and do not use STEEM.
You will receive a vote usually in 3 hours or less.
I fully support this policy. The rules are clear and there are guides on correct use of bidding bots all over Steemit. There is zero reason you should lose money because people can't be bothered to learn.
This is a very simple concept and if people are going to use your service to promote their own posts, they need to make sure they know what they are doing. Keep on rocking @buildawhale. and give out some free up votes once in a while, that would truly make a minnows day
good news :)
the problem is sir i send 10 $ and got upvote 11.23 in which i think 4 to 5$ would be cutted in curation 😢😭😟😢😟😭
https://steemit.com/busy/@hassanabid/go-through-my-past-3
Yes, 75% is all u get. Your upvote was even better than mine... I got $10.36, so after curation, I lost 22% on the 10 sbd investment. I guess I need to due more due diligence before buying upvotes from bots like this... the only ones making money are the bots owners.
Keep in mind BuildaWhale is more than an upvote bot. It has additional curation services for quality posts that get submitted to give you a better chance to get your content seen.
I have lost money for months kicking the service off. I pay almost 35,000 steem/month to provide the service. Most windows offer a positive ROI, but there are windows where it is busy.
If you compare our service to Steemit's promote your post, we provide an upvote that most of the times is more than what you pay, and usually gets you on the hot page depending on your bid. We also provide daily curation digest featuring the best five of the day for more exposure, followers, and additional upvotes. We also hand out a guild trail of votes for $100-150 every few days with our Author of the Day promotion. We also have additional votes that come in with our PreVote club. All these cost us time and money and are at no additional expense to you, they come with your bid. Compared to promote where people will spend $300+ dollars to get to the top of promoted tab and not get a single $0.1 upvote.
I wish everyone got a positive ROI every time, but we do not control who much and how many people bid. In the end of the day, we are a bidding bot, and there are just a lot of people who need the exposure and not every bid wins out in the immediate vote, but a decent vote like what you get from @buildawhale encourages others to vote and read your post.
Good .
Me from india
@themarkymark @buildawhale can you please define why you not refund my SBD.?
2 days ago Transfer 2.000 SBD to buildawhale https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@ahmmy/bitcoin-vs-ripple#
its not a invalid link. Kindly check and upvote it.
The
#character makes it an invalid URL, it will redirect on Steemit.com but via the API it will fail.everyone who click on this link it redirect on the post kindly check it again. And what is the process of the refund my SBD. @themarkymark
We cannot offer refunds on user errors, I am sorry.
You can read about our refund policy here.
If the bid is to old or whatever and does not go through it does not affect the round. Furthermore, a refund on that type of bid does not, after the fact come out of your pocket. It comes out of the pocket of the person you wont refund it back to. In my opinion, user error or not this is shady business plain and simple. With the price of sbd what it is currently and the fact that you likely pay in steem like most people for your delegation we all know you are making plenty enough to offer refunds when mistakes are made. Anything short is stealing.
Actually, it does affect the round. The bot tracker tool shows it as a valid bid and users stop bidding as a result. We set the policy over a month ago to stop doing refunds for user errors as they were happening 10-20 times a day and everyone is using the bot tracker tool to adjust their bids.
Nice infomation. Thanks
0.5 sbd is good for me
our minimum bid is 1 SBD
I sent little money 0.5 and have not yet received a refund
our minimum is 1 SBD and read above.
Minnowbooster always refund your money if you made any mistake.
Minnowbooster is a different business model, it is an instant bid bot. If it cannot do a vote, it doesn't lose money or effect a window with 20-40 other people in it. So it is easy to just do a refund as no vote has been handed out.
If we have a $10 vote, and you bid $5, then we refund you. That $5 is lost, and distributed to the other bidders.
So finally, you are not going to return my money?
Hi. I clicked on the prevote club link out of curiosity and it just brought me back to the top of this post. I'm going to use the search above to find out what it is but figured I should let you know.
Here you go: https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/announcing-the-buildawhale-prevote-club
good post...please follow me. https://steemit.com/@sakib1122
I am really happy to read your post. I am Pankaj from Bangladesh, I followed and upvoted you on steemit and I would be so grateful to you if you upvote and follow me back.
Nice to meet you.
Transferred you already 1 SBD. Kindly visit my blog. 🙂 Thanks!
https://steemit.com/life/@gheghenrv/keep-going
It takes 2 hours 40 minutes before we start voting. Depending on when you bid, it may be sooner.
But it is already 14hours. 🙂 Anyway, I can wait. Thank you! 🙂
You didn't send an URL for us to vote on. It was just blank, so there is nothing for us to vote on.
Can you just please choose in my account. I don’t know I will send an URL. Sorry, my mistake.
It does not work that way, it is all automated.
Awww. What to do? I earned 1SbD for how many days. Huhuhu i know my mistake. Please help me
I sended 5 sbd but my post +6 day 8 hours, why sir?
