Gold version Marketing strategy mistake or fraud???

[jiri]

We haven't got any reply from you to our support system. Anyway, just provide us with the order # from TrialPay that you claim to be made few days ago and we can resolve the issue in no time. Without this information we can only search using your e-mail address and it doesn't return anything else than that old order from 2008.

Jiri

[stehno]

Very clever, Jiri. In the past few weeks I received emails from Russell and Martin of MediaMonkey but none from you. Their email address both times was support@mediamonkey.com and in both cases I simply replied to their emails and forwarded what I have as attachments. Yet you claim to have never received my emails. Perhaps they are deleting them or not forwarding them? Do you have spam turned on?

And since you will not provide me any other email address to mail my trialpay and columbia emails to you it looks like you got things rigged pretty much in your favor here.

it just so happens that I had cut and pasted some of my activities that evening that trialpay stepped me through and it should be pasted above as well as below. This is the only note I possess that might include what seems to be my trialpay order id from 1/7/2010:

https://www.trialpay.com/account/order/?oid=YWT5CN5

But I have no email from triapay telling me what my trialpay order id is. If you've not gone thru the process Trialpay intercepts from MM and then forwards the user to the selected merchant and aside from a couple of links and password changes their public facing is pretty minimal. But there are 2 very brief emails with links and I believe I posted those in this thread and would be more than happy to email them provided you give me a valid email address.

But again, very clever of you to ask for trialpay info that they did not email to me and hence I normally would be unable to provide you. But based on the above it seems to me that the order id is YWT5CN5.

[jiri]

The support e-mail is shared and we all can see it, but there isn't any new reply since January 10th. Anyway, feel free to send all the related info to my e-mail jh a t mediamonkey dot com.

Jiri

[rusty]

Case closed. John was sent a MediaMonkey 4 license key, but we still have no idea how this whole situation arose.

-Rusty

[stehno]

This email came from Russell at MM today:

Hi John, We still can't find a record of your purchase, but are giving you a MediaMonkey 4 license key on good faith.

Here's your MediaMonkey 4 registration information:
License Username: John
License Key: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We still can't find a record of your purchase, but have asked Trialpay to look into this--we are at a loss as to how this situation could have occurred.

Regards,

Russell

Thank you, Russell, but regrettably, a customer service-oriented company would have sent this type of response 2 weeks ago. It's unbelievable that a support group like MM could not even fathom that a software error or even user error (me) between MM, Trialpay, and/or Columiba House DVD could have caused things to not go as anticipated. Transaction commit errors happens millions (billions?) of times every day all over the world.

Almost since day one I provided MM support enough info just in this thread to raise doubt that something might have gone south during the squirrelly transaction process. So even if MM never received my emails, there still should have been enough reasonable evidence to grant me some benefit of the doubt rather than stonewall me and assume the worst of me, which is exactly what they did. Nonetheless, to an existing customer they claim purchased a gold license key of their product 4 years ago.

Moreover, a customer service-oriented company would also have apolgized profusely for exhibiting such poor behavior to a 'customer'.

I pity the foo' who opts for the 'free' gold version. It was anything but free.

I'm done here.

[gturner]

Just try to get your money back! I've been waiting for over three weeks. MM was able to process my order in a few hours when they were TAKING my money but for some reason, GIVING the money back takes three weeks. BTW, I asked for my money back because their auto-tag feature wasn't working at all. It is tied to Amazon. I don't know if it is Amazon or MM who throttles the number of users but only 100 users are allowed to access Amazon at at time. This is in the United States, too.

[Lowlander]

CD tagging is using FreeDB which sometimes has issues, Auto-Tag from Web however shouldn't have this issue and is only limited to 100 results on any given query. I use Auto-Tag from Web frequently and it always works for me. However using FreeDB in another program often gives me trouble.

Auto-Tag from Web only works in MediaMonkey 4. Alternatives are available if you're still on MediaMonkey 3: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =1#p316877

[gturner]

Auto Tag from the Web does have this problem. I could only attach to an Amazon site and it wouldn't let me in.

