EDIT: It’s been quite some time since I wrote this review, but there was an unexpected twist just the other day. I was contacted by someone I had never spoken to before, saying that he was a partner of the guy behind PPVO but that he was not involved with PPVO itself. He felt it was the right thing to do, to give me my refund even though it wasn’t really any of his business. Quite surprising, but I applaud him for doing the right thing by his new partner. I’m letting the post stay up, but wanted to amend it with this new info as of August 2010.
So I’ve had a lot of people ask me about my experience with PPV Optimizer. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a desktop Windows application that promises to save you money on your TrafficVance campaigns, by maintaining your bid position for as little cost as possible.
Sounds pretty good right? Well I sure thought so and I bought it immediately upon hearing about it, despite there being no trial version at all and no reviews or information about it anywhere.
First, it was a couple days before I got my software. They have you send the money to a paypal address, and then MANUALLY send you your license information & download link whenever they get around to you. This should’ve been sign enough that there would be issues ahead.
Once I got the software and installed it, I discovered that there is no documentation on how to use it at all. Literally NONE. No manual, no online help, no videos, nothing. Granted it’s a pretty spartan program that isn’t terribly hard to figure out, but still… software should include instructions folks. That’s just basic as hell. It includes a brief readme file that tells you to set up a couple of specific things in your TrafficVance account, but that’s all.
Overlooking that, I got into their user forum… it was a pretty quiet place with only a few posts to be found, many of which had to do with issues getting the software to work as advertised. Another sign of bumps ahead.
Finally I began running the software to see what it would do… problem was, it didn’t do anything. I could see it downloading all my campaign data, and it claimed it was optimizing things, but in reality nothing was happening. No bids were changed, and the software literally didn’t do a damn thing beyond download my campaign information.
I posted in the forum, and spent days screwing around with it to make sure I hadn’t made some sort of weird error on my end. I also sent emails to the creators and after a few days, finally got in touch with one of them. He seemed to not believe me that it didn’t work, falling back on the old “well nobody else is having this problem” line. I assured him I had done everything he asked me to do re setting up TV, etc. He still insisted it was probably user error… and I even accepted that maybe it could be, but I asked for more technical help to determine it one way or the other. I was told that they normally charge if it turns out to be user error, but that they would “waive considering the potential biz relationship we will have once this app is finally working on your end”.
Flash forward 4 days later… I finally get to talk to “the programmer”. Normally I would think this is GREAT because I’m dealing with the source… the guy who actually coded the thing and there can’t be anyone more knowledgeable than that. Right?
Well it turned out that he had never used TrafficVance and didn’t even know how they worked. No joke. This is the person who wrote the code to interface in some very intricate ways with TrafficVance… and he’s never seen their interface?? WTF?!
So we did some screen-sharing sessions and he looked at all sorts of things on my system and after several hours of this, determined that – surprise surprise! – there was actually a bug in the program and it was NOT user error. He rolled a new build for me to fix the issue, and PPV Optimizer started working.
Sortof.
Almost.
Not exactly.
It got most but not all of my bids… it would just randomly fail to update certain ones.
Then it would spontaneously quit. No errors. No messages. Just… gone.
Can you imagine the potential devastation to your campaigns if you were relying on this thing to manage them bidding for you and it suddenly quit??
I messed with it for the next 2 days and ultimately decided that it just wasn’t stable enough for real world use. It worked sometimes… but that won’t cut it for a tool of this nature that requires 100% uptime and a zero failure rate.
Plus frankly, it’s just not that complicated of an application. It doesn’t do anywhere near what I initially expected… it does NOT bid to CPA targets, it knows nothing of a conversion value, has no logic controls for settings up rules, etc. It ONLY adjusts your bids as low as it can, to hit a desired ranking for a given target, without spending more than a given amount. At least, it’s supposed to. The fact that it is as relatively simple as it is and still so unstable, doesn’t give me the confidence I need to use it in my business.
Now pay attention because here’s where things start to get really lame.
After finally having 2 days with the application “working” (such as it did) and a total of almost 4 weeks after my purchase, I decided that I would request a refund. I’m not a huge refunder, and if this had been a $79 product I probably wouldn’t have bothered in case it was improved upon in the future. But this thing is $500, and that’s a nice chunk of change I could be doing a lot more productive things with.
So I requested a refund via Skype, and this is how it went:
[11/3/2009 6:56:39 PM] Jonathan van Clute: howdy
[11/3/2009 6:57:51 PM] Jonathan van Clute: Well, the developer did finally get PPVO to work, but it’s still somewhat unstable and not quite “there” yet in my opinion.
