R Lev

Mr. Dembowsk I am happy to forward the entirety of the email exchange to any mods for verification and to grant veracity to my claim. I copied that exact text from one of the emails I received in our 30+ message thread.

n this case you’ve done the latter.

Did I leave the review for their plungin in the wrong place? I didn’t see one for for the upgraded version of the plugin.

In my opinion, some authors are messing up the www.ads-software.com review system by changing it from a feedback perspective into a customer perspective.

I’m confused by the difference between a feedback and customer perspective. I my purpose in leaving the review was to let those considering upgrading the plugin that it didn’t work or provide any of the promised features.

Not trying to dispute or argue anything, just trying to understand so I do things properly in the future. And I started the forum because I didn’t know if it was against WordPress policy for plugin creators to pay or bribe for favorable feedback. I didn’t even know if you guys oversee any of that in the first place. But in the event you do, I thought you should know.

Thank you. After the nasty emails and attempt at bribery to issue a refund that was previously promised, I won’t be changing their review, but it’s good to know. When I went to their review page to see if editing was even possible, I didn’t see an option but that link you sent worked so thank you. It’s the first review for a plungin I’ve ever left so I wasn’t sure of the policies or processes for editing. Thank you!

I’m sure you can access the review in my profile, but to make it easy for you, here is the relevant review: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/worst-company-i-have-ever-dealt-with-in-30-years-also-useless-plugin?replies=4

I also have email documentation that I can send you if you need that. The relevant portion from the emails is below:

So I kindly would like to ask you delete your review text and change the stars at least make it 4 if you don’t want to make it 5. And after you change it, within 10 minutes you refund will be under process, it can take several minutes, but I assure you it will be done immediately.”

Also, when I refused to do so and told them it was even impossible to change or edit reviews, they replied with the following, albeit in broke english, I think implying that they have paid or bribed users for reviews before.

I would like to inform you, that in WordPress you can change your rating any time. So we met this situation, that users changed their rating.

I don’t see how this is funny, and I assure you that insulting customers on your review page only makes you look worse and strengths me claims of your unprofessionalism. Additionally, I’d like you to stop sending me numerous harassing emails, one after another before I even respond to the first one.

If you had actually read the email exchanges between your customer service tech and myself as you claimed, you would know that I do in fact know how to install plugins. When I received the zip file from your company upon payment for the plugin, I cleared the cache, deactivated and deleted the free version of the plugin and installed the zip file. I do in fact know how to do that because I’m not an idiot like you seem to imply. I also took all those actions on my own before even contacting your customer service and requesting a refund then I went through all the steps AGAIN at her urging.

SO in fact I never refused to do the steps. I did each of them at least 3 times and spent over an hour trying to get the plugin to work. I did however refuse your employee admin access so she could, attempt the same steps that I had already CORRECTLY done. She didn’t need to look at code. She asked to be able to login so she upload the zip file, clear the cache, and try to press different “save” buttons because she said one of them didn’t work. Your save buttons don’t work, but you claim the plugin does… conundrum.

I refuse to hand over admin access so that someone can perform tasks a 15 year old with any computer knowledge could do.

UPDATE: I received an email from the company manager that I will include below because it is just too unbelievable. The customer service person said they would give me the refund and asked that I change my review. I told them that if I did in fact get my money back, I would update my current review to reflect refund, but that there were not going to get 5 starts from me because they have been unprofessional and disrespectful to a degree that I didn’t think was possible from any respecting company during this entire process.

I then got the email below from the manager asking me to delete all the text from my initial review and give them 5 stars, and ONLY THEN would I get my refund. So essentially they are trying to bribe me, with my own money for a good review. I told them no way. Everything in my previous review is honest and can be backed up by the email thread and screen shots I have saved. I told her before she tried to bribe me and hold MY money as collateral for me to remove my honest review, I was willing to change the review to 3 stars and add the update that they issued the refund as stated before. But now, I’d only give them one more star for issuing the refund while also letting the rest of you know that they are not beneath bribing for reviews. So I’d be reluctant to trust any of the positive ones on here.

The email:

I am going to take care of your refund process, you will get your $15 back. But I see that you have already rated us with 1 stars, I understand your anger, but please understand us, the support that we make is really fast and effective, we just don’t want other people though we are so bad, it’s not actually true.

