Selling Software Saga Follow Up

[ScottActinic]

After trying to sell the software I'd never used I reported to many of you that I was given a nasty phone call and told I had to take down the auction immediatly etc. I believe this is against US Laws, but fearing a lawsuit I obliged. Long story short a compromise was reached by all parties.

One problem, 3 weeks later and I've held up my end but Actinic US and Actinic have not held up theirs. Without getting into the details, Actinic now has both all of my money and all of the software and I have nothing but broken promises.

Be very weary of dealing with this company. I've now had to initiate formal criminal complaints to get this resolved. Frankly at this point, I believe I got ripped off and either way, this is no way to run a business.
I've started the inquiry with the appropriate AG's here in the States and have requested information on how to involve the parent company. If you make an arrangement or come to an agreement with a customer and that customer bends over backwards to make sure he meets his end, don't string them along for weeks. The email is valid, if you want to hear the rest of the story please email.

I had nothing but praise for this product and the users on this forum. One of the most prominent Actinic users, developers and supporters went out of his way to vouch for me on this forum, I'm not a "sour grape". I went out of my way to give Actinic the benefit of the doubt, and three weeks after they got their software back via overnight delivery, I've got nothing.

[NormanRouxel]

Hi Scott,

Sorry to hear you're being so shabbily treated. I find it hard to believe that Actinic UK would act this way. Could you e-mail me some info on what's happened please?

Regards . . . Norman

[ScottActinic]

Just sent it over...

I'm as dumbfounded as you, I haven't heard from UK since they came up with the agreement. I guess once they got the software back that was all they cared about.

I guess maybe this is the quick route to higher profitability..!

[ScottActinic]

As a followup I have UPS chasing them down now too. Because it's an expensive package I'm sure they'll be sending Inspectors out to the site to check on what's going on.

Right now I'm out $1700 for the software, $50 for overnight shipping and no longer even have the software to show for my trouble. I guess technically profits are up

[ScottActinic]

I think at this point the silence is deafening and I have to realize I probably got duped.

I sent the software back under the pretense of an agreement, now they have the software, Sure Solutions has ignored all calls, emails from me, and from UPS who's launched there own investigation to figure out what happened(there NEVER seems to be anyone at the actual office). Basically I paid $1700 and they got the software back. I knew I should have insisted on a credit card credit because to be honest I didn't have a lot of trust in the entire operation.

I'll give them until Tuesday to contact me, that I'll make sure I put up a post on every single ecommerce forum, web hosting forum and everything in between telling people what happened- along with the formal complaints with the AG, BBB and everyone in between.

Sure Solutions must not have gone to Customer Service school Actinic UK, they do you more harm than good in the US.

It's rule 101, if you have a "problem" and you come to an agreement with the "problem" to make it go away and all parties come away whole, you follow through QUICKLY to get it over and done with. At the three week mark I'm still waiting for a check that would take about 1-2 business days under the worst case to transit between point A and B. I bet Sure Solutions has already sent my box back out to another customer, making double the profit.

Amazing. I've already lost all my money and the damage is done, Actinic on the other hand, well it's just the beginning.

[NormanRouxel]

Hi Scott,

I'd hang on for the moment as it's the weekend so no-one responsible may be seeing these posts. Lets hope it's all a misunderstanding and you get sorted as you expect.

Norman

[ScottActinic]

Norman, I will wait realizing there is a time difference and when I sent the messages later Friday it was after work hours in the UK. But...emails earlier in the week were ignored completely by everyone just asking what the deal was on the check.

The reason I'm so glum on ever getting my money is the fact that nobody can ever reach US Actinic...it's like they vanished.

What really stinks is if they'd just left me alone or issued an exemption instead of threatening me I'd have sold the software, someone would be using it benefiting everyone in the community instead of it sitting on a shelf, I'd have my money and it NEVER would even have been an issue. My first posts here making sure I was doing it right were an indication that I wanted to play by the rules.

My reward was sending back the software and apparently getting nothing in return. By Monday it will be over three weeks since I returned it and more than a week past the allaged "check gets cut" date.

I have no idea if its a total coincidence or not, but all of a sudden late Friday after these posts went up I started getting about 1000 emails an hour shutting down my company email servers. I remember you had a similar problem at one point, where you able to get it resolved or did it eventually stop? It seems my domains suddenly been added to a series of well known spam bots.

Thanks

[NormanRouxel]

I have no idea if its a total coincidence or not, but all of a sudden late Friday after these posts went up I started getting about 1000 emails an hour shutting down my company email servers. I remember you had a similar problem at one point, where you able to get it resolved or did it eventually stop?

I doubt it's anyone malicious. Just another load of dimwits who've gone and double-clicked an attachment not knowing or caring that it might be a virus or worm.

No long after Novarg/Mydoom had timed out I got another batch from Netsky.b worm. They're still coming as I write.

It's my own fault, partially, as I put my e-mail address in my giveaway Menu code. That ended up on a lot of Actinic sites and thus on lots of web-pages and ultimately in hordes of peoples caches.

The lesson there is not to put your e-mail address on any web-pages (particularly online store ones) as they are viewed by so many people. Either obfuscate a mailto:bombme@here.com type ling (with some JavaScript) or use a Contact Me form instead.

Norman

[Phil Rothwell]

Hi All,

Apologies for not posting sooner, but I was on holiday on Friday and only saw Scott's email when I returned this morning.

I have now contacted Scott directly to resolve the problem. We don't yet know why he has not received his cheque from Sure Solutions, but have taken steps to ensure he receives his payment as soon as possible.