Back on the 19th of March I sold an Align T-Rex 450 with a load of modifications and a DX6i transmitter to a guy on eBay. He paid promptly and eagerly awaited his parcel.

I took the parcel to my local Post Office and had it sent via Parcel Force. Standard Express48 delivery cost £11.25 but bearing in mind the value of the contents I also took out enhanced cover for an additional £5.70 to bring the total to £16.95.

Two days later the buyer sent me an email to say that the parcel had arrived but that the helicopter was broken in two places. From the damage caused it was clear that the parcel had been subjected to considerable force from above, crushing the helicopter inside the well-insulated box. Dismayed at the incompetence of the service seeing as the whole box was wrapped in “FRAGILE” stickers, I at least took solace in the fact that everything was covered by the enhanced insurance and that everything would be put right at no cost to me.

The buyer emailed me some photos of the damage for me to see for myself. Amazed at how much pressure it must have taken to snap those areas I thanked my lucky stars for taking out enhanced cover. I completed a claim form, printed out all of the relevant evidence and sent it off to Parcel Force. I issued the buyer with a refund and he promptly returned the parcel to me.

Almost three months on I’m still waiting. Initially I was supposed to be getting an inspector come and see the helicopter for himself, but that story changed last week to them needing confirmation from the recipient that the helicopter had been damaged. Apparently the photographic evidence and a print-out of his email confirming the matter aren’t good enough. I asked what would happen if they didn’t receive a reply from him and they said they wouldn’t be able to pay up. I pointed out that in that case I’d have to take them to court and the response was “that’s not a problem”. So despite me being their customer, me having purchased the insurance, me having filed the claim and me having the helicopter at my place for the last 9 weeks or so waiting for their inspector, they now need confirmation from an unrelated 3rd party before honouring their insurance policy. I’ve read through all of their terms and conditions and there’s nothing in there about needing to consult with the recipient at all.

They claimed to have sent a form to the recipient on April 1st and another one on May 3rd – though having just spoken to the buyer this morning he said he hasn’t received either but would be happy to complete such a form if one turned up.

Update 1: on the 9th of June I received an email from the buyer which stated that he had received a letter from Parcel Force asking for confirmation of the damage and that he had replied. So far though I am still yet to hear anything from Parcel Force.

Update 2: yesterday, three and a half months after I first posted the parcel, I received a cheque from Parcel Force for the full amount that it will cost to repair the helicopter. I’ll be sending it off for repair shortly – and obviously won’t be using Parcel Force! The Royal Mail has problems, but at least when they make a mistake they’re pretty quick to pay up!

I got a phone call this morning from Joanne Bailey from Public Service Review. She told me about their publications and how the latest edition would be focussed on Michael Gove, the current UK education secretary, and how he wants to improve attainment levels in schools for maths and science.

Apparently, Learnalot had been flagged up in one of their meetings as a company that might be able to help Michael achieve this goal. How flattering. She explained how they would like to feature an article on Learnalot that would follow Michael’s piece and asked whether I’d be interested in that – to which I naturally replied yes. She then told me that “of course” this would come at a cost – £2,396 plus VAT in fact – and that the article would be written by us and not them.

So, I was basically being asked to pay for advertising space in their magazine, which made it expensive irrespective of their subscriber list, but as the magazine seemed like a high-quality publication and the claims she made of their subscriber list were impressive, I still wanted to know more about them before turning them down. I said I was interested but that I would need to check a few things first, and she said that they would send over the agreement. Slightly concerning was that she then asked that I sign the agreement immediately and return it to them before she went for another meeting – which was in 5 minutes. I wasn’t about to sign over nearly 3 thousand pounds in 5 minutes, so I said I’d return the agreement after checking that everything was alright first and not before.

Joanne took from this suspicion that I wanted to see some examples of previous editions first to reassure me of the quality of the magazine. This seemed a little pointless really since by her own account large chunks of it had been written by third parties, and in any case it wasn’t the quality of the magazine that had my alarm bells ringing anyway.

Still concerned by the request to agree within 5 minutes, I got in touch with Laura at Hamilton House, our PR company, and asked them what she knew about PSR. In the meantime, I received a copy of the proposal from them with a note along the top asking me to email the signed copy “straight away”.