[11/3/2009 6:58:00 PM] Jonathan van Clute: Though it saddens me to do it, I’m going to have to request a refund at this time. I’ll keep tabs on the development though and possibly give it a try down the road when it’s got a bit more maturity to it.[11/4/2009 11:41:07 AM] PPV Optimizer: i’m sorry but we don’t refund
[11/4/2009 11:41:16 AM] PPV Optimizer: espeially after 1on1 sessions have fixed the app
[11/4/2009 11:41:32 AM] PPV Optimizer: we can do what we can to get the app working 100% for you
[11/4/2009 11:42:05 AM] Jonathan van Clute: what? It’s not stable… the product doesn’t work as promised, even after your coder identified a genuine issue with the app (you’re welcome for my expertise btw… maybe I should send in a bill for the help!)
[11/4/2009 11:42:16 AM] Jonathan van Clute: I was not able to properly evaluate the program until it worked
[11/4/2009 11:42:20 AM] Jonathan van Clute: which took weeks
[11/4/2009 11:42:22 AM] Jonathan van Clute: not my fault at all
[11/4/2009 11:42:40 AM] Jonathan van Clute: now that I’ve been able to actually evaluate it, I can see that it’s not stable enough for me to rely on in my business
[11/4/2009 11:43:15 AM] Jonathan van Clute: How is that anything other than a standard customer evaluating your product. Since there’s no trial version, there is no other way for anyone to know if it works at all or is pure vaporware
[11/4/2009 11:43:31 AM] Jonathan van Clute: I’ve got a ton of people asking me about “does this work” and so far I’ve just said “hold on… I’ll tell you soon”
[11/4/2009 11:43:45 AM] Jonathan van Clute: What would you like me to tell them?
[11/4/2009 11:43:54 AM] PPV Optimizer: the application works, i have several people using it including myself that has it working no porblems
[11/4/2009 11:44:18 AM] Jonathan van Clute: welcome to software development. Just because it works for you and a few others, doesn’t mean “it works” period.
[11/4/2009 11:44:30 AM] Jonathan van Clute: Your own developer acknowledged that there WAS a problem with the app
[11/4/2009 11:44:33 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it was nothing on my end
[11/4/2009 11:44:38 AM] PPV Optimizer: we don’t give trials because of how exclusive we are making this application
[11/4/2009 11:44:39 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it required him to roll me a custom build
[11/4/2009 11:44:49 AM] PPV Optimizer: the program is only supposed to be handed out to a few people
[11/4/2009 11:44:51 AM] Jonathan van Clute: then you should honor a reasonable refund period
[11/4/2009 11:44:55 AM] Jonathan van Clute: like anyone else
[11/4/2009 11:46:17 AM] PPV Optimizer: well like you said when we you first bought the app that was weeks ago
[11/4/2009 11:46:21 AM] Jonathan van Clute: look I’m not going to argue with you. Either honor my very reasonable refund request, or don’t/
[11/4/2009 11:46:25 AM] Jonathan van Clute: right
[11/4/2009 11:46:27 AM] Jonathan van Clute: and it NEVER WORKED
[11/4/2009 11:46:28 AM] Jonathan van Clute: not at all
[11/4/2009 11:46:33 AM] Jonathan van Clute: until the other night
[11/4/2009 11:46:39 AM] Jonathan van Clute: and I kept asking for help
[11/4/2009 11:46:40 AM] PPV Optimizer: and I had my programmer step in and fix the issue for you
[11/4/2009 11:46:40 AM] Jonathan van Clute: repeatedly
[11/4/2009 11:46:47 AM] Jonathan van Clute: yes and now I’ve seen other issues
[11/4/2009 11:46:49 AM] Jonathan van Clute: the app is not stable
[11/4/2009 11:46:52 AM] PPV Optimizer: what else is wrong with the program?
[11/4/2009 11:46:53 AM] Jonathan van Clute: he even acknowledged that he knows that
[11/4/2009 11:47:01 AM] Jonathan van Clute: xIt randomly shuts down
[11/4/2009 11:47:04 AM] Jonathan van Clute: no reason
[11/4/2009 11:47:06 AM] Jonathan van Clute: no error
[11/4/2009 11:47:08 AM] Jonathan van Clute: just disappears
[11/4/2009 11:47:12 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it also misses bids
[11/4/2009 11:47:19 AM] Jonathan van Clute: the dev knows these are issues
[11/4/2009 11:47:27 AM] Jonathan van Clute: but for now they are issues I’m not willing to put up with
[11/4/2009 11:47:38 AM] Jonathan van Clute: if I’m relying on this thing to run my campaigns, it can’t just quit
[11/4/2009 11:47:39 AM] Jonathan van Clute: ever
[11/4/2009 11:48:19 AM] PPV Optimizer: well if thats the case I ill issue a refund then
[11/4/2009 11:48:26 AM] Jonathan van Clute: yes that’s what I was saying originally
[11/4/2009 11:48:27 AM] Jonathan van Clute: thank you
[11/4/2009 11:48:42 AM] Jonathan van Clute: it’s not stable enough to use in production right now in my opinion
[11/4/2009 11:48:42 AM] PPV Optimizer: but if spots fill up and you ask for the application again theres nothing i can do, you understand ?