So I kindly would like to ask you delete your review text and change the stars at least make it 4 if you don’t want to make it 5. And after you change it, within 10 minutes you refund will be under process, it can take several minutes, but I assure you it will be done immediately.

I think we might both be misunderstand each other. The Bloglovin link leads to my account that I created. I have no issue with it’s existence or the fact that my blog name is in the url. With the exception of this forum, that link has only been shared where the link cannot be linked back to me personally. So if someone that new me in person were to see it, they still would not know it was mine. My concern is the link appearing in this forum since I do have identifying information tied to this account. Thus someone trying to find me may find my account in this support forum and be led to the thread where they would find the link they wouldn’t otherwise be able to find because from the start I tried to be careful to keep blog-related posts and activities assigned only to accounts that I have created anonymously or with a different email that can’t be traced to me. This site is the exception. I just want the link to my bloglovin taken off the forum, or for the identifying portion after the last “/” in the url to be deleted. If it’s not possible,that’s fine. It seems inevitable I’ll have to delete my blog at this point.

I appreciate what you were able to do. I wasn’t insisting you delete bloglovin, or every link. I was simply pleading that you take this scary situation into account and do what you could. As I stated, I have no issue with Bloglovin. It’s my account, which was set up without any personal identifiers that were linked to me and would be difficult to find on it’s own. The existence of the page or account is not an issue. I just wanted to see if the link to it could be removed from here, especially since my blog name is clearly in the url and easy to figure out. I am sorry if I am aggravating you with my requests but I’m afraid and trying to mitigate any risks. Obviously it isn’t practical to scrub everything, but this situation has continued for going on 6 years now, has made me physically ill. Despite my moving across the country he keeps finding ways to find me. Inevitably I think will need to go offline in all forms, but first I’m trying my best to delete any reference to the blog since it could be used as another platform for him to stalk and harass. The only reason I am hesitant to delete the blog is because it has been an amazing outlet for me to try and cope and find support without having to disclose any of my personal identifying information, but it seems like that’s my only option at this point.

Again, I understand the policy doesn’t allow deletions but I’m desperate. I’ve already contacted law enforcement but in my state there isn’t anything they can really do unless I’m actually assaulted. The harassment and stalking are directed at me personally and not in any way associated with my blog but I’m desperately trying to sever all ties between my personal life and blog so he doesn’t find it and have another way to harass and stalk me. I’m trying to scrub all references online between me as a person and my blog, not just here.

Yes the bloglovin account is mine. I never said it wasn’t. My issue isn’t that it exists but that it is referenced here where I can be found and links to my blog. My issue isn’t with bloglovin. It’s just like the link removed from here alone with any other reference to my url or blog.
The obvious solution is delete the blog, but it has become like a baby to me and to have to delete it entirely would break my heart. Of course I’m not going to hesitate to do so if I think my safety if at risk but I thought I’d try this tactic first.

It’s in the first reply from Kmessinger.

And a portion of it is in the bloglovin url. That link leads to my blog.

I know it isn’t possible to delete posts but I was wondering if it is possible to delete all references to my website url including in your posts. I’ve been going through an online harassment ordeal and I’m trying to scrub my URL to prevent the person from being able to find my site. If it’s not possible I understand, but I’m so concerned I thought I would ask.

I think I fixed the issue! I had code in a post for a linkup through Inlinkz and when I took it out, the feed appears to load properly. Thank you so much for all your help and for your patience with me!

In case you are wondering, this is the code, it is for the new inlinkz widget. I switched to the old one and no problems.

<!– start InLinkz script –>
<div class=’InLinkzContainer’ id=’489183′ >
An InLinkz Link-up</div>
<script type=’text/javascript’ src=’#’></script>
<!– end InLinkz script –>

I thought this might be the issue because when I had the errors while validating, the error jumped to this code.

That is great.

However, should I be concerned that the error shows up when I try to view my feed? Aside from deactivating every plugin (which I am happy to do again), is there a way to clear everything and reload it and start fresh in the hopes that it will work?

I am now. I installed the plugin and set it all up last night. I was still seeing the error stated above before that though.

Yes. I get a page that says:

“This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.”

The support at Bloglovin said regardless of what the validation test says, the fact that the above comes up means there is an error with the feed. A week ago when I viewed the feed I actually saw the posts and pictures in a basic form instead of the code I see now.

I currently have Twenty Twelve activated and still see the same message.

Is the support from Bloglovin incorrect? Is the fact I see that not indicative of an error?