In the meantime I Googled the company and found this page, a blog from a guy named Andrew Jaffe and a load of comments from people who had all experienced the same thing. It turns out that this stories about short deadlines and meetings is something that PSR like to use a lot! I forwarded the link to Laura who then called me and kindly suggested getting in touch with PSR on our behalf to find out more about them and their subscriber list. She too was concerned about this “straight away” business and told me that she had never heard of a publication asking for such immediate commitment before. She also thought the piece was expensive – even for a glossy magazine.

Laura got back to me within minutes and said that Joanne had given her some information, but not the specific information that she had requested: namely the all-important breakdown of readership. She suspected therefore that the readership was not at all made up of the maths teachers that I was hoping to reach, and without a definitive printed statement of the readership it was difficult to consider otherwise. Laura also said that she had found Joanne somewhat difficult to deal with.

As soon as I got off the phone with Laura it rang again. I answered and it was Joanne. Joanne claimed that Laura had been very rude to her, which I really didn’t believe. She also tried to nullify Hamilton House’s concerns over her worrying need for immediate agreement and their expensive pricing by suggesting that she didn’t like their website.

Attacking the website and approach of a company one has chosen to work with is a rather odd approach, and overall I was unable to work out how that was relevant. The remarks about Hamilton House’s website were also made despite Joanne’s claim at the beginning of the conversation that her internet access was down because of a virus. In all, this did nothing but confirm beyond doubt that I needed to give Public Service Review a wide berth.

Update: Here’s another link that contains some useful information on Public Service / PSCA.

Read more…

Since its creation in 2005, Quidco has signed up over 1,800 retailers to make it the biggest and highest-paying cash-back website in the UK. Its partners include Amazon, Vodafone, GAME, Argos, Tesco, Thorntons, Apple, Dell, Halfords, RAC, Sky, PC World and hundreds of other top brands. The site’s easy to use and lets you keep track of all your cash-back in an easy-to-understand panel.

As of last week, you can even register your credit and debit cards on the site so that you also receive cash-back on in-store purchases that you make at any of their participating stores.

I signed up back in 2007 after I was introduced to it by a colleague at a former workplace, and since then I’ve received over £400 cash-back.

What else is there to say? Sign up and start earning money on your purchases.

Around two months ago I sold a BMW E36 driver’s side headlight on eBay. In my listing I had described the headlight in considerable detail and I also included a photograph of it. It sold for a reasonable £45, which was approximately what I paid for it a few months before.

A few days after posting it out, the buyer got in touch and said he wanted to return the item because some 3rd party angel-eye bulbs that he had bought elsewhere didn’t work with it. Now, angel-eyes didn’t come out for the 3 Series until the E46 and were never part of the E36 range, and today they are sold as an after-market 3rd party item. The headlight I sold was a genuine BMW replacement unit. I was pretty confident that if these two units were incompatible that the problem was with the bulbs and not with the headlamp, and as I had clearly stated in my listing that returns would not be accepted the only grounds by which I would be obliged to accept a return was if either a) the headlamp was damaged or b) the headlamp was not as described – and neither case applied here. I respectfully declined to accept a return and explained why.

The following day I received an email from eBay telling me that the buyer had opened a dispute with me by claiming that an item was not as described. You can see what he did here. I logged into the resolution centre and posted a number of replies (although eBay asks for as much information as possible, they only give you a tiny little window in which to post it), detailing why the item was actually exactly as described, why the buyer was claiming that it wasn’t and an account of our previous discussion. I also reminded eBay that I was only obliged to accept a return for one of the above conditions; neither of which were met, and that I was looking forward to them finding in my favour. I also called eBay to discuss the case and was assured by the representative that whoever would deal with the case would thoroughly read through the notes and all correspondence before making a decision. I was also thanked for being such a good eBayer and for having 100% positive feedback.

A week later I received an email from eBay stating that they had found in the buyer’s favour and that the buyer would be requested to send the headlamp back to me. I was also informed that I would have to refund the buyer as soon as the headlamp arrived, and the full amount was automatically deducted from my PayPal account in anticipation. In order to use my PayPal account again for any purchases, I would be forced to deposit the refund amount first.