[11/4/2009 11:48:44 AM] Jonathan van Clute: maybe later it will be
[11/4/2009 11:48:46 AM] Jonathan van Clute: but not yet
[11/4/2009 11:48:50 AM] Jonathan van Clute: I’d call it a working beta
[11/4/2009 11:48:54 AM] Jonathan van Clute: yes I understand
It took some arm twisting, but they eventually agreed to give me the refund after all. That was November 4. It’s now November 18 and despite repeated reminders in Skype and Email, they are ignoring me and NOT issuing the refund as promised.
So the bottom line here is… PPV Optimizer doesn’t work reliably, has no documentation, was written by someone who has no idea how to actually use TV or what we do as traffic brokers, and they won’t give you a refund if you’re not satisfied with it.
I’d call that a huge mega thumbs down if ever there was one.
If you take a roll of the dice with PPV Optimizer, be prepared to lose.
Jonathan
Sorry to hear about that dude. I’m pissed off just reading this. I hope you end up getting your refund.
Sorry for that the application didn’t work. Have you ever taken in consideration the thought of writing a letter to state district or sending them to court just in case the do not honor your request for a refund?
Hey Jon… this is scary! I am sure you will get your refund but they way they handled is very disturbing.
Deepak
At this point I have no reason to think they will honor the promised refund, and to me it’s not worth the time to try to chase it down legally. It would require hours and hours of my life (at best) and that time can be put to far better use simply working on my business, and will return far more than $500. I’m usually pretty careful about where I focus my energy, so I chose to invest 30 minutes or so writing this blog post, and then I’m done. This review will cost them much more in the long run than the $500 they got from me.
Jonathan
Being a programmer myself I can tell you that their behaviour is pretty lame.
My guess is that they are interacting with TV in a non-standard way (maybe because TV have not deployed any API). If that’s the case the interactiion has to rely on reading screens or interpreting network data or something more exotic. In any case that’s a very fragile system (as you suffered)
Stay frosty,
Mike
Yeah Mike I know for a fact they’re scraping all the data… TV has no API so there’s no other way to do it. It’s fragile, but can definitely be done reliably. It just requires checks to make sure that things happened as expected. As far as I can tell PPV Optimizer has no such checks.
The issue overall for me is the way they run their business… no refunds within a 30 day period when you have confirmed that it was bugs in your software that were responsible? Absurd.
Jonathan
Jon,
You may want to just give paypal a shout (or your credit card company if that’s how you paid) and have them reverse the charges on the grounds that the product does not work as claimed and send them your conversation string if necessary.
I’m pretty confident that you will be able to get your charges reversed. I did this with a hosting company that took a month to cancel my account but not before they reupped my contract and hit my chase visa card.
~ Corey
I did that… and learned a very nasty lesson.
PAYPAL WILL NOT REFUND FOR ANY DOWNLOADED PRODUCT UNLESS YOU BOUGHT IT OFF EBAY!
I even called them and spoke by phone… they were absolutely clear that their policy is that if you ever purchase any “intangible” product using Paypal (INCLUDING a Paypal “mastercard”!) then you have exactly ZERO recourse through Paypal, period. They won’t do a chargeback, they won’t do anything. In fact if you file a dispute and then take their own system’s advice and “escalate” it up through Paypal to force a decision, your dispute will be AUTOMATICALLY and PERMANENTLY closed because it was a downloaded item.
Sure you can claim in the dispute that it wasn’t intangible, that you never received the product, etc. But all the seller has to do is say “this was a downloadable software purchase” and you, the buyer, are screwed.
I had really thought that at LEAST by using a Paypal mastercard, we were somehow protected just as if it was a physical mastercard… but NOPE. Not at all.
Lame… so PPV Optimizer scammed me for $500 with a product that didn’t work. Goody for them. This post can now serve as a warning for all others so they don’t also get scammed by PPV Optimizer in the future.
Jonathan
Great review Jonathan. Thanks for warning us about this scam.
Hi Jonathan.
First of all it sucks that they’re putting something out there at a $500 price point that’s seems untested. I honestly have no idea where some of these marketing programs find their pricing, think of the thousands of man hours that go into developing and testing MS Office and how much they charge for it? There seems to be no corellation between production cost, sale price and end customer value in this niche.
