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These have all happened over the course of the last month or so. Since both Mark and Eugene were out of the office for trade show, Carl and I were handling ALL phone calls AND emails by ourselves.
Naturally dealing with more customers means dealing with more SCs. Some real gems:
The School of Entitlement
This was a series of emails between me and the principal of a school in a European city with a very high cost of living. Basically they had mismanaged their license to the point where they were unable to activate the software.
Since we aren't heartless bastards we believed they were honest but inept and I was trying to get some information from them so I could make them whole and made sure to teach them how to avoid getting themselves into such a bad situation again. I do this all the time.
People are usually grateful that we are understanding and very happy to cooperate learn how to avoid repeating the situation.
Not these guys. The fact that I even asked for information was an insult to their honor.
Cue a couple of rounds of me diplotmatically explaining that knew they were honest, I just needed the information to help and them coming back crying how poor they were and how put upon and how important the work they are doing is. Everything EXCEPT the bloody information I asked for.
Eventually I had to tell them I physically couldn't help them without it.
Finally they gave it to me. I was able to help them and let them know how to avoid the situation in the future.
Normally I receive either nothing or a thank you from customers when that happens. These guys decided to tell me off. The concluding line of the email made me laugh [English is not their first language so ignore the errors]:
Yes, folks. He "insulted" us by basically telling us we're good businessmen. I guess we're horrible because we charge money for our product. I'd feel a lot more charitable if I didn't know for a fact that this school principal must draw a fairly decent salary from that same organization becuase he needs it to pay for his rent and food where he lives. But apparently we're supposed to survive on rainbows and unicorns and good will.
Of course, there's really nothing to reply to there, so I ignored it after having a chuckle.
Oh, and as a bonus he "reported" us to our reseller/distrubitor in his country, another non-profit agency. The reseller got back to me a week after it had all been resolved and asked basically for me to resolve it. I replied that I had already resolved the issue and very much in their favor. I cheerfully made sure that Principal Skinflint was in the cc list.
You Want What?
No, we aren't going to engineer the installer on a version that came out 10 years ago to make it work on a CD, then copy it onto a CD, then ship said CD to India because you bought a new computer without floppy drive. And no, we certainly aren't going to do that for free.
However the newest version does come on a CD AND you are eligible for update pricing (which is less than half what you paid 10 years ago for those floppy diskettes).
Funny. I never heard back from him.
The Pirate Prince of Egypt
This guy. Oh, man.
I got a notice from our UK distributor that this fellow had come right out and disclosed using a pirated copy of our program.
I guess he was trying to get tech support and somehow thought being honest would make the distributor willing to help him or something.
I took over from there. I verified the license was pirated. Explained that only legal licenses get tech support from us and offered to sell him a legal license.
I've been very polite. Pirate or no, he's a potential customer. However he kept asking questions about the legal version that were obvious veiled attempts to get tech support on his illegal copy.
I've been staying helpfully unhelpful by basically answering, "Yes. When you buy your legal license, it will do what you want." But omitting the bit where I tell him HOW to do what he wants.
So he turned to our user-helping-user forum to see if he could get one of our honest paying customers to help him out.
Too bad I thought to put him on ModPost by that point.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
Today I had a guy who is an IT professional at a college using a FREE training license ask me if I could help him bypass our copy protection.
Bonus! Another Tale from Mr. Dips' Coin Shop
If you find a nickel in your pocket and think it might have an error on it that makes it valuable and unusual by all means bring it in on a very busy Saturday and bypass the long line of customers patiently waiting to *buy* things to show it to the overworked clerk.
When she takes time to inspect it and tells you it's not worth more than 5 cents and the store isn't interested in buying it, by all means ask her if she's sure.
When she tells you that she is indeed sure and moves on to one of the many customers waiting behind you go right home turn on your caps lock key and tell "everyone" in the internet that "[STORE] SUCKS AND RIPS YOU OFF1111!!!!!"
Riddle me this, moron. How can someone be ripped off if no offer was made?
Naturally dealing with more customers means dealing with more SCs. Some real gems:
The School of Entitlement
This was a series of emails between me and the principal of a school in a European city with a very high cost of living. Basically they had mismanaged their license to the point where they were unable to activate the software.
Since we aren't heartless bastards we believed they were honest but inept and I was trying to get some information from them so I could make them whole and made sure to teach them how to avoid getting themselves into such a bad situation again. I do this all the time.
People are usually grateful that we are understanding and very happy to cooperate learn how to avoid repeating the situation.
Not these guys. The fact that I even asked for information was an insult to their honor.
Cue a couple of rounds of me diplotmatically explaining that knew they were honest, I just needed the information to help and them coming back crying how poor they were and how put upon and how important the work they are doing is. Everything EXCEPT the bloody information I asked for.
Eventually I had to tell them I physically couldn't help them without it.
Finally they gave it to me. I was able to help them and let them know how to avoid the situation in the future.
Normally I receive either nothing or a thank you from customers when that happens. These guys decided to tell me off. The concluding line of the email made me laugh [English is not their first language so ignore the errors]:
You seem to have a commercial sense restricted enough to oblige a small non-profitmaking organization and acknowledged of public utility, to buy very dear licences still and still in state of quasi monopoly.
Of course, there's really nothing to reply to there, so I ignored it after having a chuckle.
Oh, and as a bonus he "reported" us to our reseller/distrubitor in his country, another non-profit agency. The reseller got back to me a week after it had all been resolved and asked basically for me to resolve it. I replied that I had already resolved the issue and very much in their favor. I cheerfully made sure that Principal Skinflint was in the cc list.
You Want What?
No, we aren't going to engineer the installer on a version that came out 10 years ago to make it work on a CD, then copy it onto a CD, then ship said CD to India because you bought a new computer without floppy drive. And no, we certainly aren't going to do that for free.
However the newest version does come on a CD AND you are eligible for update pricing (which is less than half what you paid 10 years ago for those floppy diskettes).
Funny. I never heard back from him.
The Pirate Prince of Egypt
This guy. Oh, man.
I got a notice from our UK distributor that this fellow had come right out and disclosed using a pirated copy of our program.
I guess he was trying to get tech support and somehow thought being honest would make the distributor willing to help him or something.
I took over from there. I verified the license was pirated. Explained that only legal licenses get tech support from us and offered to sell him a legal license.
I've been very polite. Pirate or no, he's a potential customer. However he kept asking questions about the legal version that were obvious veiled attempts to get tech support on his illegal copy.
I've been staying helpfully unhelpful by basically answering, "Yes. When you buy your legal license, it will do what you want." But omitting the bit where I tell him HOW to do what he wants.
So he turned to our user-helping-user forum to see if he could get one of our honest paying customers to help him out.
Too bad I thought to put him on ModPost by that point.
Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
Today I had a guy who is an IT professional at a college using a FREE training license ask me if I could help him bypass our copy protection.
Bonus! Another Tale from Mr. Dips' Coin Shop
If you find a nickel in your pocket and think it might have an error on it that makes it valuable and unusual by all means bring it in on a very busy Saturday and bypass the long line of customers patiently waiting to *buy* things to show it to the overworked clerk.
When she takes time to inspect it and tells you it's not worth more than 5 cents and the store isn't interested in buying it, by all means ask her if she's sure.
When she tells you that she is indeed sure and moves on to one of the many customers waiting behind you go right home turn on your caps lock key and tell "everyone" in the internet that "[STORE] SUCKS AND RIPS YOU OFF1111!!!!!"
Riddle me this, moron. How can someone be ripped off if no offer was made?
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