Naturally, I called eBay to ask just what the hell was going on and why they had found in the buyer’s favour when he was clearly lying. I was informed by a representative with poor English that in all cases, eBay had to find in the buyer’s favour and that if it later turned out that the seller was right then they would issue a refund to the seller themselves. This seems totally bizarre.

1. Why bother having a “no returns accepted” option on the item listing if in reality eBay insists that all items are returned regardless of any facts?
2. Why automatically find in the buyer’s favour so that they have to cover the cost of the refund themselves in cases where the buyer is obviously lying? Surely it makes more sense to just properly investigate the claim first and only find in the buyer’s favour when there’s a genuine claim? Isn’t the aim of any business to make money rather than deliberately give it away?

Bewildered by what I was hearing, I asked what was going to happen next. The representative told me that I could appeal the decision and it would be looked into again more thoroughly within 48 hours. So, I appealed the decision and waited. The automated email stated that while most cases were dealt with within 48 hours, that I should allow up to 72 for cases that were especially complex in nature. I was pretty sure that my case was straightforward enough, but having already witnessed the stupidity that was eBay’s customer service I decided to wait the 72 hours before chasing them up. The deadline came and went with no reply from eBay so I got on the phone – again.

This time I spoke to a representative called “Ken Ainsley” (his accent and broken English would suggest otherwise), and after reciting the entire story to him he told me that eBay had been unable to make a decision on this case because I had not supplied them with any photographic evidence that the item was as described. At this point I got pretty angry, because at no time had eBay asked for any such evidence nor had they even given me an email address to which to send it. For over 72 hours eBay had simply sat on the case and done nothing – so much for the “thorough investigation” that was promised. I asked “Ken” for an email address to which I should send a photograph and he sent me the below email in response. I sent a photograph three days later when the item arrived back here.

Hello Gareth,

Please attach the documents confirming that your item is as described.

For better assistance, you can call eBay customer support at 8003586551.

eBay Hours of Service:
8am – 10pm Mondays – Fridays
11am – 6pm Saturdays and Sundays

I trust that this information helps and I wish you all the best in the
future.

Kind regards,

Ken Ainsley
eBay Customer Support

Three days later I received a response from a “Charlotte Boylan” telling me that my appeal had been denied. Naturally this must mean that they decided that the item was in fact not as described, right? Actually no, the reason that my appeal had been denied was, bizarrely, because the item had been returned to me:

Hello Gareth,

Thanks for getting in touch about the headlamp (XXXXXXXXXXXX) you sold
to “xxxxxxx”.

We’ve reviewed this case thoroughly, and found in favor of the buyer. I
understand that you appealed on the case, so I’d like to explain our
decision.

The buyer was able to provide us tracking information showing that the
item was delivered with your signature confirmation to the address
registered on the buyer’s eBay account. We’ve also reviewed your appeal.
Again, because the buyer provided valid tracking information as proof of
delivery, we’re not able to change the case decision.

We appreciate your understanding.

Kind regards,

Charlotte Boylan
eBay Customer Support

Just how eBay expected me to take a photograph of a returned item without actually receiving it first is sadly beyond my understanding. On the contrary, to satisfy their requirement for a photograph as requested by “Ken” 6 days prior, surely I had to get the item back first?!

I got on the phone again. Bear in mind that it’s not actually possible to just call eBay like you can call virtually every other company on earth – you need to jump through hoops on their site first to get a PIN number; without this PIN number you get no further than an automated message telling you that you need to go and get one.

Once again I got through to someone who seemed to have English as a second or third language, and I was told that what I needed to do was send in a photograph. Now I really exploded. I actually shouted down the phone at this guy, asking him if anyone there knew what they were doing. I explained how I had already been asked for a photograph and had already supplied one. I explained how I had made an appeal against their decision because an item that was sent back to me was actually exactly as described and how this appeal had, for some totally bizarre reason that was beyond me, been refused because of the fact that the item had been returned to me. Having realised that I was not interested in any more BS, this representative told me that he would forward the case to their appeals team and that I would get a full refund “within 4 days”.