As a developer whose been selling online for years your whole issiue with Paypal is a new one on me. Maybe it’s a difference between Paypal UK and the US company but I’ve had literally dozens of customers rip me off with disputes via Paypal. They raise a dispute, I reply with delivery confirmation showing electronic delivery/support logs etc, Paypal ALWAYS return the customers money and I’m left out of pocket and a customer no doubt continues to use the software. I’ve always treated it as part of the price to pay for using Paypal.
Hey Paul,
Honestly if it had worked as I had expected it to, $500 would’ve been well worth it. But not only was it incredibly unstable & such as I described, but it just plain didn’t do a whole lot… I had expected a far more robust and feature-rich application. To me, I value things based on what I know I can make with them, basically how quickly can I recoup that cost? $500 is a steal for something if I know I can make more than that in a month or two of using it.
I don’t know what the deal is with Paypal… I’m also a paypal merchant and have had customers dispute and win. I think it comes down to the fact that if it’s an “intangible” product. then all the merchant has to do to win is repeat that mantra. If the merchant doesn’t know this however, then they’ll lose. All I know for sure is that as a customer, if you’ve submitted a dispute marked as intangible and you escalate it… then BOOM it’s case closed and you lose. Totally automated closure of the matter, and you can’t appeal or resubmit it in any way.
Incidentally as a footnote, the product developer approached me again the other day offering me to try a new update to the program that adds more features, etc. When I again mentioned the refund, he flat out said this time that he never said he would give me one! I pasted him his own words out of Skype and then he fell back on “well I shouldn’t have said that” instead.
Umm, but you DID say it, so either you live up to your word or you don’t. He also said he couldn’t give me a refund “right now”. I asked what that meant and he wouldn’t say. Just “can’t right now”. WTF??
Pretty pathetic, clearly not an experienced business person.
Jonathan
Your word is your honor. Sure it applied in the middle ages but it also applies to modern business, or at least those that want to stay in business. We had the same “not what was promised” dispute with a tour operator a few years go, I hate to think what that very public dispute eventually cost them.
I put a shout out to a few contacts who deal a lot with Paypal UK to see if they could ask some questions. It seems that there is a difference. I don’t think we’re quite as savvy with intangible goods over here. Our ruling seems to be (as a merchant) send it recorded delivery (and keep the proof) or expect to lose a dispute. Not easy to send something recorded delivery when it’s downloadable software. Server logs don’t count.
Anyway, time is money and all that, I think you’ve made your point in the most cost effective way to yourself and in a way that will have most impact on the other side of the dispute. There’s plenty for people to learn from that.
All the best,
Paul
Well said Paul, well said. You’re exactly right that I’m not wasting my time on getting the $500 back. Considering the fact that I outrank them in Google for the term “PPV Optimizer”, I think this post has cost them far more in the long run than giving back my $500 would have.
Jonathan
Personally I’m glad you outrank them. It removed any consideration I had for purchase, and I let them know it since Google led me here first. I suggested they Google the same keyword.
I see a niche for someone with the proper resources. That said, $500 ??? Come on, get real. That’s 56% more than Windows 7 Ultimate Full Retail !!
Thank you for your blog post Jonathan. Credibility is in your favour at least. I know of at least one other high profile marketer who helped spread your word about these wannabes.
Hey Doug… so you told them I outrank them eh? That explains why they just contacted me crying “slander”. LOL Absurd since an honest review and documentation of one’s experience with a company isn’t slanderous.
Anyway… I really would be fine with the price if it had delivered as promised originally, and if they had simply given me the refund as promised, I’d have written a very different post… probably something along the lines of “not quite there yet but definitely worth keeping an eye on…”
Instead, they did what they did and in fact keep coming back asking me to give them another chance… but when someone burns me like this, I’m not going to use their products/services again, period. Even if it worked flawlessly as advertised, I can’t trust them as business people since they’ve displayed what I consider to be a total lack of ethics.
So yeah, I tend to look at things not by how much they cost, but by what they can make me. Heck I sell a product (LPGen) that is even more expensive than PPV Optimizer, and I stand by it being worth every cent for those who actually put it to use (myself included). But for the “get rich quick” and “flash in the pan” crowd, nothing ever ends up being worth the investment. $500 is perfectly reasonable if it’s a specialty product that can make me more than $500 in a reasonable time span… provided I put it to use.
Jonathan
I dont understand your reasoning behind bashing us.
Im John, one of the creators of the program. Ive worked along side of Rob Craven, Cory Beckwith, and a few other big names in the industry. Ive learned from them what it takes to manage a program and keep people happy, and i appreciate what they have taught & showed me and try to implement that into my life each day.
No one cried SLANDER. We asked if you were refunded if you would take down the post, instead, we now have to bring all of our buddys here to post a REAL review of this product.
