Not impressed with your website!!!!

I wanted to purchase your products (the Action Pack and Process Guard) using PayPal, but found that while you could purchase TDS separately with PayPal, it wasn't possible to buy either of the two products I wanted.

I don't want to sound like I'm having a go at you (although I am!), but c'mon lads, this is bread and butter stuff!. Why can't all your products be purchased with all available methods ? (in particular usiong PayPal to buy the Action Pack and Process Guard).

While I have utmost respect for your products (although I'm going on what you and other people have said (maybe not a good thing)), I don't like the fact that some aspects of your company/products seem to be less than polished.

What do you have to say DCS..... ?

 

Well I'm sure if you just gave us the money through PAYPAL it would work fine. We don't really mention PAYPAL on that particular ACTION PACK page but it is obvious that we accept that payment method I think from the Shop page.

On our end it doesn't matter if you pay the $99 through PAYPAL, REGSOFT, MONEY ORDER, etc, if you pay us money and tell us why you are doing so we will give you the products.

Most of our site will be receiving a major facelift over the coming months, but thanks for your feedback.

 

I'm sure you would keep your word, but when I go to buy the Action Pack I'm not even given the option to pay with PayPal. Same goes for ProcessGuard.

So when you say to pay the money anyway and you'll give me the product, I'm not quite sure how to pay the required amount using PayPal (and how you'll know to link that payment to me).

Please advise... (because I do want to be a customer!)

That aside, I'd also recommend signing up with Element5 (www.element5.com) to give potential customers the another option of payment. The difference with Element5 is that they give you the option to pay with Switch/Solo (ie. Debit card), which is big in Europe. Not many other payment providers give you this option (ie. they all do the standard Visa, Mastercard etc.) I'm sure this would help your sales!

 

Hi Defenstration,
We'll actually be completely re-designing our website early in 2005 (the base design has already been created, but porting the site over will take considerable time).

In regards to Element5, yes we were considering selling through them but they've recently been bought by Digital River and have made some very peculiar changes to their system which have now made them a very unattractive option for developers, unfortunately.

To purchase any of our products through Paypal just determine how much it costs (US$), and instead of paying that amount through Regsoft or Clickbank, simply pay that amount to Paypal, using sales@diamondcs.com.au as the recipient address. If I recall correctly there's a "Comments" section in which you can say "This is for the Action Pack". If not then simply send us an email.

Best regards,
Wayne

 

That's a shame. What exactly are these peculiar changes because I was considering using them myself ?

If not Element5, then any other payment provider that gave the option of paying with Switch/Solo would be a good choice. Many companies do not give this option and so probably lose custom because of it.

I have just purchased the Action Pack and Process Guard using your recommended PayPal method above and look forward to receiving the registration codes. Ahhhhhh....... I feel safer already!

I read that registration gives you membership to the private section of your website, which contains "extra" updates to some of your apps. Apart from PG3, are there any other updates which aren't available to non-registered users ?

 

Some of the Members Area pages contain tools to help extend some features of specific programs you have registered, or things like graphics/art, etc.

 

I've just spent the past month trying to renew a Trend Micro AV subscription through Digital River. My advice is: don't go there. Apparently, total non-comprehension of english is a requirement. Email after email, I stated that DR that hadn't given me a serial number to validate the license re-up. They suggest all sorts of <snip> and eventually handed me off to Trend tech support. I re-iterated everything with the whole ugly nested email mash and Trend suggested all sorts of <snip>. Then they handed me off to a tech support center in Manila. The last email, they suggested calling Digital River and requesting a new serial number.

Originally, the invoice and order confirmation lacked a serial number and I ran the Digital River IVR tree all day trying to get one. Late in the day, when I finally got a human, she got <snip>about why I was calling her and pre-emptively stated she was sending me to tech support. As you probably guessed, I ended up at a fax machine. That started a month long email exchange.

Digital River and Element5 can eat road apples until the goose that laid the golden eggs comes home. I'll never deal with them again, nor anyone that uses them.

 

There is one serious point to bear in mind for EU countries - Element5, RegSoft and similar services add VAT (Value Added Tax) to the cost of any software you purchase.

Now EU VAT regulations do state that the seller is responsible for collecting and paying this tax, not the purchaser, so these services are acting correctly. However when dealing with a company based outside of the EU (and therefore not subject to EU jurisdiction) it does make sense to use a method that avoids VAT (the rates vary by country with most being in the 15-20% range). In DiamondCS's case, Paypal would be one option - but for the Paypal-allergic it is also possible to send encrypted credit-card details via email using their register.exe program.

 

I had almost exactly the same experience with Trend Micro almost a year ago. The end result, after several long distance telephone calls, was that a registration number for the product was never received and Trend Micro had $50.00 US.The problem, clearly, did not lie with Digital river who were very cooperative and helpful as they could be.

In addition, just try to contact someone (anyone?) at Trend Micro-thats a full day's exercise in itself. Actually, it didn't make any difference because I received no help from them at all.

This must not happen often or Trend would lose all their business; however, since someone else is now reporting a very similar complaint, it might be worth adding my experience (and loss of $50.00) for the record. Should I ever again wish to look at one of their products, it would never be through an attempt of an "on line" purchase under any circumstances.

Over the years, I have never experienced any significant problems with online purchases and it is very surprising and disappointing this happened with a company having the stature and reputation of Trend Micro.

 

After recent encounters with element5/shareit as a software buyer, I can't feel more that this is true. Always delayed product deliveries (as part of their broken promise - 24hr product delivery), and delayed or no responses to customer inquiries. element5 has long history of product delivery delays for credit card purchases. element5 explains that this is because they verify each credit card purchase by real human beings. I am puzzled however why there are no human being answering customer emails instead they were sending me back automatic responses

As for the recent DR's purchase of element5, element5 says they are operating independently of DR even after the purchase. I am curiouse about the peculiar changes element5 has made to their system after being bought up.

As for the web site, I'd rather have DiamondCS work hard on making better products than make fancy graphics.

In conclusion, I am glad DCS did not choose element5. Regsoft works just fine for me.