Disappointing! Terrible support!

Hi Sonja,

We’re sorry you had a bad experience, but you’re being disingenuous with your description of events.

You kept wrapping your inventory in a pre tag, that was styled by your theme to only be a specific height. We explained the issue to you, provided you with the CSS to target that element and correct the issue AND we logged in and applied the CSS for you.

You then decided to switch to another theme. The easy solution would have been to remove the shortcode from the pre tag OR copy the CSS we provided you into the new theme. But for some reason you opted to be rude about the situation.

We even offered to provide you with FREE beta copies for some of our upcoming commercial add-ons and said it would be a few days before they would be ready. We’re sorry you expected us to do that over a weekend, but frankly as a non-paying customer who was only using our free plugin we felt your response to us on the follow Monday was rude and unreasonable. In that email you stated you were going another route, we didn’t realize you expected a reply from that.

So here’s the deal. We bent over backwards to help you, a non paying customer, and never once received a thank you. Instead you treated us like employees who were in trouble for not moving fast enough and working through the weekend. Before we even had a chance to go that extra mile you decided you wanted to go a different direction.

We’re sorry you felt that was a bad experience, but frankly you have some unreasonable expectations of what support can be provided for a free PlugIn and even after bending over backwards to make you happy you still wanted more and you wanted it right now. If you had been polite and asked if we could work over the weekend then there’s a good chance we would have done just that, for free, simply because we like to help people. Sadly, that wasn’t the way you treated the situation and to be honest I don’t think there’s a thing we could do that would make you happy. You just would have wanted more and based on your attitude you didn’t want to pay for any of it.

Best wishes moving forward on your project and we hope only the best for you.

Kind regards,
-Jay C. Mailen

Hi Jay,

I am very surprised by your (late, final) reaction.
Before you accuse me of things that are not true, I like to tell my side about the story. Fortunately, I kept all e-mail from our correspondence and I will be happy to share it here.

I had problems with the layout of your plugin and we have e-mailed a number of times about this. This was, according to you, caused by the way in which Jupiter Theme deals with the css code. The codes you offered did not work. I did thank you all time for your help.
Incidentally, you have twice offered something that does not work, but I always remain polite. An award seems to me an exaggeration for this. I have never changed the template. In fact, I still work with it.

I had solved this by myself but had more questions about the future and the possibilities of our website. Since we are working on a big project, paying would never be a problem because we know we have to invest. You came, unexpectedly and not asked with the following email:

10 / 25-2018 Quote: “Hi Sonja,

Sorry to hear Codeable was not a good experience. I’ll have a better understanding of them and let the higher ups know people are being let down.

The 25000 to 40000 was in what currency? That can not be US Dollars because I can not image the $ 3,000 for the inventory pieces.

Regardless, I’m glad you ran into Car Demon.

You wanna beta test some add-ons and help me understand the European market better?

I’ll give you a temporary admin login I’ll just upload them for you and help you get things setup.

Normally we offer to estimate and write up a project scope, etc. etc. – but we’re on the job or releasing some new tools and updates. both large inventories and a market area where my personal knowledge is rather thin.

If this is acceptable then for security purposes we ask that you do not send an existing login.

Kindly use CarDemonSupport for the username and [email protected] for the email address.

We’ll also need a file of the inventory you’re wanting to import. If you can send that we can make sure there are not any issues with it.

We’ll try to log in as quickly as possible but please allow 24-48 hours after sending a log to your site.

Thanks,
-Jay C. Mail
—————————

11 / 25-2018 I have answered this email immediately that I am happy with the help but have no file, that I have put everything ready and I have given you the log in codes for the requested login.

On the 27th I asked when you think to log into the site so that we are not busy at the same time.
I did not receive a response to this.

On the 30th I said that if you do nothing with the log-in I remove it again and that I do not understand that there is no reaction …

From this email exchange it is impossible to get the impression that I am a customer who wants free help and expects people to work for me on weekends. I would never ask that, and for working software I am well aware that it requires payment. In fact, I was already orienting myself on the other products you offered, not free.
The fact that you came up with a proposal had surprised me very positively and that is why my disappointment, that I never heard anything after your last mail, was even bigger and was at odds with the compliments about your support on this site. Now that I had this bad experience, it seemed reasonable to share it too.

Maybe you are more careful with promises and offers next time. You might have helped us fine (paid) for a large and beautiful project.
Sincerely,
Sonja

Hi Sonja,

Shame on you. We also have copies of our email exchanges and ours haven’t been edited.

I don’t want to argue with you and we’re genuinely sorry you were disappointed and felt it necessary to post a disingenuous review. We’re not asking you to change it, we just want to set the record straight.

You asked for help, we provided it. We offered to go above and beyond to assist you and when you didn’t get a reply over the weekend you got upset and told us you were turning off access to your site.

We’re sorry you didn’t get the free work you wanted at the drop of a hat, but you have unrealistic expectations and frankly you came off as rude, demanding & threatening. The fact that you posted this review, despite the free assistance you were given, shows how unreasonable your expectations are.

Civility and being honest about a situation are far better than trying to damage a reputation because you didn’t get something for free as fast as you wanted it.

Despite all of this we wish you only the best moving forward and hope your project turns out wonderfully.

Best wishes,
-Jay C. Mailen

Hahaha now this looks like a sitcom.
Of course, I understand that you do not like to receive a less good assessment. My response and timelines below show that I have not asked for something for free, but that you make a proposal yourself. If you just want to set the record straight, it has to be fair to admit that something has gone wrong and that you would like to get the chance to solve it instead of attacking your potential customer. After a good solution, I am always prepared to make a bad review a good one. Now you just make it worse. You do not win customers if you turn them into a liar.

Just a final question from surprise and curiosity:
Why do you send that proposal on October 25 with the last sentence:

“We’ll try to log in as quickly as possible, but please allow 24-48 hours after sending a time to log into your site.”

And do you no longer respond to questions via e-mail? I have sent everything the same day. A week later I removed the log-in for security reasons and I announced that. I have never heard from you until today’s comment on the review.

Cheers!
Sonja

Hi Sonja,

I’m not really sure what you’re wanting here, but I think our past record shows we try our absolute best to provide the highest level of support possible.

We did make an offer to provide you with some commercial add-ons to help us understand the European market better, but before we had a chance to do so you cut off our access.

The only emails we didn’t reply to was the one asking us to let you know when we were logging in and the one where you decided to cut off our login. We would have replied to the first one, but by Monday morning you had already decided to remove our login.

On a side note, you implied we sent you an email on Oct 25th, which is a Sunday. We don’t work on Sundays and for the record my last name is spelled Mailen, the next time you edit an email to make it say what you want then at least try and spell a person’s name correctly and if you decide to change what was said, don’t use broken English, it makes it obvious that you’ve edited the email.

Let’s allow people to read this thread and decide for themselves how they feel about it and whom they trust.

Since we feel it’s obvious what happened here we don’t feel it necessary to reply any further and we’re quite happy you’ll be going another direction. We still wish you the best of luck and hope your project turns out exactly the way you wish.

Sincerely,
-Jay C. Mailen

Ooops, my mistake. I thought Oct. 25th was a Sunday. Sorry about that, it was a Thursday.

But at least we can admit when we’re wrong. The big question is, can you do the same?

Yes, I know, but I thought it is not worth it to react to it again. The essence is that I am being called a liar and someone who edits mail to equalize. That is called slander with us. So basically I can sue you for a judge for that, but we will not do that, do we? Unless you want to make it happen. After all, I will never, never, ever commit falsification in writing in order to find my equal.