Cases with the BBB

Just wondering the outcome of other people's complaints to the BBB. Mine isn't final, but here's my complaint and response.

Yeah,I know I haven't renewed in 3 years, but that was the whole point of the owned license, so I could renew anytime and get the latest upgrades of the 3.x branch. All I'm asking is access to the latest 3.x branch versions, which isn't much considering their 4.x is coming out.. I just want the latest version of the product I purchased. No I am left to no choice but to purchase 4.x if I want my 3.x updates.. Which, in my opinion, breaks the original contract terms. We'll see what happens next..

 

I am still waiting, but i will use this space to post my outcome.

 

You still have access to the latest 3.x branch versions so I'm not sure what the complaint is about.

They won't be updating 3.x any further with new features, and will only be releasing security updates. You've went 3 years with out them, so whats the problem here.

Also, complaining to the BBB does nothing except get a generic response from someone at IB. The BBB is a powerless organization, that can't really do much of anything except act as a middle man with no influence. You'd have the same effect sending me your complaints and I can forward them along as well.

 

One of my biggest complaints is that i can no longer update my blog software unless i buy the suite. Had i known this before i paid my renewal, i would have never paid. I only want/wanted my forum software and blog software. Ray Morgan just ignores my ticket requests for a refund.

 

You could not be more wrong.

I am unable to download 3.8.x since my "maintenance" expired at 3.6.x, so no, I am not able to download the latest version of the product I purchased (3.x) without purchasing 4.x.

As for the BBB, if it was useless to send complaints to the BBB, they wouldn't exist and they wouldn't keep track of customer complaints. When shopping for a product, you can look at a company's BBB ratings before making a purchase, so these ratings have an effect. The top companies get awards and are recognized for the continued customer satisfaction. It is something they can add in their yearly/quarterly reports to their stock holders and add a nice BBB logo on their web site with a link to their profile. It just adds more credibility. If your BBB profile shows many complaints where the company simply "explains" and gives the customers no resolution, it will be a great indication that this company doesn't listen to its customers and you better go elsewhere.

Here's an example of someone looking for BBB information about vBulletin on the pre-sales forum:

better business?

 

Yeah, I never got that. I don't know why IB wouldn't allow for folks to pay $60 to renew their 3.X license agreement so they can get whatever final version of vB 3.X was released. They'd still be making money and if the forum own wanted to move to vBulletin 4, they'd actually make even more in the long run.

 

Especially for people with expired maintenance issues, stay tuned. I discussed the matter with some people and there will probably be a site to collected email addresses of the aggreived parties to handle the problem with numbers. Keep the reports going to the BBB. It will only further bolster a case.

 

At the risk of making myself unpopular here - but what are customers with expired licenses complaining about? If staying up to date and receiving security updates were so important to them, they'd have kept their license current.
Really, I mean no offence.
I agree willingly that IB have made an ugly mess of this license change - but really, I don't think it's reasonable for people with expired licenses to complain. Things change and nobody was promised that the licensing system wouldn't change.
I do think that people with current (up to date) licenses have a case for complaining (because of lack of consideration, etc). Especially those with addons.

 

I hope it's not AVC that's doing this... Because he was banned from vB.com for all the right reasons.
He was running around, calling people morons all the time. I must have reported 5 of his posts within an hour or so. If that is how he behaves offline too, then good luck.

 

I agree with that, but they want to become current now. To play devil's advocate, what would it hurt for IB to allow them to pay the $60 to renew their license and continue to receive all remaining updates for the vBulletin 3.X product?

Additionally, they could even make it so that those that renew under this premise do not qualify for any vB 4.0 special upgrade pricing. To me, this would satisfy those users and would be a nice PR move. Eventually, you'd probably get some of them to convert to vB4 due to good will in the way you took care of them before.

 

Well, they are offering a special discount for customers with an expired license. Obviously, if it's expired more than a year ago, I don't see a case of them having to offer this kind of thing.
If they're gonna offer expired customers the $60 renewals and not current customers. What would be the good in that? And if they DID offer it to current customers too, we'd be back with the old licensing system. And that's not very likely.

 

Current customers are already going to get the full lifecycle of vB3 updates -- that is what the renewal for expired users would entail.

You need to separate the vB3 product and the vB4 product.

 

The problem is you are confusing many things together. It doesn't matter if I want or not the security patches or updates. What matters is the original license terms indicated I could renew my maintenance at any time to get the latest version. Now, there is no option for me to get the latest 3.x version unless I purchase 4.x which is what I am complaining about. We should be allowed to renew our 3.x until it is EOL'd. This is a tactic to force expired maintenance license owners to pay the full price of 4.x to get the 3.x updates. I just want to get what I paid for.

 

Current customers (with active licenses) only get the 3.X upgrades (and 4.X of course), as long as their license is active.
When my license expires in May 2010, I will not be getting the updates for 3.X after that (if there are any).

 

According to the TOS when you purchased vBulletin you got updates for 1 year, and you could pay a fractional fee to continue to recieve updates. You decided to stop paying 3 years ago at 3.6 so why all of a sudden do you want an upgrade to 3.8 and are acting like some sort of crime has been comitted. You can still recieve the 3.6 files you were at when you decided to stopped paying for updates.

Had you paid say 2 weeks ago to upgrade, or whatever, then maybe I'd have some sympathy or compassion about your situation. But you waited 3 years before renewing, so I fail to see what the problem is. The fact remains, you decided not to pay for updates for 3 years so you can't be that concerned with new features or security, so personally I find this argument a bit outlandish.

Those original license terms also said the price is subject to change. The price has changed. Any other arguements?

 

Read my post over and over until you understand, there's no point in me repeating the same thing again. If you don't understand or don't agree with my demands, then please just skip to the next thread.. I don't want this to turn into non-sense arguing like every other vbulletin related thread you've given your 2 cents in for the past couple days.

 

That was the agreement. You could pick up your renewals whenever you wanted. You didn't *have* to keep it current.

I mean, look at how IPB does it. If, when YOU bought your software, renewals were $x and/or a specific deal (free for life, $50/yr vs. $100/yr if you bought the community suite vs. buying the pieces individually, etc..) they honor that forever.

Lots of large companies grandfather people with old plans. AT&T still lets me stay with my ancient family talk plan -- even when I upgrade my phone, etc.. It's cheaper than anything else they have now! SmugMug.com still has a ton of people on the old $99/yr plan while everyone else pays $150/yr for the Pro accounts.

The only difference is that vB has ignored any/all their existing clients and just screwed them over with a price increase with NO warning! It's not cool.

 

You're still making this way too difficult just like the folks at IB are.

You offer a flat renewal of $60 that will allow you to get all remaining vB3 updates. Nothing more, nothing less, no discounts, no vB4 download, nothing. Just vB3 updates until EOL.

 

Actually, given that $60 is for all upgrades/updates, and now it'll just be for updates/bugfixes, the cost should be close to $20 to keep it current OR, just give it away. They'll make it up on the other end....

 

This is still blatantly unfair. Charging customers a 50% price increase for maintenance without prior warning of a price increase. Add that maintenance no longer will include any updates or development and it should be halved by 50%. This pricing plan is still tantamount to holding your customers at gunpoint.