Complaint Review: Spacial Audio Solutions

Todd,
I am looking at your tickets in our database right now.
I can clearly see that you purchased the software of the 59x5 payment plan on 2007-02-08.
On 2007-02-09 you put in a ticket saying you were getting a specific error on install.
One of our tech replied to you, you replied back with the requested information, he replied back to you, and then the ticket was closed after you did not respond for four days.

On 2007-02-09 you put in a new ticket, before the original was even answered.
On this ticket you said you were using XP, and asked about Vista, in the last one you said you were using vista.
Again this one was closed because you did not answer it after 4 days.

On On 2007-02-12 you put in a ticket asking for a refund, again one of our techs responded to you, apologized for your problems and send you the AOD (Affidavit of software Destruction).
You instead of reply, put in a new ticket, this one was put into the previous one, and you did not reply to it.

Now you have waited 16 days, until Feb 28th.
You sent in a nice long rant, about how it wont work, and yet SAM Party DJ will. SAM Party DJ and Broadcaster are essentially the same program. The main difference being the encoders and the ability to choose your database.
I responded back, again offering a free remote support, and letting you know we have a 14 day free trial, along with a full 15 days after you purchase for a refund. This means you have 29 days to try the program. Again, you did not respond, and had not sent in the AOD at this time.
I explained to you that you can go online, send the AOD to Office Max and have them fax it for 18 cents.
Again, you did not respond to this ticket.

On the same day you put in yet another ticket, stating you were not going to fill out the AOD because you didn't have a printer. I replied back asking you to see your other ticket for more info.
At this time you also stated SAM Party DJ did not work on your PC. Yet before you had said it does.

On March 2, you wrote in asking for the fax number to fax the AOD as mailing it would take to long.
I informed you the fax number was located on the bottom of the document located under the instructions.

A second ticket on March 2 was sent in, in this one you told use you had lost the Visa debit card you made your initial payment with. In your other tickets you said it was a Discover credit card?
As explained to you at the time, we cannot refund to a different credit card then the one used to make the purchase, I am sure you can understand the major security hole that would create if we could.
This ticket also you did not respond to and was closed.

March 4th rolls around, and we finally get the AOD, of course it is now over a month since you purchased it.

March 8th, you put in a new ticket, asking about the status of your refund.
It was closed as there was currently an open ticket on this matter.

March 10th, you sent in a rather scathing ticket, explaining there must be some fine print somewhere explaining how to refund to a lost or stolen credit card. And your right there is, we send you a check, if your eligible for the refund.
You stated you sent the AOD within the 30 day period, when in fact it had been explained to you many times there was only a 15 day period, and in fact you were over 30 days when you sent it in.
One of our techs responded to you, and explained that the original ticket on this was still open and to please respond to it to avoid confusion.
You then responded back with multiple accusations of us calling you an "Idiot", that is a complete fabrication.
I then replied back to this ticket, pasting the relevant parts of the refund policy for you to read, and explaining that when using a debit card as a credit card purchase the merchant is unable to tell the difference between debit and credit, it all looks the same.
I then again offered you free remote support.
This one too was closed because you did not respond to it in 14 days.

Mach 12th, another ticket.
You claim we say we are unable to find the AOD, when in fact we established that it was received a week before.
Some of the finer points from this tickets are the following. (Your words are in quotation marks).
My rebuttal's are below them.

"The facts:
1. I FAXED in my ASDDU on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 3:38pm Central Daylight Time"
No one is sayong you didn't, we confirmed we have it.

"3.Under your terms, a refund is to be issued within 30 (Thirty) days of initial purchase, which is a term I fulfilled by faxing this ASDDU on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 3:38PM CDT, a full FIVE days BEFORE the 30 day period expired."
Again you have the facts incorrect, the refund period is 15 days, not 30, and this was explained to you numerous times.

"4. I did not make a purchase with a CREDIT CARD, but with my bank issued Visa check/debit card, which, even though I lost and had to inactivate it and have another one issued, i reported this fact to you in order to assist your firm in refunding the 59.00 to me."
Again this is irrelevant, it means nothing to us if it was a Debit or credit card.

"5. I've been patient enough concerning this issue, and I want an answer..How HARD is it to find ONE transmission, and HOW HARD is it to PRINT a legal, paper check for the amount of 59.00, made to me, as a refund of software that I purchased, that subsequently did NOT EVER work for me, and that I was required to destroy in order to fulfill the refund terms?"
Yes you have been patient, other then creating 12 tickets on the same issue and not answering any of them, you have been perfectly patient.

"Do not "funnel" me around any longer. A CHILD could have found the ASDDU on the fax machine, WALKED IT over to billing, and had them initiate the refund process. If your firm can pay it's employee's with legal, paper checks, as well as pay vendors with paper checks, I don't see why this is taking so LONG to resolve. It's office BS is what it is. Please don't ask me to provide the number of my previous Visa check card, as it had been lost and had to be deactivated before some criminal could use it."
I am sure the confusion has had nothing to do with fact you put in 12 tickets, answered none of the questions asked of you save for one, and the fact that you refuse to give us information on the credit card so we can look it, up, you know we do need the first and last four numbers to look up the transaction. But since you refuse to give them to us, we cannot look it up, and since you refuse the remote support we are unable to fix the problem.


