Online software companies promise potential customers that their product is second to none and that their product 's technical support team will go out of its way to assist you should you experience problems with their products.
One company whose after sale technical support is sorely lacking is Giantmatrix (www.giantmatrix.com) whose product "Anti Tracks" offers consumers hours of software frustration, little or no product support and of course questionable marketing strategies.
In November of 2011 I purchased an online version of Anti Tracks from Avangate the seller of the software. I received an email notification that once my order was confirmed I would receive the payment receipt and "detailed product licensing information" in separate emails.
The followup email I received informed me that I should register my product at the Avangate website (www.avangate.com) so that I would be able to view my order details, gain access to my online shopping history and "re-download licence keys/codes".
An email indicated the download site to obtain the program. No product codes were ever included with the emails. At the time I thought nothing of that fact and installed the program. That was my first major mistake.
The program loaded successfully and promised to protect my identity and personal information online. After I initiated the program two things happened which I did not expect:
- I was unable to access any website due to server failure.
- My computer crashed and I had to do a computer restore.
I had to perform a computer restore two more times after the initial software conflict. I had downloaded a copy of the program and placed it on a DVD for safekeeping. When I installed this copy the computer once again locked up. An onscreen error message informed me of an error occurring because a product cover page was missing.
I sent an email to the customer support team and told them my situation. I also told them that I had not received the licence keys or special codes in any email from them. I requested the product codes to unlock the product.
I received a short email telling me to go to another website and download another version of the program. No product codes were included at this time but the name of the program was listed a "Anti Tracks - complete version". I still do not know what that means.
Naively I followed their instruction, downloaded the program and hoped for the best. Again my web browsers were unable to access the Internet due to server errors. Two more times the program crashed my computer due to software complications.
I again contacted customer support and have been waiting now for a reply for about two weeks. Apparently a customer has to purchase "download protection" from the company to avoid such frustrating situations. A reputable company should have to resort to this type of after sale customer extortion to ensure that their product will continue to function as promised.
In the past week or so I wrote to the sales department at Avangate asking for a refund for the product. I also sent an email to Gianmatrix explaining my frustration with both their problem plagued product and shoddy technical support.
From this experience I have learned not to trust an online software company who requests that a customer purchase "download insurance portection" to guarantee them the right to have future downloads should their product fail to perform.
This is definitely a situation of buyer beware. The best policy is to do your online research about those companies who toot their own product horns a little too briskly.
