Stupid support! A big wate of time.

If you were thinking about buying this product, please think twice.
I had to deal with their support and it is a no go!

Yesterday, I opened a ticket (2410-TOPA-1089) to request the transfert of our licensed domain name to another. Below is the transcript:

1 Message by you on Sun, 6th Sep 2009 11:04 pm
Hi,

We would like to change the licensed domain from XXXXXXXXXX.com (which will be soon out of use) to XXXXXXXXXX.com (which will be soon in use).

Both of these domains are our property.

Regards,
Elie.


2 Message by Mert Gökçeimam on Sun, 6th Sep 2009 11:44 pm
Hello Elle ,

XXXXXXXXXX.com domain is registered to another user. If you are the owner of that user , you should create a support ticket with that username as only license owners can request change on their registered license.



3 Message by you on Sun, 6th Sep 2009 11:49 pm
The license is owned by us.
XXXXXXXX is our username on the forum. I have just joined both the account here on the helpdesk and on the forum.

You can contact me as well directly on the registered email address: XXXXXX@XXXXXXXXX.com

Also, the payment order ID from PayPal for this license is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

I don't know why you are saying this license is holded by another user.
You can check yourself, our forum username is XXXXXX and is attached to this helpdesk account.




4 Message by Mert Gökçeimam on Mon, 7th Sep 2009 9:11 am
As i already informed you , you need to create a support ticket with your registertd username. Replying via this username will not help you as you are not listed as owner of that domain.



5 Message by you on Mon, 7th Sep 2009 11:56 am
It begins to be really boring.
I linked this helpdesk account to our forum account (XXXXXXXXX) which is the only account to own the XXXXXXXXX.com license.

How can I send my request from another account as long as it is the only single account we own?

After this waste of time, I decided to try my luck on their Live Chat Support.
I wouldn't have expected it would be a bigger waste of time. After almost 2 hours of waiting here is the transcript of the useless discussion I have with the reprensentative who replied to my ticket! (sic)

Please wait for a site operator to respond.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

You are now chatting with 'Mert Gokceimam'

Mert Gokceimam: Hello ,

Mert Gokceimam: how may i help you

Elie: Hello Mert

Elie: I wanted to speak with you.

Elie: Regarding the following ticket

Elie: 2410-TOPA-1089

Mert Gokceimam: Hello ,

Mert Gokceimam: Livechat is for pre sales , please post in support forums for your support requests

Elie: Hey!

Elie: I waited almost 2 hours here.

Elie: I opened a ticket yesterday to ask domain name transfert

Mert Gokceimam: Sorry but livechat is for pre sales questions only

Elie: and your answer is only that we will have to post this ticket from the license owned account!

Mert Gokceimam: Do you have a pre sales question ?

Elie: Which is totally a non sense!

Elie: If you did your work well I wouldn't have wasted my time here!

Mert Gokceimam: You have to open ticket with your registered account

Elie: This is the registered account!

Elie: I linked it 2 days ago with our forum account!

Mert Gokceimam: Then you need to create a support ticket

Elie: I have no other account.

Mert Gokceimam: it is very clear that Livechat is for pre sale accounts

Elie: It is very clear your support is really poor and be sure I'll post all this on your forum!

Elie: No excuse

Elie: Don't hide behind a stupid rule.

Mert Gokceimam: Please feel free to post on our forums if you have any complain

Elie: It is our license, we have only one account

Mert Gokceimam: If you have any pre sales question please don't hesitate to ask them

Mert Gokceimam: The account you created the ticket is different than your licensed username

Elie: the helpdesk account is linked to our forum account and you ask us to post with another account

Elie: which I don't have.

Elie: But it is linked and use the same email address.

Mert Gokceimam: There is nothing we can do unless you create a support ticket whith your licensed domain

Elie: ???

Elie: Can you see what is the registered email address?

Mert Gokceimam: As i said this is for Pre Sales

Elie: XXXX@XXXXXXX.XXX

Mert Gokceimam: i will not answer any other question

Elie: Can you see what is the helpdesk registered email address

Elie: XXXX@XXXXXXX.XXX!

Mert Gokceimam: Hello Elie ,

Mert Gokceimam: As i mentioned several times , Livechat is for pre sales questions

Elie: Can I speak with a supervisor?

Mert Gokceimam: No

Elie: No?