So to recap.
You submitted 12 tickets.
Responded only to one of them.
Filled out the AOD 15 day past the return mark.
Changed the card you said you purchased it with from a Discover to a Visa.
Refused to fill out the paperwork we asked you for.
Refused to allow us to troubleshoot the issue, and instead claimed we were trying to scam you.
Refused to give us the card numbers (which you could have gotten form your bank) so we could look up the transaction.
Refused to cooperate in any way other than continuing to open ticket after ticket only compounding an already confusing situation.
In one ticket you state you lost the card (as you did in this report) and in another ticket you claim it was stolen, which is it?
You claim you tried all of the steps we said, yet in not one of the tickets did we even offer a step by step answer, in all of them we offered a free remote support, which you refused.

And now you come to a website, and write lies about what went down, this is known as Libel.
We tried to work with you, you steadfastly refused to work with us, you made the comment in March this would not end, yet you have never once contacted us again since that time.

You state this was a Visa (or was it Discover) debit card, that comes form your checking account, and that you purchased it when you didnt have the money for it.

You actually said, "otherwise, it would have cost me 30 dollars, which I didn't have last month because I was unemployed."

So what your saying is you entered into a contract to pay 295 dollars (5x59) when you were unemployed.

As this is already a long rebuttle I might as well knock out each of your comments in the original report also. Again your words are in quotation marks, my rebuttal's below them.

"Feb 8th, 2007 purchased SAM Broadcaster V.4, under the premise it would work on my computer."
Thats why we offer a 14 day FREE trial, test it free for 14 days to make sure it works. caveat emptor. Buyer beware.

"Feb 9th, 2007 submitted first tech help email, as the program continually forced my computer to reboot EVERY time I tried to start the program"
You are the one and oly person I have ever come across with this problem, not to say its not true, but since you wont let us look, its kinda hard to confirm.

"What I had to do: I don't have a printer, so, I had to FTP the form to OfficeMax to be printed out there and filled out, and faxed to Spacial Audio's fax machine."
Yes I told you how to do this just a few days after it was sent to you.

"A week had passed since I last heard from Spacial Audio. This morning, I received what I would call a terse email with excerpts from their refund policy. Then, the person that responded offered to do a remote installation for free. Thing is, their program never worked, no matter WHAT i did, including the steps their tech's asked me to do."
I was not terse at all, in fact I was quite nice and offered to pay the 30 dollars for support out of my own pocket, but again you did not respond to that.
Also, we never asked you to do any troubleshooting steps. And you never let us look at your PC. What are you hiding?

"Long story short: Spacial ripped me off for a program that never worked on my computer, even though they THEMSELVES said it should. I cannot afford the program any longer, even if they installed it from their offices to my computer."
It will work on your XP computer, I have installed thousands, unless you have a unique configuration that causes it not to work, which I have yet to come across in 5 years.
I would still be happy to do the free install for you and you can start the payments back up.
As for your inability to pay, I am sorry but your financial position is none of our concern, and you should not enter into a contract that you have no ability to fulfill.

"I'd like to know what recourse, if any, I have in reclaiming my 59 dollars."
Please see the refund policy you agreed to when you purchased the software.
I in fact have your AOD sitting right here in my email box as a PDF, dated 03/03/07.
You did fulfill the needed items, you asked for a refund only a few days after purchase, and you sent in the AOD withing 30 days of that purchase, so you are 2 for 2.
However the refund policy includes the following words.

"and so long as Licensee satisfies all other terms of Spacial's Refund Policy"

You failed to allow us to do any troubleshooting with you, this is part of the refund policy, so that we can 1, avoid the problem in future releases, and 2, make sure that you are having the problem and are eligible for a refund.

Even with all of this in mind I am still more than willing to help you.

Feel free to open a new ticket and ask for James. I will be happy to continue working with you on this.

There is also a curious fact here: My purchase was an electronic download from their secure site, which was downloaded (and the purchase was confirmed) on February 8th, 2007. February 9th, 2007 was the date in which I made my FIRST request for a refund. My Affadavit of Software Discontinued Use and Destruction was confirmed to have been transmitted and received by their fax machine on the 23rd, which, by the way, is within thier 15 day refund policy (other sections of their refund policy state 14 days).

There were gaps in communication between they and I on some emails. The fact I had to wait for them to return my replies (one of them had me waiting a week before I received any response), the fact that they quoted TWO different time frames (One was 15 days, the other was 14 days), leads me to believe that either their policy writers have rocks for brains and refused to CLEARLY SPELL OUT a SINGLE timeframe, or, there's something else going on.

Luckily, I had saved each response I had received from them, as well as the invoices.

The most recent email from them (which came about EIGHT days AFTER i had written to them), they quoted their refund policy, and completely ignored the repeated attempts to tell them that their software REFUSED to operate on my computer. If that wasn't enough, this last email from them offered a remote desktop installion of the program, DESPITE THE FACT that my last email to them reiterated the fact I can NO LONGER afford their software, which would mean, technically, that, I would have to BUY the software again in 59.00 installments, even though I TOLD them I could no longer afford it.

I'm up against the wall on this one. Some of you might say that 59.00 is nothing to worry about..to just let it slide. But, since I was unemployed at the time I made the purchase, it took AWAY from my finances. I cannot afford small claims court, and neither can I afford the services of a lawyer. The fact remains: I gave them 59.00 of MY money for software that they said WOULD work..but, it didn't work on my computer, no matter WHAT i tried. Spacial Audio, LLC constantly ignored this fact, and, according to the law, if a merchant sells something that doesn't work, the purchase price is due back to the consumer. I'm aware of the software agreement of "once it's opened, you can only return it for an identical copy". Thing is, I was never ONCE able to use the program, and I was ASSURED it would work, even though I spent February 9th up until 2 weeks ago trying EVERYTHING i could to make it work. It doesn't work, I was never able to use the software, and I deserve a refund of my 59.00.