Looks like a good plugin but crippled by the Jackhats that run it.

  • Ive been trying lots of “client portal” type plugins the last several months. WP Customer Area seemed to be a good one, but it turned out to be one of the worst experiences I’ve had trying plugins for WordPress. Most of it centers around the unprofessional jackhats that make it.

    1. The plugin looks nice, and offers lots of add-ons. If you dig deeper you’ll notice that many of the add-ons are for features that most would consider basic functionality, like allowing customers to upload files. You can’t do that without paying for it. Also, these guys are pretty money hungry, and even sell add-ons for their paid add-ons.

    2. Their documentation is pretty lax and lacking. They don’t really have much for add-ons. Most of it covers the basics of the free core plugin, and not much else. The documentation that is there, is just a step-by-step of how to install and configure the plugin(s)… which is usually not a problem for most users.

    3. They advertise brightly that their plugins are highly customizable and easy to make exactly how you want it, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I have been a web designer for 15 years, and I spent hours trying to decipher their convoluted templating system and couldn’t even figure out how to change a simple element of the invoices.

    4. They do not offer any sort of professional support even for paid customers. I’ll go into their actual support more in a minute, but overall they do not have support tickets, or chat, or even email support. They only offer a public forum, which turned out to be a hassle.

    5. Their support and/or dev teams are awful. Let me start by saying I have installed and configured hundreds of plugins over the years, and I’m very experienced in dealing with eCommerce and Payment Gateways. I have exclusively used Stripe for a while now and have configured Stripe Gateways many many times. I bought and installed their Invoice and Stripe Gateway plugins and the two wouldn’t talk to each other properly. After discovering that they only have forums for support, I started reading other posts and my heart sank as I read post after post of unhappy customers being treated like crap, and when they demanded refunds they rudely refused. It was my fault I didn’t read their refund policy thoroughly before buying, but it is riddled with loopholes for them to hide behind. Anyway… when I posted the error I was getting which was very clear what the problem was their immediate response was “Please post your administrator username and password so we can look.” First, that’s a big no-no in my book, especially as a first response, but I’m not about to post that information on a public forum. I couldn’t believe they asked me to do that. It devolved from there, and they basically refused to help, accused me of not knowing how to configure a plugin, and ended up with me demanding a refund or I would initiate a charge-back with my credit card company. They insulted me and processed the refund. Then changed my username and password on their account so that I could not access anything, which is fine. I have no intention if using their stupid plugins anymore, but that was pretty petty… Also, I could have legitimate need to access the purchase information in the future, but whatever.

    I don’t give money to people like that.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Vincent Mimoun-Prat

    (@vprat)

    Hello,

    allowing customers to upload files. You can’t do that without paying for it

    Not true. Any user can upload files. The addon you are talking about allows to do that from the frontend, which you may consider as basic but that we consider as advanced and not necessary for every project. Depends on the use case.

    The documentation that is there, is just a step-by-step of how to install and configure the plugin(s)… which is usually not a problem for most users.

    From over 4 years of existence, experience has told us what was thw problem for most users and which questions were coming back regularly. We wrote our documentation based on that.

    When documentation about something cannot be found, anyone is welcome to open a topic on our support forum or here on www.ads-software.com.

    I spent hours trying to decipher their convoluted templating system and couldn’t even figure out how to change a simple element of the invoices

    Maybe you missed something. As described in the template system documentation, changing the plugin output is as simple as copying a file from the plugin to another folder… The name of the template files used in the page you are viewing can even be displayed in the html source code by enabling the template debugging info setting.

    And instead of spending hours on that, maybe a new topic on the forum could have got you the info you were looking for.

    They do not offer any sort of professional support even for paid customers

    Our prefered way to offer support is indeed the public forum, which offers a way for everybody to search for info about their issues to see if that has been solved already.

    That said, we also answer to support request emails every day.

    You may not find that professional enough but that works for lots of other customers who rated the plugin 4 to 5 stars and said our support was good.

    It is true we do not have a chat though as our company size would not allow us to offer a good quality of service for that kind of support channel.

    I didn’t read their refund policy thoroughly before buying, but it is riddled with loopholes for them to hide behind.

    Our refund policy is available in the website footer too. It is roughly the same as the one at Easy Digital Downloads. Basically we do not refund blindly for no reason. There has to be a problem bigger than “I changed my mind”.

    when I posted the error I was getting which was very clear what the problem was their immediate response was “Please post your administrator username and password so we can look.”

    According to you, it was clear. But from the perspective of someone who knows their plugin, and given that you had already tried and troubleshooted the basic things, we knew we could only solve it by seeing it in action.

    Asking for an access to the website is the only way for us to do that, given that our plugin works only with logged users.

    That said, most professional developers we work with usually have a development website where they can expose the issue without divulgating any sensitive info.

    And when that is not possible, then usually people simply tell us politely that they cannot provide that. Which is not an issue for us, just we cannot help much more than what has been already offered.

    They insulted me and processed the refund. Then changed my username and password on their account so that I could not access anything

    Nobody insulted you anywhere. Maybe you insuled us by calling us “jackhats” here though. But this is beyond my english level and I won’t bother looking for the translation of it.

    Your password has been changed indeed due to your behaviour and the rudeness of your messages.

    If you need to access any specific info about your purchase, or to reactivate your account, please contact us via email and we will do that.

    Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    @vprat See other notifications. Using the “Report this topic” link for reviews you dislike is abusive. Do not abuse it again.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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