You actually forced me to give it away for free to a few high ranking marketers just to prove its value and worth. We have a new 2.0 version coming out with more sites ported to it, so giving this version away for free wont hurt to much.
So you caused our company to lose some sales, you now have tried to tarnish our rep, and im sure a ton of people will come to your aid after this post.
We just stand behind our programmer and our business and will do whatever it takes to stop you from bashing us, especially after all the help we tried to give you.
You were told what the deal was, hell, we even paid out of our pocket for our programmer to help you fix the program 1 on 1. At $60 an hour its not a cheap thing to do. You also refuse to use a stable build and thats no one’s fault but your own. Thats like me using IE 1.0 and bitching about exploits and bugs, when i could easily download the new version.
You also have edited logs there, I see you changed alot of what was said. Hell, you even changed the name we used to contact you. Way to be truthful to your readers. Ill post the original conversations as soon as my partner gets back on.
Heres what i dont understand…Why does YOUR partner Kip Goldhammer (yes, you guys use the same dedi for your sites..) sit there and tell us its great, we add features that he recommends, and then you sit here and bash it?? It doesn’t make any sense. I called him today to ask him what that was all about, but he didn’t pick up. FIGURES!
We also offerd you your money back, your showing you dont want it. We paid out of our pockets to help you, made new builds, fixed all bugs, you refuse to try/accept anything.
You know, im already anticipating another retarded post about how we scammed you, or our product is so bad, but the truth will come out.
People who don’t use the product will just have to sit there and manually watch there bids (have fun with that…lol), while the ones who utilize the tool will be dominating the PPV arena for a long time to come.
Go ahead and tell them to buy some more shit products, Cookie stuff them some more. I reccomend your readers dont buy any of this crap and just get a membership to DominateIM, at least they wont be screaming broke after listening to your nonsense reviews about your own products.
Ill also remember to delete my cookies after visiting here….I recommend you all do the same.
Uh, John… I’m afraid you’ve got some facts wrong here. Nobody ever asked me to take my post down. A refund was never offered on the condition that I take it down… in fact the refund was refused BEFORE I even made the post. So I’m afraid you’re stating something that just plain didn’t happen. Oh and “slander” was a word you guys used… it didn’t originate with me.
As for all the help you offered… after several WEEKS of complaining about how the product did not work at all, your company FINALLY relented and agreed to allow me to speak to your programmer all the while assuring me that it was going to prove to be my fault in not configuring things properly. Lo & behold I helped your programmer identify a genuine bug in the program that was preventing it from working for me. This bug, he fixed… however there were enough other issues with it even still, that I chose to politely request a refund. It’s such standard practice in this industry to offer at least a 30 day (60 day on Clickbank) refund that I never even thought to check your fine print to see if you did not have a refund policy. On a program without any trial version available, having no refund policy would’ve probably made me think twice about forking over $500. But maybe that’s just me.
As for my “refusing to use a stable build” yes that’s correct, because before the “stable build” existed I had already requested AND BEEN PROMISED a refund. I’m not the sort to get a refund and then continue using the product. If I liked the product and it worked, I wouldn’t be asking for the refund anyway. So it’s NOTHING like you using IE 1.0, that analogy is completely invalid.
As for “edited logs” I changed the screen names so as to not give out my skype username simply because I get enough “noise” vs. signal in email already and I don’t need every newbie in the world pinging me on skype all day asking for free answers to every question they can come up with. Just being truthful here. If you wish to post the “unedited” logs… go ahead. There’s nothing I removed that has any importance other than my screen name… which of course I would truly prefer you not publish, but I can’t stop you if you decide to. If you do, it just speaks even more to your way of dealing with customers.
As for Kip… WTF? I only just found out he even used PPVOptimizer about 4 days ago when I asked him if he’d seen my review. He hadn’t, and said he uses it & loves it. More power to him, I’m happy for him. Obviously it worked for him on his setup and that’s great. But that was not my experience and it was not user error. Incidentally we don’t use the same dedi server other than he works on my development server for LPGen sometimes… so I dunno where you get off making that claim but that’s neither here nor there.
You did not “offer” my money back, I had to convince you to give it to me… and I sure as hell didn’t “show that I didn’t want it”… I have no idea what you’re trying to say there. I was offered a refund only after some “arm twisting” and explaining clearly that it was in fact a product issue. I was told I would be issued a refund, and it never came. Then I was told I was NEVER told I would be offered a refund… when you were shown to the contrary, I was then told that I “shouldn’t” have been told that. I don’t care if I should or should not have been offered a refund. I was offered one, and then that person (I don’t think it was you…?) went back on their word.