Seven days passed and no refund. No communications from eBay either – nothing. I got on the phone again. This time I spoke to a guy who was adamant that I was not eligible for a refund as eBay did not issue refunds for such things. Clearly having got through to an idiot who couldn’t even read his colleagues’ case notes, I hung up and dialled again.

This time I got a woman who kept insisting that she couldn’t hear me. She kept calling “Hello? Hello?” down the line despite the fact that I could hear her fine. Eventually she left me on hold while she went to check the records. She came back and said that normally she could have given me a refund (so much for the previous guy’s claims), but that she couldn’t in this particular case because there was no record of them ever taking the refund out of my PayPal account. This was ludicrous. I suggested that she wait on the line while I log into PayPal and get the date for her (since she wasn’t capable of doing this herself), yet as I was logging into my account to get the exact date of the transaction, she terminated the call without warning.

Now I was really pissed off. I called again, desperately trying not to throw the receiver. This time I got through to a woman called “Jane Maddock”, and after reciting the entire story to her she recited back her understanding. To my amazement, Jane knew the difference between the headlight of an E36 and an E46. She also knew that angel-eye bulbs were never part of the original E36 specification. She put me on hold for a short time while she read the case notes which by now were quite lengthy. She came back and told me that far from getting a refund within 4 days as previously promised, the best that she could do was escalate the case which some additional information that she would add herself. In around 6 days I will be informed whether or not I’m getting a refund, though obviously, unless Jane follows this particular case through to completion I won’t be holding my breath. I asked for a direct line to her because litterally everyone else that I had spoken to had been incompetent, but unfortunately she couldn’t give me one and could only apologise for my experience.

In all honesty, I have never been impressed with eBay’s customer support. Throughout the 6 years of my eBay membership, every time I’ve contacted them for whatever reason I’ve been left unimpressed and wondering how these people manage to dress themselves in the morning without a carer. There are exceptions – or more accurately, an exception in the form of Jane – but on the whole I’d rank eBay’s customer support team below chimpanzees in terms of intelligence. This latest example just takes things to a whole new level of incompetence, and after 6 years and over 1272 transactions, I’m seriously looking for an alternative to eBay.

As if it isn’t bad enough that someone who is brand new to eBay can make an “item not as described” claim with nothing more than a pack of blatant and obvious lies (the buyer contradicted himself on at least four major points in the resolution centre and anyone who read what he said would have seen that), the fact that a seller with 100% positive feedback over 1272 transactions has to supply photographic evidence to the contrary (in itself an indication that, in eBay’s eyes, the burden of proof is on the accused and not the accuser which is the exact opposite of the requirements of the legal system of every developed country in the world) is beyond a joke. That such evidence can then be set aside in a sea of incompetence as each representative contradicts the last is beyond comprehension.

All told I must have spent at least 3 hours on the phone talking to these idiots and for what? I’m still no better off today than I was a month ago. This is how eBay treats its loyal customers. This is how eBay thanks you for being a “good eBayer” and for maintaining 100% positive feedback over 6 years.

I’ve searched for an alternative to eBay as I desperately want to take my business – and my money – elsewhere, but all I’ve found are tiny sites with no more than a few hundred listings – if that. If anyone does know of an alternative that has competent staff, please feel free to leave the relevant information in the comments section below.

As far as eBay is concerned, I’ll post a link to this article to their customer support and maybe call their head office with a link tomorrow, but I don’t expect that anyone will actually resolve the issue for me.

UPDATE: At 6:11pm on Tuesday the 28th of September – just 2 days after posting this article – I received a full refund from eBay. There was no message and no apology – literally just a refund – but at least it’s here. The only uncertainty now is whether it’s here because Jane did as she promised, or because eBay takes complaints a lot more seriously when they’re pasted all over an SEO’d blog. Hmm.

Well, the D-Link 655 router that I ordered a few days ago arrived from PIXmania. First off, the router is a French SKU. The manual, the software CD and the guarantee are all French. The alarm bells rang when I first opened the box and found a UK mains adaptor converter, though my first instinct had been that PIXmania had shipped me an American SKU which was how they make their profit margin. But no, it was French. I don’t think I’ll buy from PIXmania again.

