5 replies to this topic

[ptwiggens]

This may not be the right place for this, but I thought this forum would have the most prospective customers who would have use for this information.

I have multiple active licenses with vB.

I was very unhappy with both how vB4 as a product is, and with how they launched it.

I have been voicing my criticisms for the past few days. They made bannable any post that "distorts" their product for new customers... aka anything that doesn't say anything positive.

Well... after they locked a thread that was completely constructive, I made a decision that I would no longer be purchasing anything from vBulletin.

I sat down, took about an hour, and took a lot of care laying out all of the reasons that they had lost me as a customer. I started this by saying that they "had already lost me as a customer, and I won't be coming back." Not said in a way to start drama, but rather to give my post some context.

Most of the post was about how I thought vBulletin should fix the disaster that happened. It was a very serious suggestion on how I would like to see them handle it. Mainly, apologizing, rolling 4.0 back into 3.9, reverting back to old license structure and selling CMS as separate product, very real suggestions. I also said that I thought their support staff needed to be retrained because a lot of stuff they were posting was very unprofessional, and vBulletin shouldn't allow that. (I had a staff member blatantly insult my intelligence, when I complained, it was that staff member who handled the ticket. I tried to go above him, his superior gave me a non-apology of "Sorry if you misinterpreted anything that was said." I did not say any of this in an inflammatory way, it was purely informational and meant to encourage actual change.

Well.. the staff member that I mentioned deleted the thread and banned my account after seeing it.

The ban reason should communicate just how bad things have gotten: "You have been banned for the following reason:
We are taking you at your word: You've already lost me as a customer, and I won't be coming back"

That's right, they banned me because I said I was not going to be spending any more money on their software. They also banned me from vb.org which effectively ends my license, as I cannot receive updates, plugins, support (oh, did I mention since they banned me they won't reply to support tickets?)... basically, I am going to be forced to switch to another software despite having an active license that is fully paid.

To be honest, I am in disbelief. I don't really even know what to say about it.

The staff over there are melting down or something.

Anyways, I haven't had to purchase another forum license yet, but IPB will be all I use from here on out. I've been looking at staff responses here and there is nothing but classiness.

Thought this might be useful information for those wondering which software to choose.

[Aeolian]

and now i would be interested to see how IPB handles this post.

[Bobcheese 123]

I cannot believe what I am reading! How on earth can a company treat their customers like that? It is 200% unprofessional and classless! You got banned for absolutely no reason. You paid for that product and unless you are doing anything outside their TOS, you have no right to be denied to it. By being banned from their forums, you are denied support and any upgrades (if any) that came for your license. This is a disgrace on IB's part. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[ptwiggens]

Trust me, I can't believe I'm in this situation.

I just found out another prominent guy got banned for a similiar remark: "I don't want anything to do with this "Brave New World" that is vb4.0"

Same staff member wrote same thing he wrote on my ban except with the above quote.

I have literally never been treated so poorly by a company... and I've had some pretty bad experiences.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why things like 3 of their best developers leaving on the same day happen are happening...

[Lindy]

Thank you for your interest and I'm very sorry to hear of your past experiences. We will certainly do everything possible to ensure that your experience with us is positive.

With that said, your frustration is certainly understandable, however, I'm afraid we will have to encourage you to peruse other outlets (eg. The Admin Zone) to share your specific experience. As I'm sure you can appreciate, we believe our products, services and customer satisfaction history speak volumes for our company; fostering a hostile environment is certainly not something we wish to do.

Once again, we appreciate your interest and please do let us know if we can be of any assistance!


Thank you.

[ptwiggens]

Lindy, on 25 October 2009 - 09:41 PM, said:

Thank you for your interest and I'm very sorry to hear of your past experiences. We will certainly do everything possible to ensure that your experience with us is positive.

With that said, your frustration is certainly understandable, however, I'm afraid we will have to encourage you to peruse other outlets (eg. The Admin Zone) to share your specific experience. As I'm sure you can appreciate, we believe our products, services and customer satisfaction history speak volumes for our company; fostering a hostile environment is certainly not something we wish to do.

Once again, we appreciate your interest and please do let us know if we can be of any assistance!


Thank you.

I understand.

Like I said, all class.