Tips to Consider When Choosing Who to Do Business With Online

For my friends who know me, they know that I always try to be positive, because complaining is just a waste of energy.  I also always try to approach everything very diplomatically.  That is why this situation I ran into two weeks ago makes me so disappointed.  I even thought about not posting this, as I don’t like to air my dirty laundry in public.  However, I think it drives home some important lessons, and I hope you can learn from my negative experience.

Today, I want to tell you about a bad purchase decision that I made, in the hopes that I can save you the same frustration in the future, as well as some tips to help you out when you’re trying to decipher who to purchase from online.  I have purposely blocked out the names of the marketers below.

In March 2013, a new backup and cloning software for websites came out.  I decided to purchase it as I knew the owner from a niche blogging forum that we had both belonged to when we met online in 2009.  I felt very confident in purchasing it from someone I knew online and trusted.  I was also informed that plans were in the works to allow backups to be exported to Amazon S3 and Dropbox, which was another selling point for me.

The reason I decided to purchase this instead of some of the other backup softwares out there, is because this offered a one-time lifetime fee of $67.  It claimed there would be no other ongoing fees, unlike some of the other backup softwares out there.

I’m not sure when exactly, but only few short months later (in 2013 still), I received an email from a different online marketer.  He had purchased the rights to the backup and cloning software and now owned the business. The former owner was no longer associated with it, and she did not even let her customers know that she had sold the rights to her business. That kind of concerned me, because I had no idea what his reputation was like.  Once again, through emails, he assured me that they were continuing to move forwards with their plans of additional export methods for backups, and that the software would continue to be fully supported.

So I trusted him.  And I continued to trust that the former owner had sold it to someone who would take care of her former customers.

Even when she still owned the business, I had ongoing problems with getting the backup software to work on some of my websites.  I could install it, but it wouldn’t do the scheduled backups.

So I went back and forth with her support person.  Then when she sold the business, I went back and forth with the new support person.  It never got fully solved.

After Christmas and into the spring, I had health problems (thyroid and adrenals), so I lacked the energy to deal with this.  As a result, it got placed on the backburner.

So I am getting back into things again, after many months of health issues, and decided to contact his support again a couple weeks ago to get help with getting the backups to work.  This is the email I got back from support:

What really made me annoyed was the “Thank you for being our customer!”

So now what am I supposed to do?  I decided I would contact the person who originally sold me the product with this email:

but this was her response:

I told her that I disagree with that, because his choices will ultimately affect her business too as she was the original owner and sold to me and other customers.  We trusted that we would be taken care of as customers.  In this case, it looks like the almighty dollar is more important than reputation and future sales by maintaining a good relationship with customers.

So then I decided to contact the new owner to see if he will refund me, but I don’t have a good feeling that he will.  In this circumstance, no one wants to take responsibility.  I was right.  No refund coming.

I like to think that they both had good intentions at the start, but what they are now forgetting is the customer who gets caught in the middle – me and everyone else that purchased this product in the first place.

I must admit that this is not the first time this has happened to me.  I purchased a sales page tool in the past, only to learn that it too was no longer going to be supported in the future.

So, knowing this, I thought I would offer some recommendations for you to consider when you are bombarded by emails from so many people all the time trying to sell you stuff online.  Here they are:

1.  Buy digital software from tried and tested sources.

In other words, if the software has been around for years, it probably has a good track record.  Buy that software instead of the newest, shiniest software that comes your way.  There is an exception to this rule.  There are some very good people who are coming out with new software from time to time, who I know will do their best to keep you, the customer, happy.   I list one person at the end of this post who I would wholeheartedly recommend to you.

2.  Be wary of one-time fees when they say that you will get lifetime updates.

Yes, we all want to avoid having to pay yearly fees, but in many cases, this is what covers the cost of development, updates, and technical support.  Again, there are always exceptions.  There are many good products that offer lifetime updates at no additional cost, but it’s just important to do your homework before handing over your hard-earned money.

3.  Watch out for emails from marketers who are always trying to sell you things that every Tom, Dick, and Harry puts out there. 

You’ll notice that when I email you offers, I only tell you about people that I do business with or trust completely.  There are a lot of new offers always coming across my desk, but unless I know that they are truly good, I will not tell you about them.  Maintaining your trust and a good reputation is key to me.

4.  Please quit buying every new thing that comes your way.

There are so many people who are quick to take your money, but won’t deliver (like I found out in this situation).

To say that I am disappointed with the support I received from both these business owners is an understatement. I trusted these people, and they let me down.  I hope that I can save you the same kind of disappointment that I experienced.  So please be careful of those that surround us.  They do not all have our best interests at heart.

To be fair, I do understand that a long time has gone by since I first made the purchase in March 2013.  I asked some other experienced trusted marketers what could have made this situation better, and they mentioned that both businesses could have tried to offer some other form of compensation – perhaps another one of their products – to make up for the bad experience I have had to endure.  I thought that was a good idea, even though that was not my intent.  But maybe it would have made me feel just a little better about my experience dealing with them.

Oh, well.  Live and learn.  Have you had any similar experiences?

If you are looking for a trusted and recommended software provider, Lynette is one that  I have purchased from and had very good support.  You can see what she has to offer here:

http://www.kimloves.com/lyn   (Tip:  Click on the Techbased Plugins logo in the top left of the site, and it will take you to the main site where there a couple a FREE plugins that you can get).