Yes. This Is a Problem. But It's Not MY Problem

[Dips]

If a customer fills out a registration with his address and license number we can use this address to retrieve said license number from our database if he loses it.

If he doesn't fill out a registration but has the license number and contacts us for help we can get him registered and help him if he needs to replace an installation.

If the customer doesn't bother to fill out a registration and subsequently LOSES his product AND hasn't written down his license number ANYPLACE then...well... he's pretty much fucked himself over.

I can't believe anyone actually expects that we can have the magical ability to tell him what license number he had when he never actually once, you know, told us what license number he had. We have thousands of unregistered license numbers. I can't exactly pick one at random that might belong to someone else and just hand it over to you.

I also can't believe a freaking RESELLER, who really ought to know better, would make the same demand for this customer.

It took about 5 messages before the reseller got a clue.

He kept saying that the fact that the customer doesn't know his license number is the problem.

You know what? I agree wholeheartedly with that. It's a problem. A problem the customer caused and could have avoided. But it's not, under any circumstance, OUR problem.

The reseller moved on to telling us this was a very important customer to him.

And? That still doesn't confer upon me the magical ability to determine what license number YOU, the reseller, sold to this costumer. Perhaps you should keep better records, maybe.

Apparently you feel strongly about this and keep hinting that this customer deserves a free license to replace the one he didn't bother to register and subsequently lost. By all means feel free to BUY ONE from us and give it to him if the customer is worth that much to you.

Aaaaaand...I haven't heard from the reseller since I told him that (in more polite terms, of course).

[wolfie]

Of course, if the reseller had kept proper records (including what license number they had sold to which client), they could have looked up their records (from the customer's name) and found the license number, passed it on to you, and there would have been no problem.

I'd be careful with this reseller - they may start keeping records, and if one of their pre-record "good" customers has this same problem, give you the license number from a "one-time" customer (i.e. a license number they know, but which is unlikely to give them further business) in order to get what they are looking for. What happens when that "one-time" customer sends in their registration card, with a license number that's already in use?

[Dips]

I'm not too worried about that.

You know how some people will pay attention to a warning and other people don't because "That warning sign applies to other people, not me?"

Which works great to a point. These folks aren't dishonest, just people who have to actually pee on the electric fence before they believe the sign.