THAT is the crux of all of this. That you (or a rep of your company) went back on your word. You promised me something, then took it away. To me, that’s a sign of broader issues with your way of doing business, and therefore I would not continue to use your products regardless. As far as I’m concerned, you/your company can not be trusted. Promises are meaningless, and your word has no value. That’s what prompted me to make this post… at this point PPVOptimizer may in fact work GREAT and do its job perfectly. But the underlying lack of honesty in the people selling the product is still there and that’s what I have a problem with.
You can try to rewrite history if you’d like… it doesn’t matter to me at this point. Reality is what it is and if PPVOptimizer works now, that’s fantastic and I wish you well in selling the 50 copies or whatever limit has now been set on it. If the product works, it should take about 5 minutes to sell that many, tops. It’s clearly a much needed tool, that’s why I bought it in the first place. But the issue here is no longer about the product. It’s about the people behind the product. Anyone who uses my tools knows I stand behind them.
Jonathan
“Uh, John… I’m afraid you’ve got some facts wrong here. Nobody ever asked me to take my post down. A refund was never offered on the condition that I take it down… in fact the refund was refused BEFORE I even made the post. So I’m afraid you’re stating something that just plain didn’t happen. Oh and “slander” was a word you guys used… it didn’t originate with me.”
My partner sent you an email, asking you to remove the post, and we would give a refund to stop the attacks about our character and our company, which your still doing post after post. Even if my partner did use the term slander, it represents fully what you have posted so far. Your goal was to cause us a loss of business and detour sales. Read your own comments above. You stated NON factual information about our product and caused damages with your false statements.
Here is a portion of our logs from our personal chats about your issue:
erk (2:14:20 AM): ill get tony on that issue
erk(2:14:27 AM): and i gotta figure out whats wrong with tooltraininer
Elite (2:14:27 AM): mm hmm
erk(2:14:33 AM): he said his copy isnt updating
Elite (2:14:37 AM): wtf
erk (2:14:39 AM): ive been trying to contact him via skype the last few days
Elite (2:14:45 AM): get on it
erk(2:14:45 AM): we keep playing tag
Is it our fault you were not there to respond to msg’s? We tried to contact you, obviously its equal fault it didn’t get done sooner.
Elite (12:17:18 PM): lets go broh
Elite(12:17:19 PM): work time
Elite (12:17:20 PM): 😐
erk (12:17:43 PM): rofl ya
erk (12:17:48 PM): im talking to vanclute
Once again, stayed in contact, trying to help with the issue. The build you had WAS stable, the error that we encountered was fixed in less then a week. You really think every program comes out perfect?
Give me a break. Ive seen more patches and updates for shit that costs millions to make come out continuously, look at windows for example. What is SP1 and SP2? Patches and bug fixes for an otherwise “Stable” product on the market. Can you take windows back after you bought it? What about a video game? NO. They give you the EXACT same copy and tell you to be on your way. We FIXED the issues and offered you that copy, you refused to accept it.
“It’s such standard practice in this industry to offer at least a 30 day (60 day on Clickbank) refund that I never even thought to check your fine print to see if you did not have a refund policy. On a program without any trial version available, having no refund policy would’ve probably made me think twice about forking over $500. But maybe that’s just me.”
Seriously? Do not even compare my product to some clickbank crap. I know how much my product is worth, and with you being in the IM world, MOST private publishers of products offer no refund, but full support…as we did.
“As for my “refusing to use a stable build” yes that’s correct, because before the “stable build” existed I had already requested AND BEEN PROMISED a refund. I’m not the sort to get a refund and then continue using the product. If I liked the product and it worked, I wouldn’t be asking for the refund anyway. So it’s NOTHING like you using IE 1.0, that analogy is completely invalid.”
Thats your own fault, the build came out a few days after you decided to not even try the product. NO ONE promised you a refund, you were told it was sold on a non refundable basis, but full support would be given to correct ANY issues you had, which would also come out of our pockets. The terms are there for a reason, so you can read them and know what your buying and what the TERMS of the transaction is. Im not running a walmart here.
It comes down to you being impatient. The program had an issue and it was fixed immediately, you really think im going to keep a bugged build out there? I’m not an idiot. I listen to my customers, and i fix ANY issues they have in a timely manner.
“You did not “offer” my money back, I had to convince you to give it to me… and I sure as hell didn’t “show that I didn’t want it”… I have no idea what you’re trying to say there. I was offered a refund only after some “arm twisting” and explaining clearly that it was in fact a product issue. I was told I would be issued a refund, and it never came. Then I was told I was NEVER told I would be offered a refund… when you were shown to the contrary, I was then told that I “shouldn’t” have been told that. I don’t care if I should or should not have been offered a refund. I was offered one, and then that person (I don’t think it was you…?) went back on their word.”
