When Hive account@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 Hive account@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 Hive account@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 Hive account@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.