Those who have been using Wordpress on their blogs for more than a year are sure to remember Small Potato (real name Tung Do), the former owner of WPDesigner.
Tung built up WPDesigner into one of the most popular Wordpress design blogs on the net but earlier this year he decided to go travelling for a while and decided to sell up. He got a good price for his blog but unfortunately, the new owner has not touched the site in the last 6 months.
A month or so before he sold up Tung started a themes club. For a $5 yearly fee you were supposed to get access to at least 12 premium themes but because he sold the site shortly after launching the club there was only ever 4 themes available. However, Michael Castilla today reported that Tung has refunded his $5 fee and will be refunding who signed up for the themes club.
This is the right thing to do. Tung was under no obligation to do this as it was the new owners fault for not updating the site so kudos to the Small Potato for this gesture.
If you paid to be a member of the themes club and you haven’t received a refund as yet, please leave a comment here. If you still haven’t received one after a week or so I’ll do my best to look into it for you guys. 
Link : Small Potato Refunds ThemeClub Members
* This news story was found via Jeffro’s Blog. Thanks Jeff
Alex Cristache | October 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 am #
It was bad to see an excellent project like WPDesigner go down the drain with the new “entrepreneur” owner. I’m glad that, for the sake of the huge amount of respect he has received from users, Tung decided to refund them.
The sum he sold the site for definitely allowed his this small, but significant, gesture. Thumbs up for the guy!
Kevin Muldoon (Post Author) | October 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 am #
That’s true. He did make a lot of money out of it but in my opinion, he earned it. As you say, it’s a small gesture but a welcome one
Brandon Cox | October 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 am #
I paid, but I DON’T want any refund. The club was great, no web site will last forever, and $5 was dirt cheap for the information and inspiration Small Potato offered. Keep the money… and I would have paid more.
Christopher Ross | October 23rd, 2008 at 10:07 am #
It’s nice to see there’s some decent people out there still. The WP community is surprisingly small for a global movement.
Michael | October 23rd, 2008 at 12:24 pm #
Good lord…it’s 5 dollars…who cares?
Mike Huang | October 23rd, 2008 at 12:53 pm #
wow, that isn’t something you see often lol. I tip my hat to the Small Potato
-Mike
Jeffro2pt0 | October 23rd, 2008 at 2:14 pm #
@Michael - This is significant because if you add up all of the people who paid $5.00, it most likely turns into a substantial amount of money that Tung had to pay back. And he did so under his own good will.
If you think it is sad to see the WPDesigner.com website be stale, you should take a look at the forum attached to the site. It serves as a good example as to what can happen to a forum if left unattended.
Online Logo Design | October 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm #
That is a good thing to do, he sounds like a good man and when he returns to the design blogging world people will remember.
Mário Andrade | October 24th, 2008 at 6:35 am #
That’s good news. I signed up and shortly after I hear he was selling the blog.
Plus I had a contest where WPDesigner was a sponsor and when it came time to give the prizes the new owner didn’t give me any answer.
That left me kinda upset but luckly was just $5 dolars
Navjot Singh | October 26th, 2008 at 7:36 am #
Though, I haven’t received any refund till yet of my $5…but its not important.
Important thing is that Small Potato…remembered that WPDesigner.com is going to a bad direction and the promise he made to the Theme Club members before leaving was not kept afterwards.
Great Gesture I must say.
Small Potato | October 29th, 2008 at 3:03 pm #
@Kevin - Thank you for spreading the news.
@Navjot - I’m sorry. There’s nothing else I can do. I thought the new owner would continue my projects at WPD. Before I left, I said worse case scenario is I will refund everyone, which is what I’ve done. If you haven’t heard anything from PayPal or from me through email then I don’t have you on my PayPal records.