Thankfully the router’s webmin was in English so I wasted no time in setting everything up. Or at least, to a point because I quickly discovered that there was no in-built modem and I’d have to use an external modem to connect to my ISP. That’s not really a problem because the Netgear DGN2000 that I’ve used for two years has been great in every way apart from it only being a 10/100mbit unit which is too slow for the Thecus – but obviously fast enough for internet access. I thought I’d set up the network with the D-Link and then connect that to the Netgear for internet access – should be easy enough, right?

Without an appropriate manual, I was left to Google to troubleshoot when my initial attempt failed. The D-Link seemed to connect to the internet as it was successfully checking for the latest firmware, but nothing that was connected to the D-Link could get out.

Over an hour was spent reading various forums, reviews and articles to try and get the information I required, when I then concluded that the internet is FULL of people who have NO IDEA what they’re talking about. One person would claim that the way forward was to disable DHCP on the D-Link; another to disable it on the Netgear. One person would claim that you put the ISP settings into the D-Link and use the Netgear as a pass-through; the other that you put the settings into the Netgear and let the D-Link piggy-back on it. In short, no-one had a clue.

While searching for answers I also found this thread on the D-Link support forums where someone else was experiencing problems with the 655. I was distinctly unimpressed to see such a haughty attitude on Lycan, the “Technical Engineer Global Moderator” of the forum, as he proved particularly unhelpful to anyone who asked any valid questions about the unit.

In the end I stumbled across a short discussion about Netgear. Some guy was looking for a way to set his router as a modem but couldn’t find the necessary option, and someone posted a link with a “try this” suggestion. The link was http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=mode.htm, and opening this link myself brought me to a minimalist page with nothing other than router mode: modem/router or modem only. I selected modem only and immediately the machines connected to the D-Link had internet access. For some really stupid reason, this page is only available to you on the navigation pane once you’ve already set the router to modem-only – when in router/modem mode, you’ve got to type in the address which means you need to already know it’s there. Who’s the Einstein that came up with that idea?

As for the other settings that I’m using, the Netgear has a LAN IP address of 192.168.0.1, DHCP and wireless are both disabled and the ISP details are specified. The D-Link has an IP of 192.168.0.10, DHCP is enabled with a range of 192.168.0.50 – 192.168.0.254, the wireless is enabled and the ISP details are also specified (manually). The internet port is connected to one of the Netgear’s LAN ports.

Hopefully this post will prove useful to others who find themselves with zero documentation and an internet-full of useless guesses!

Having picked up my old Mustek 600CU scanner from my parents’ house over the weekend, I discovered today that it won’t work with Windows 7. The drivers on the website relate to Windows 98, and a Windows 2000 patch that I found years ago (which also worked with Windows XP) refused to work on a 64-bit operating system. Hmm.

Rather than spend a few hours trying to hack something together with drivers from the four corners of the internet, I decided that I’d buy a new scanner. After all:

1. Scanners aren’t expensive;
2. Technology has moved on a lot since I got that old Mustek and a new scanner would give better results, faster;
3. A new scanner (and its software) would actually work on 64-bit Windows 7.

I needed to scan some documents to send over to my graphics designer ASAP, so rather than place an order online and wait a few days I decided to pop down to the local industrial estate and get something from Currys/Comet.

Both Currys and Comet are right next to each other in Southport, so I went into Currys first with a view of seeing what they had available and then going into Comet to compare. On the way in I noticed a huge “Our price promise” sign next to the door that claimed that Currys would beat the price of a range of local competitors including “Argos, ASDA, Comet, Jessops, Tesco, John Lewis… in fact any local retail store”. Impressive.

Inside, Currys had three scanners – a Canon LiDE 100 for £69.99, a Canon LiDE 200 for £89.99 and a Canon CanoScan 5600F for £149.99. Thinking those prices were on the high side, I went into Comet to see what they had. Nothing. Some laptops, some printers, but no scanners. Back to Currys.

At this point I decided to check Currys’ website because I knew their products were cheaper on there, so the plan was to go in and ask for one of those scanners for their online price – something that I’ve done before with positive results. After all, if a company is willing to beat its competitors in price then it should happily match its own website. I got my phone out and navigated to the Currys website where I found that the scanner that I was most interested in (the LiDE 200) was indeed on there for a reduced price – a full 25% off in fact at £68.28.