This my post:
https://steemit.com/airhawk-project/@wandimaru/fiction-story-the-adventure-find-end-island-2017116t13222864z
This:
When it was time to vote on it, it was over 6 days 11 hours. We tell people 6 days 8 hours, but we have a hard limit at 6 days 11 hours. At 6 days 12 hours Steem won't accept additional votes at all. We have the closest cut off out of any of the bots to give the most time as we can.
so if my sbd can be returned?
please see https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/buildawhale-refund-policy
Give me back my sbd (5 sbd), you can cut 1 Sbd, give me back 4 sbd .....
Hi, I totally understand and agree to your explanation in this post. I read twice to get clear about it. 😃
I got your points, folk! All the best for you and waiting for your ither post. Thanks
Nyc & Useful Post!!
When I spin, @buildawhale, I always spin in your favour! I also remember every single time you fed me. You started feeding me 20 days ago and fed me 10.2 STEEM in total.Thank you for being good to me and helping me become stronger! Our common cause will help many people.
Yours, Spinny
I like very much when everyone who feeds me also reads my friend’s posts, so please visit @rubenalexander and read what he has to say! Your name will also appear here. :-) Join my Discord server if you want to meet others: https://discord.gg/Mz2EZP3
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I'm down with this, ive made mistakes before and bid on a post that was too old and you generously refunded it for me even though you shouldnt of had to, I appreciated that but i don't expect it.
You learn through your mistakes and if people can't read the rules they pay the price.
@buildawhale is one of the best upvote bots around, if not the best and @themarkymark does an awesome job running it. instead of complaining we should all be thankful its here.
Steem on buildawhale and ignore the people who dont like what you do.
makes only sense
Great. 😀😀😀
Just sent 0.1 SBD to get a mini upvote on a comment that is of much importance to newbie Steemians who keep visiting my newbies guide. I wanted to get upvote which was enough to get it to the top accoring to value.
Actually, I had published an updated version of that guide and I want people to have the updated information. The guide is 5 months old, yet visited every week by new Steemians because it solves their problem and helps them begin Steemit easily.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ilyastarar/how-to-add-profile-picture-and-set-up-steemit-profile-newbies-guide#@ilyastarar/re-ilyastarar-20171116t142616171z
This is the comment I wanted to get an upvote on. My own vote is not enough to bring it to top. Anyone who can help? Because 0.1 SBD is gone perhaps.
Thank you!
We do not vote on comments and our minimum bid is 1+ SBD.
These are the things you said people are doing that you are complaining about. I agree. You should stay firm to No Refunds. It has been rules set out clearly to us since I was using @buildawhale
That is so clear to me now and I resteemed this post to let others now. Rules are rules. I didn't ask for a refund and I will not. Posted the link to the comment just in case someone would be kind enough to vote it to make it visible.
PS: I did not spend that small amount for self-promotion. I was trying to help newbies find updated and better information because they keep coming to the post I mentioned.
Thanks for being an awesome service. When I receive my pending payouts, I will be able to get > 1 SBD votes from @buildawhale.
Hell Ive made the six day mistake myself, spending 15 bucks for the opportunity to screw myself up :D And its cool. I messaged themarkymark just to make sure it was my fault and that I hadn't done something wrong for my education for the next time I use the bot.
But I didn't ask for a refund and didn't want one. I told @themarkymark to keep it as a donation and only AFTER than did he tell me there were no refunds anyway. Which made us both giggle, because I love this bot and that dude and the service they both provide to the blockchain as bot and witness respectively.
So I'm all for this protocol. You always had my support. Now you still have it! :D
Hello and welcome to STEEMIT! Please follow and upvote me, as well as all your other friends you connect with here. Have a great day!
entiendo que hay muchos errores pero no por esta razon debemos perder dinero ustedes ganan por todos y cada uno de nosotros y de la misma nosotros crecemos con su ayuda no podemos perder el dinero asi sea 1$ EL DIA DE AYER ENVIE 20SBD YO NECESITO POR FAVOR REEMBOLSO DE ESO NO ES JUSTO PERDERLOS Y YA ESPERO PRONTA RESPUESTA NO SE SI PARA USTEDES SEA UNA PEQUEÑA CANTIDAD PERO PARA MI ES MUCHO necesito reembolso gracias @buildawhale
@themarkymark ESTA BIEN DESCONTAR UN PORCENTAJE POR SUS GASTOS PERO PERDER TODO EL DINERO NO ES JUSTO.. ESPERO TENER RESPUESTA AMIGOS..