Apparently you don’t check your emails. Money was offered back to you on the basis of you removing this post and stop causing us more character slandering and loss of sales due to your lack of patience and understanding. Now i have to fix our reputation of not only myself and my partner, but my company and product as well.
“Well said Paul, well said. You’re exactly right that I’m not wasting my time on getting the $500 back. Considering the fact that I outrank them in Google for the term “PPV Optimizer”, I think this post has cost them far more in the long run than giving back my $500 would have.”
Said it yourself right there. Instead of being reasonable and considerate of the situation, and besides not reading the TERMS of the product you bought which states there are NO REFUNDS, you instead seeked out to cause us loss of business and engage in personal attacks. Your a quality guy. A true business man, and you want to say i lack skills? Right.
“I wish you well in selling the 50 copies or whatever limit has now been set on it. If the product works, it should take about 5 minutes to sell that many, tops. It’s clearly a much needed tool, that’s why I bought it in the first place.”
Yes, thats really going to be possible when i have a post like this hovering over my company name? You caused so much in damages i almost thought about contacting a lawyer, because your disagreeing with TERMS you initially agreed to when you purchased the product. You might as well put yourself in the same boat as the people who buy the Acai crap, then wonder why they got rebilled for $99 the next month.
It gives you no right to call myself a liar when i have not even spoken to you, you never emailed me or tried to contact me. Your lack of knowledge about programming obviously got the best of you.
You said it yourself, it will work on some computers, and may have problems on others. With that being said we FIXED the program to work for you, you just didn’t want it.
In all honesty, you put yourself into this position. You blew it out of proportion and pulled the “SCAMMED” card out immediately after you found out you failed to read the terms. We aren’t trying to get one by on you or anyone, but seriously now…did it require all of this? I have been TRYING to handle this in a decent manner but you keep attacking, so i have no choice by to stand my ground as well.
Are you going to fix or bring me the amount of sale’s you have lost me already? Are you going to pay me that money back? I can probably count about 3-4 posts on here alone that said they would have bought if not for your post.
It really shows your character. I’m not a newb to this game and i have a ton of people i network with, most of which make $1000’s a day and i admire. I do most anything to please my friends and customers to make sure that we stay on a great basis, but you didn’t even give it a chance. Reputation is a big thing in this business and you tarnished mine because of a mistake you made. You knew what you were buying, you had full access to the terms and you freaked out after you read them later on.
Honestly, I would still give you a working copy now since you bought it, and i would still support you like any other client of ours. Stop being so thick about the situation and just use the tool you bought in the first place. there was no need for ANY of this.
Quote: John: “In all honesty, you put yourself into this position. You blew it out of proportion and pulled the “SCAMMED” card out immediately after you found out you f a i l e d t o r e a d t h e t e r m s.”
Those are strongly worded allegations. Playing devils advocate here, where precisely are these terms posted? Perhaps you would be so kind to tell us exactly where to find them. I’ve looked all over your site and find no terms whatsoever. NONE! How does one read what isn’t written? I even went through the motions of purchase, still no terms are made apparent. Therefore IF these terms are evident, it’s after purchase. I wasn’t about to click BUY to find out, nor is that the time to be finding out.
Quote: John “You actually forced me to give it away for free to a few high ranking marketers just to prove its value and worth. We have a new 2.0 version coming out with more sites ported to it, so giving this version away for free wont hurt to much.
So you caused our company to lose some sales, you now have tried to tarnish our rep, and im sure a ton of people will come to your aid after this post.”
If Jonathan indeed had the influence and “forced you to give it away”, what was the big deal on either refunding or giving it away to him? It’s your companies lack of customer service that lost you sales. This page is just a review of one customers experience in dealing with this application and your company. Unfortunately for you, someone who outranks you on your own keywords. Reviews are not at all uncommon in case you didn’t realize. On or off the Internet. (Restaurant reviews? Hello…) Every vendor should keep this in mind if they want to avoid bad publicity since bad news seemingly travels faster than good news.
I suppose the lost time working with a buggy release means nothing since it didn’t affect your bottom line. Short sighted I might say.
Personally I believe in three sides to any story. We’ve been presented two sides. Somewhere between them lies the unbiased facts, uninfluenced by human perception. The mysterious terms you speak of, giving the product away to others (if this is indeed true) doesn’t lend to this readers opinion being swayed in your favour. I’m not writing here for the purpose of defending anyone. I simply believe business ethics are in question. If I were in Jonathans position, I’d want to warn other prospective buyers of such an experience too. Your company in my opinion have hurt themselves, and this review is but one result. You are entitled to believe otherwise however it just may behove you to look at this from a different perspective. That’s just my opinion though.