I approached a member of staff and asked if the store would match the price they had on their website for a scanner. The assistant said no, they don’t match websites. I pointed out that this was Currys’ own website, to which he enquired if I meant Dixons. No, I was talking about Currys. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to price-match his own website, so he went off to check. A few moments later he returned and said that no, he couldn’t price-match his own website. So much for their “price promise”.

I noticed that there was a “Reserve and Collect” facility on the website, which upon closer inspection allowed me to reserve an item online for local store pick-up. I hit the button, selected the store at which I wanted to reserve my item (no prizes for guessing which store I selected), entered my name and email address and then went to the till where my reservation was already printing out. With the ink on my reservation still wet, the assistant asked a colleague to fetch the scanner for me. I paid the £68.28 (I know it’s available cheaper still online, but I really needed it today), got my receipt and walked out.

This was the most bizarre case of red tape that I’d ever experienced when making any kind of purchase. Were it not for the mobile internet exposing this blatant case of double standards, I might actually have been forced to pay £89.99 for a scanner just so that I could take it away today. Thanks to this technology however, I saved myself 25% without even leaving the store.

I contacted Currys about this and referred them to this blog post and asked them for their opinion. They made no comment.

Having recently reviewed Kindisoft’s SecureSWF (in which it scored 9/10), I thought it was worth letting you know about a great offer that’s available over at ActiveDen – 25% off SecureSWF!

Just use the code AD25 at checkout to apply the discount.

Not happy with the transfer rates I get with my Thecus N4100Pro, I decided to look into what could possibly be the problem. It turns out that with overheads, the maximum transfer rate I’ll get from it is around 8-10mb/sec – if I’m lucky. Since I deal with large files on a regular basis, this has already gotten to the point where it’s beyond doing my head in, so I decided to upgrade my router (which doubles as a switch for 3 devices) to a gigabit model. That way I could expect transfer rates more along the lines of 70mb/sec, apparently*.

* I say apparently because while the maths behind that increase ratio does make sense, the maths also predicts transfer rates of more like 12.5mb/sec on a 100mbit line – so to be getting 8-10mb must mean there’s quite an overhead involved…

Anyway, after looking around I settled on a D-Link Xtreme N Gigabit DIR-655 and promptly searched for some prices on Google Products.

PIXmania was the first name that I’d heard of before (and bought from previously), so although they weren’t quite the cheapest I decided to go with them – the power of brand recognition working a treat. PIXmania had it for £79.90 including VAT, so I went to the site, added it to my basket and went to checkout. Just then Firefox crashed, so when it loaded back up I manually navigated to PIXmania’s site and searched for the router. To my amazement the router was now £96.98 including VAT! That’s a 21% increase in price, with the only difference being that on the first occasion I was referred from Google Products and on the second there was no referral.

I went back to Google Products and did the search again from there. Sure enough, the router came up again for £79.90, so this time I went in and bought the router from there. I checked out, paid via PayPal and now have an email receipt for £79.90.

It would seem that PIXmania is slashing prices on price comparison websites to make themselves more competitive, yet hiking them up again to non-referrals who are unlikely to have compared their prices before making a purchase. The moral of the story here is to always use price comparison websites whenever you’re making a purchase online!

I’ve just managed to get myself banned from the MDM forums for stating that their Zinc V3 software is a load of rubbish. Released about two years ago, the software currently has a whopping 70 open bugs – many of which date back to the beginning of 2008!

I first started using Zinc around 6 years ago, back when it was called Flash Studio Pro (1.9.x). The software was pretty flaky but was good enough for the small projects that I was working on at the time. Soon after though, support for the software vanished as MDM released a new product called Zinc V2 which provided a new GUI and a load of new commands. I upgraded like most of MDM’s users, only to find that Zinc V2 had just as many bugs as FSP and that MDM was just as slow to fix them.