Mert Gokceimam: You need to create a support ticket

Elie: What kind of customer support is this?

Elie: What is your phone number?

Mert Gokceimam: This is for pre sales questions

Elie: I wan't to speak to your supervisor...

Mert Gokceimam: Hello Elie ,

Mert Gokceimam: If you have any pre sales questions please mention it

Elie: Yes

Elie: I want to speak to your supervisor.

Mert Gokceimam: Livechat is for pre sales questions only and no support is offered

Elie: Give me a phone number

Mert Gokceimam: I am closing this chat , sorry

Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.

As said, I waited more than 2 hours to receive this unprofessionnal stupid answer from the person who already replied my ticket! It would have taken 5 minutes (if not less) to verify my information but No, this representative is simple the most stupid representative I ever met!

I guess this thread will be deleted by the staff team (seems they don't accept critics very well) but I don't care, as long as I will waste a bit more my time to post this on other famous forums like Webhostingtalk and all other places where we are registered to!

Hello Elie ,

As i mentioned you several times within your ticket response , the ticket account you created is not linked within your forum account. Without approval from license owner we can't proceed with license transfer. As i already explained to you Livechat is for Pre Sales questions. All my e-mails send to original license owner are returning. Therefor i can't verify within ticket system that you are owner of the domain name. Please try creating a ticket with your registered username on vBSEO.com forums so we can asist you.

Seems like a pretty reasonable request Elie. In the time it took to make this post (plus the "2 hours" in chat) you could have logged in to your other username and made the transfer? You can't expect a company to give away someone elses software without their permission (just the same as you cant transfer domain names without logging into the correct account).

Seems a little suss that you would rather kick up a fuss rather than take 30 seconds to do as requested...

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

As i mentioned you several times within your ticket response , the ticket account you created is not linked within your forum account.

What was then the necessity for me to answer the process to link both accounts? Another waste of time?

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

All my e-mails send to original license owner are returning. Therefor i can't verify within ticket system that you are owner of the domain name. Please try creating a ticket with your registered username on vBSEO.com forums so we can asist you.

Which is totally false. As you can see through the ticket (i removed these lines when I pasted here), each time I replied your ticket, there was also a reply from our helpdesk just below my answer. This is because the email address we are talking about is only used for trouble ticket purposes and generate automatically a trouble ticket. As I suggested few minutes ago in the trouble ticket, feel free to send me an email, it will create a ticket on our side and I'll be able to reply it.

Originally Posted by woostar

Seems like a pretty reasonable request Elie. In the time it took to make this post (plus the "2 hours" in chat) you could have logged in to your other username and made the transfer? You can't expect a company to give away someone elses software without their permission (just the same as you cant transfer domain names without logging into the correct account).

Seems a little suss that you would rather kick up a fuss rather than take 30 seconds to do as requested...

Again, If you took 5 minutes to read my first post. We don't have another account. The helpdesk one is linked to the forum account and use the same email address! What else should be done?

As you talk about it, I totally agree, it would have taken 30 seconds if not less for Mert to first check this!!!!

We have no way to tell who owns what domains unless the user account matches the license, or the main user has added you as a second user. (http://www.vbseo.com/usercp/customer_profile/) This is for YOUR OWN security so that some random person can't "steal" your license without the license holder knowing what is going on. Email addresses and domains can be spoofed and we will NEVER rely on the sender email as a validated item.

Our strict policies are to protect our customers. So far, this method has proved to be very efficient and we have had virtually ZERO fraud domain move attempts because of it.


LiveChat is for SALES questions. As stated when you first enter,

Code:

I understand this is a sales support channel only.               *                 
  
 Yes
No

Our sales avenues are NOT for technical support, and vice versa. Further, our Live Chat sales support is only open during normal business hours, GMT -4.


I'm sorry you have found this to be problematic. However, we feel that our system works great for both our security and our customers' security and likely will not be changed in the future.

I can understand the source of Webdomain's frustration as his request is legitimate. It would happen to me as well if I knew I was making a legitimate request, and I'd see no flexibility from the support agent.

In our defense, I must say that these (*strict*) policies are in place due to early attempts at hijacking accounts from vBSEO customers via our support ticket system or even private message.

I hope you are not left with a bad impression of our support crew, there are some rules they must follow, and this is beyond their control, apart from that, they are pretty awesome at helping our clients out.