In closing, I’d be disappointed if this post were removed. Why should it be necessary for someone to hold a gun to your head to do the right thing where the best interests of your company and customer relations are concerned. You say impatience brought about this issue. I’m more inclined to think lost time/revenue brought Jonathan to abandoning “testing” your undocumented program. Having 20 or so working copies in the field hardly constitutes a stable program. If your users numbered in the thousands this might have some credibility. As a general rule, no two computers are the same. Any application may run fine on a majority of machines however there will always be somewhere an applications bugs/incompatibilities rear its ugly head. That normally isn’t the case of stable code on a couple dozen installs.
In concept you’ve got a great application in the making, and I hope you are able to get it running as designed. I’d be more inclined to require a test drive before laying out good money.
To anyone considering purchase, use your credit card instead of your PayPal account. At least you will have an ability to dispute with some authority should the need arise. Charge-backs are not something companies that care about their reputation wish to deal with. As I understand it actually hurts their reputation and is time consuming.
Listen John, us yelling back & forth publicly in this blog or in private through other channels, isn’t going to accomplish anything. I just went digging through my email archives to attempt to find any offer of a refund, and all I found was this:
I’m not sure if “Erkan” is you, but this is all I’ve been after all along. This came in yesterday but I only just saw it now. I never got anything else from anyone regarding a refund, but I do use box-trapper as a spam filter, maybe it got caught there and nobody ever send back the whitelist message. I’m perfectly willing to accept that possibility.
If someone is actually going to issue me the refund this time, then when the money hits my paypal account I will definitely update this post with that fact and call it done. I’m not going to remove the post, but I will add the most recent development if there is one.
At the moment I’m not going to put more effort into testing a newer version as I just have too much else on my plate right now. Doug is absolutely correct when he observes that this became too much of a time sink for me and the time loss is a bigger consideration for me. However I would be willing to review the product again in the future and write a new post with my findings, and even link to it from this one.
To make one point very clear – I did not set out to outrank you for your own product name. You can thank Google for that. Frankly I’m surprised as hell that it even happened since you guys own the domain name not me, but Google is weird. I have not done any SEO or other deliberate acts to attempt to outrank you and receive wider publicity for this matter. I have not done linking campaigns or asked others to mass distribute this in an effort to take sales away. But I’m certainly aware of the potential power of a negative review, and I stand by my original review based on the facts at that time.
So my final point is simply this – Give me my refund, and I will make sure everyone who reads this post is aware that I did receive it.
Jonathan
P.S.
I too would like to know where your “no refund” terms are posted. I simply took it on faith that they must be on the home page somewhere and I just hadn’t read them… but as Doug also points out, they aren’t. Holding people up to a policy they aren’t aware of, isn’t exactly good business in my book.
Hey guys glad this is finally getting somewhat resolved… I personally have been using the app from day 1 in development and there were some rocky moments, but support and programmer have been good to and for me.. Ive not had any issue go longer then 24 hrs, and I knew the whole time this was a new concept and not a lot of options were “out there” aside from me using imacros and other tools to automate my bidding.
I’d say you guys just got off on the wrong foot, and some stress over a tool that didnt quite perform as was expected by the end user resulted in a bit of publicity… There’s no such thing as bad publicity is there?? 😉
I’d say the issue here is not the fact that there were issues with the program, but the fact that their business ethics aren’t exactly admirable. A simple standard refund for a product that isn’t functioning is just good business practice. Hell, even if the product does work, but the customer is unsatisfied for some reason, a refund should be possible. That way, nobody can badmouth you (hint hint John)…Being unwavering about a refund only goes to show that you are not confident in your product, and feel the need to hold onto every dollar you can.
krs – I would love to say that something has been resolved, but I’ve heard nothing more from anyone at PPVOptimizer regarding the again-promised refund. So as far as I’m concerned, nothing has been resolved whatsoever.
Jonathan
Never Pay to be a Beta Tester is my rule.
Ill be contacting you here soon John, watch for my email.
Thanks John, I’ll definitely do that!
Jonathan
FYI anyone reading this thread, I still haven’t got any email or other contact to resolve this.
Jonathan
Now their site is down, …. so good luck in getting that refund I guess.
In my mind, I would *NEVER* part with $500 from the info I saw on their site.
I would want a functioning trial, that expires after a few days.
Its insane to imagine that I would just hand you $500 and pray it worked.
Anyway, … whoever decides to make a WORKING version for PPV bid automation, … make sure its cross platform, … the world is no longer flat, … there are Mac users who do PPV too 🙂
I dunno how PPV Optimizer works but it sounds to me like it needs account info for TrafficVance.
Ever care to think of the posibility they might be ‘calling home’ with all your sensitive campaign info? AKA they could be copying your campaigns without you even knowing it? I’d urge somewhat that owns the software to monitor network traffic while using the program and see if it “calls home” and sends over any data.