Some time later, support for V2 again dropped off the face of the earth as the company excitedly announced the release of Zinc V3 – a cross-platform application that was built from the ground up, no less. MDM made lots of noise about it being the most stable version of the software yet, thoroughly tested and that it would only be released when it was absolutely bomb-proof thanks to an extensive beta phase. Another thing that I remember from this time was disgruntled customers who had just bought Zinc V2 being told that their product was no longer supported and that if they wanted to move to V3, they’d have to pay an upgrade charge. The V2 forums were also locked, making it difficult for people who didn’t want to “upgrade” to V3 discuss and resolve issues collaboratively. So much for looking after your customers.

Anyway, fast forward two years and here we are. The bugs that are to be fixed in the next version (the 17th for those keeping count) include fixes for such basic functionality as being able to export JPEGs, read and write to the Windows registry, resetting event handlers, broken AS3 support, broken MAC mask support and a load of other things that should have been resolved before launch let alone before the software’s 2nd birthday. There are even bugs on there that were once fixed but have since been re-introduced in later “updates” thanks to the poor level of testing they do over there. A full list of the open bugs is helpfully available on their website here.

I never upgraded to V3 myself. Having seen first-hand how painful it was to come up with workarounds to V2′s bugs after jumping from V1, I decided to sit out the next ride and wait for the inevitable bugs and other issues to be resolved before taking the plunge – yep, despite MDM’s bullish claims of QA this time around. I also didn’t see any major benefits in V3 seeing as I hardly ever need to develop for Macs or Linux-based PCs (just as well as the support for these two OSs is patchy and inconsistent), so I was in fact more than happy to watch from the side-lines until the dust settled. The problem was that the dust never did settle and two years on V3 users are still having to put up with an insane bug count. V2 was bad sometimes, but nowhere near as bad as V3.

Despite not having taken the plunge for V3 myself, I would still visit the forums occasionally, sometimes helping out a newbie or two with some Flash/Zinc related questions and sometimes just watching in amazement as the bug reports continued to come in thick and fast – bug reports for standard functions that showed quite clearly that were was next to no testing going on at MDM between releases. As the bug count continued to rise and MDM continued to clumsily release hit-and-miss updates, I thanked my lucky stars for not having given them any more of my hard-earned cash.

Finally it was the 2nd of December 2009 and I took another look at the forums – hoping that by some miracle V3 was in a usable state by now. What I found in Gambini’s post (that they were “aiming” to fix some of the bugs but couldn’t make any guarantees) just floored me and so I started asking awkward questions and suggested that perhaps a 2-year-old application that had over 70 known bugs is actually a load of rubbish and that hey really needed to sort themselves out. Other users agreed but stopped short of venting their own frustrations as openly as I – surprising really since they had paid good money for V3 while I had not. MDM responded by offering some pretty lame excuses (we’re a small team, there’s lots to do, we’ve had lots of things go wrong this year, blah blah) and totally failed to explain why 2-year-old software that they charge good money for should still be on the shelves with over 70 known bugs.

Rather than admit Zinc’s problems, Gambini (or Jaspal Sohal to give his real name) tried all kinds of tactics to divert attention from the software by – among other things – accusing me of not caring about MDM and being there only to start arguments. While I don’t really care for MDM either way (why would I? And why is that even relevant?), I do care about having access to good software and I do dislike it when honest, hard-working people are ripped off when buying faulty goods.

Anyway, for making my thoughts known, I was banned. I haven’t logged back in to see what they did with my posts, but I was there long enough to see that they deleted some other posts that didn’t reflect too kindly on themselves or their products.

In short, anyone who owns Zinc V3 and is unimpressed with its bugs should be prepared to be banned from the forums if they dare raise their concerns with the administrators. Anyone who is looking to buy some decent (i.e. working) software on the other hand would be wise to seek out some alternatives! The one that I’ve recently started using again is Northcode’s SWF Studio. I had used SWF Studio in the past but was never 100% happy with the script language, but having been forced to search for an alternative to Zinc due to V3′s ridiculous bug count, I found that the latest version of the software (SWF Studio 3) has a brand new scripting language that is much more intuitive – but most importantly it actually works!

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I use the software to sync files between home and work, and if I want to show someone what I’m currently working on then I can send them a link to that file from within Dropbox too. I can also invite specific people to share files and folders like in Google Docs.

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