entiendo que hay muchos errores pero no por eso razonamos perder el dinero tú ganas por todos y cada uno de nosotros y de la misma nosotros crecemos con su ayuda no podemos perder el dinero así mar 1 $ EL DÍA DE AYER ENVIE 20SBD YO NECESITO POR FAVOR REEMBOLSO DE ESO NO ES JUSTO PERDERLOS Y YA ESPERO PRONTA RESPUESTA NO SE SI USTED USTEDES SEA UNA PEQUEÑA CANTIDAD PERO PARA MI ES MUCHO necesito fondos gracias @buildawhale
@themarkymark ESTA BIEN DESCONTAR PORCENTAJE POR SUS GASTOS PERO PERDER TODO EL DINERO NO ES JUSTO. . ESPERO TENER RESPUESTA AMIGOS ..
entiendo que hay muchos errores pero no por eso razonamos perder el dinero tú ganas por todos y cada uno de nosotros y de la misma nosotros crecemos con su ayuda no podemos perder el dinero así mar 1 $ EL DÍA DE AYER ENVIE 20SBD YO NECESITO POR FAVOR REEMBOLSO DE ESO NO ES JUSTO PERDERLOS Y YA ESPERO PRONTA RESPUESTA NO SE SI USTED USTEDES SEA UNA PEQUEÑA CANTIDAD PERO PARA MI ES MUCHO necesito fondos gracias @buildawhale
@themarkymark ESTA BIEN DESCONTAR PORCENTAJE POR SUS GASTOS PERO PERDER TODO EL DINERO NO ES JUSTO. . ESPERO TENER RESPUESTA AMIGOS ..
I understand that there are many mistakes but that is not why we lose the money you earn for each and every one of us and we grow with your help we can not lose money like this 1 $ YESTERDAY SEND 20SBD I NEED PLEASE REIMBURSEMENT OF THAT IS NOT JUST TO LOSE THEM AND ALREADY I WAIT SOON ANSWER I DO NOT KNOW IF YOU ARE A SMALL AMOUNT BUT FOR ME IS A LOT I need funds thanks @buildawhale
@themarkymark IT IS OK TO DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE FOR YOUR EXPENSES BUT LOSING ALL MONEY IS NOT FAIR. . I HOPE TO HAVE ANSWER FRIENDS ..
podrian ayudarme con este reembolso por favor gracias!!
Many times ago I am sending you 1 SBD but I didn't get your vote why??
I understand your policy, but still I send 8 SBD at 12$ per SBD and for me that is a lot, I did not know about the no refund rule, I stupidly assumed it is the same as other bots with a refund policy.
I woud really like my SBD back
I'm fairly experienced but for some reason I sent the wrong amount. Does your bot stack the bids? So if I sent 0.75 SBD and then realize I sent the wrong amount Can I send another $1.00 to make the 1.75 I originally intended? I know @steemthat stacks usually if two bids are in the same window for the same post it adds them. Just never thought about after the window closes. Just curious. Thanks for the feedback. We have adopted a zero refund policy several months back also. The cost to refund a 0.010 Bid runs at min $8. Just doesn't make sense really. We do still refund for members and special circumstances.
If they are in the same window, it will attempt to stack the bids even if it is two different senders.
I sent at the same time 1.5 to 2 posts, one post you apnul, and the second write that old. 9 hours ago Translation of 1.500 SBD to buildawhale https://steemit.com/nature/@zhasmin/winter-fairy-tale
9 hours ago Translation of 1.500 SBD to buildawhale https://steemit.com/photography/@zhasmin/who-saw-such-huge-icicles
Another bot minnowbooster returns immediately money, if the post is old.
Received 1.232 SBD from minnowbooster Your post is too old - votes will not have any SBD effect after 6 days and 11 hours
I do not need money back, especially if it's difficult. I have a request to upset any of my other posts. I will be very grateful. For the future take into account the time constraints. Before this claim to your bot was not. Some positive emotions. You can apnut the most recent my last post https://steemit.com/nature/@zhasmin/winter-landsca
I responded on your other comments.
I do not need your answers but just like any other post for my sent to you 1.500 SBD
Hi, just need to clear something.
I recently sent 6SBD to boost a post but haven't added a memo.
It was supposedly for this post: https://steemit.com/cheers/@shoganaii/love-and-knowledge-good-life
Can something be done for this? :(
Hi @buildawhale I sent another 1.5 sbd to the same memo that you already upvoted 3 days ago. Is it possible for a refund? Sorry, I'm still a newbie here.
I'm sorry, as you can see above we are unable to do refunds on user errors.
I see. But my post will still be upvoted from a different account?
We do not have a different account.
Thank you for confirming. Have a nice day :(
i agree with that policy, it will make this think better :)
Hello! I sent a little wrong link in memo in the previous window: ((can you help me? for me it's a lot of money!
Until we implement the bid api on @buildawhale we are unable to do refunds. I am sorry. We are working on testing it on our smaller bots before switching over @buildawhale.
I did see you got picked up on our curation digest though.
How to be?
No, we are not owned or run by Minnowbooster. @themarkymark is the only one that owns/runs @buildawhale.