[Lowlander]

Which version of MediaMonkey (Help > About) are you using, and what does the error message say?

I just tried with Amazon (US) on 2 albums on 4.0.3.1464 and both were found without issue.

[gturner]

4.0.2.1462 (Gold) on a Windows 7 box. Amazon just wouldn't let me connect, it said that there were already 100 users. MM's auto-tagging was setup to attach to an Amazon server in the US (where I am) MM would not let me change to another server. I ripped the cd, with no tagging and tried to get MM to identify the cd by file. This didn't work either. This wasn't an obscure cd either, it was Buffalo Springfield's Greatest Hits.

[Lowlander]

CD tagging is done by FreeDB which is user submitted. This means that not all CD's are known and often a different pressing of a CD can be a problem as well. If you rip with no information you'll need to enter some basic information in Auto-Tag from Web like Artist or Album (both are best) to get any results.

If Amazon gives that limitation you should look into using a different Amazon site or use one of the alternative taggers.

Both of these features are free features so you didn't pay for them when you purchased a Gold license.

[Guest]

Talk about a couple of wingers.

Stehno is still not happy even after getting a Gold licence in good faith even though MM having no record of his transaction.

Gturner complaining about his cd not being recognised by Freedb, then not entering any basic album info for it to be recognised using autotag.

Also show a little politeness when you have a problem - you will tend to get more help than going on the attack and blaming everything under the sun except yourself.

I have been a Gold Lifetime user for over 3 years and use MM to manage a collection of over 200,000 tracks. I have been extremely happy with the software and use it almost daily. Sure there has been the odd glitch when a new versions comes out but these are generally fixed reasonably quickly.

My dealings with support on a couple of issues in the past has been very good and the support & knowledge of the users on this forum has been excellent.

I'm sick of people posting on a forum and be negative about a product when it is not the product's fault. On the other hand, if they are happy with the product or get good service you never hear from them.

Thanks for taking the time to read this rant - just wanted to get this off my chest

Regards

Mick (from the land down under)

[tonydl]

Yes, it's unbelievable.

MM support answered very fast and politely in here and tried to settle the issue and stehno answered like a d*ck - blaming and blaming and blaming without trying to resolve the issue.

Thanks MM - you proofed again that you're good guys

[gturner]

Talk about a couple of wingers.

Gturner complaining about his cd not being recognised by Freedb, then not entering any basic album info for it to be recognised using autotag.

Also show a little politeness when you have a problem - you will tend to get more help than going on the attack and blaming everything under the sun except yourself.

Mick (from the land down under)

Actually there were several problems. First, the Gold Version wouldn't let me change servers. My only choice was Amazon US and that had 100 users and apparently only 100 users at a time are allowed to use the Amazon server. BTW, I was trying to tag a really basic cd, "The Best Of The Buffalo Springfield". So, I ripped the cd to disk and tried to get the auto tag feature to work by supplying title and song title information. This didn't work either. It found some information about another cd by another band, but it wasn't the cd I had ripped. I even tried filing in several of the track titles and auto tag wouldn't work.

I should mention that I have been using MM for quite some time to create flac versions of my cds. I liked the product so much, I thought I should do the developers a very small favor and upgrade to the Gold version. I never had problems with MM's auto tag before. I don't know if the problem is with this new release or if they've entered into some sort of odd agreement with Amazon. All I know is that auto-tag doesn't work with this version of their software and I spent a couple of hours over two nights trying to get it to work.

The product is so poor, I suspect the original developers have left and some charlatans have taken over.

[Lowlander]

First, the Gold Version wouldn't let me change servers.

Never have anyone seen reporting this. If you select Options in the Auto-Tag from Web dialog you should be able to switch provider.

Going Gold doesn't change tagging in anyway as this is not a Gold feature.

Actually it is Amazon who occasionally change things on their side. Not much MediaMonkey can do about this. There are also many alternative taggers, which were linked previously.