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Customer Service FAIL, SRS Labs with SRS Audio Sandbox

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

(edit, Sept. 18, 2009: As expected SRS never cared to follow-up with me. Also, realized that SRS Audio Sandbox didn’t work perfectly before this error. Sound will loop indefinitely if you’re playing something for a few hours consecutively, like music or playing a game. Worse is that there’s no way to stop the sound unless you reset Windows. Muting or turning off SRS or the application playing the sound does nothing. I had this error, but never realized it was SRS. I thought it was my soundcard. I let Mike have my licensed copy of Sandbox since I can’t use it, but he’s decided to uninstall it because he also gets the looping issue while playing games)

It’s lousy enough when Customer Service ignores you. It’s even worse when they pretend to care, but actually don’t.

And that’s my saga with SRS Labs and their SRS Audio Sandbox plugin. The product itself, when it was working, was fantastic. I bought it about a year ago, and it could be used with any audio, whereas most other plugins will work just with specific software, like Winamp or Windows Media Player. Since I use VLC for video and Media Monkey for music, those pluglins were useless.

So, like I said, it was fantastic while it was working. It stopped working a couple of months ago. I have no idea why. After contacting SRS, I still don’t know why but I also still have a non-working product, and I’ve wasted the money I used to purchase it. And that sucks.

After being ignored (“It’s even worse when they pretend to care, but actually don’t.”), I have no other avenues to pursue, so I figured I’d just write about it.

June 1st, 2009- From me, to the contact form on their website:

Product: SRS Audio Sandbox software
Operating System: Windows Vista
Product Version: 1.9.0.4
Sound Card: Soundmax Integrated Digital HD Audio

Message: A few days ago I downloaded 1.9.0.4 to upgrade over 1.9.0.1. Even though under the Sound applet in Control Panel, it shows SRS working (the application also says it is working without errors), there is no sound. I have checked to make sure the volume is up, the sound is not muted, but there is no sound whatsoever. Once I change the default sound back to the Soundmax, however, sound is there again. While SRS before worked with no problems, the new version doesn’t work at all. I also don’t have 1.9.0.1 anymore to reinstall. I have uninstalled the new version before reinstalling, tried resetting the system to make sure the audio drivers are in place- none of that works. Again, everything from the Vista standpoint is working- everything reports that sound is playing back, but it is not. If I switch to the default sound, everything works fine, but obviously SRS doesn’t work. What can I do?

June 3rd, 2009- From: Michael Gonzales [mailto:MichaelG@srslabs.com] to me

I believe it’s a compatibility issue with your HD sound card. And simply the plug-in probably won’t work with it. Your best bet is to uninstall the plug-in.

Kind Regards,
Michael

Right away, I thought, did he even read my request? It WAS working, for quite a long time, and then it didn’t. Anyway, his reply is basically saying to me, we have no solution for you, that’s your problem. Even though you are probably one of the few who paid for it instead of downloading a cracked version.

June 3rd, 2009- My response to Mr. Gonzales

Hi Michael,
I actually have purchased the SRS software, so I’m definitely invested in finding a solution. Like I mentioned before, the SRS version I was using before ( I believe 1.9.0.1) was working for me fine, would you be able to send me the older version so I can retry it?

Thanks,
Michael

June 8th, 2009- After not hearing back from SRS for 5 days, I sent another e-mail to Mr. Gonzales. Before I was just asking to check out a previous version of the software to see if it would work. Since I didn’t hear back, I actually had to go pirate it. Yeah, I pirated a version of the software I actually own.

Hi Michael,
I’m e-mailing again to ask about support.

Would I be able to provide more information in order to help me fix this problem? I’m using Vista Home Premium SP2 on a Lenovo Thinkpad T61P. Like I said, it was working fine until about a week ago, when it stopped working as soon as I installed the newest version. Windows seems to think it is working (they show audio levels going up and down) but there is no sound, but if I switch back to the default sound card, it’s fine again.

As I have mentioned before, I am a paid customer of SRS, so I am definitely alarmed if my purchase now is completely non-working, especially since I love the product.

Sincerely,
Michael

I still didn’t hear a response after this, so I just gave up, and posted a random complaint on Twitter a little bit after this. To my surprise, SRS found me and responded on July 14th, 5 weeks later. Looks like using social media can help! I e-mailed the guy who had contacted me on Twitter.

July 15, 2009- I sent the below as well as all previous correspondence to Michael Farino <MichaelF@srslabs.com>

Hi Michael,
Since this last e-mail, I have reformatted and installed the Windows 7 Beta, and the issue still exists. I am still not sure why, and if it’s a hardware issue, I would think the soundcard would be dead completely, not just be a problem for SRS.

Thanks,
Michael

July 16, 2009- Michael Farino asks Michael Gonzales (btw, if you notice there are so many “Michael”s, my name is Michael as well), the guy who ignored me before to help, and I get the following:

Hello,
What type of sound card are you currently running?

Kind Regards,
Mike

Nothing like people not even using your name when replying. Originally, I had already listed the sound card I am using in the original form, but what the hell, I’ll try to do my part to help.

July 16, 2009- From Me, in response to Michael G.

Hi Mike,
I am using a SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio, driver version 6.10.1.5510.

July 17, 2009- From Michael G

Hello,
Where did you make the purchase through our site or through paypal? Did you use your information or purchase it under someone else’s name?

Kind Regards,
Michael

He still doesn’t know my name. And he is doubting that I even paid for the software. Of course, I did make this support request 7 weeks ago. But….I’m willing to prove that I did pay the company.

July 17, 2009- From Me, I send the receipt of my purchase

Hi Michael,
Please see attached for my receipt.

July 27, 2009- 10 days go by and there is no response. This is where I’m starting to get tired of this lets-pretend-we-care-but-ignore-him-until-he-stops-bothering-us tactic. I e-mail Michael F for some help with all the entire dialogue thus far.

Hi Michael,
I haven’t heard anything back from Michael G. Can you assist?

Thanks,
Michael

July 28, 2009- Michael G responds,

Hello,

As I said before this is simply a compatibility issue with you HD sound card, there is no current solution or fix, and I apologize. You should uninstall the plug-in and your sound playback will return.

Kind Regards,
Michael

Now we’re back to to that June 3rd response again- we can’t help. Period. Does he really know if my sound card doesn’t support it? How come it’s not documented on the site? Wouldn’t that be a lousy thing to do with your customers? Hey, let’s sell software that doesn’t run with certain soundcards, but not even tell people that so they can buy it, and THEN find out. But wait, this software already worked with this sound card before, almost for a year. Hmmmm.

Also, why’d he bother asking about my receipt- he didn’t give me any support, he just ignored me further.

So, at this point, it’s like BS.

July 28, 2009- Me, to Michael G

Hi Michael,

As I mentioned before, SRS was working for me for nearly a year. I didn’t change the sound card, the OS, or the laptop, so it doesn’t seem conceivable that there’s just now a compatibility issue.

I appreciate any help, but I don’t feel like SRS is really interested in working with me to figure this out. With the answer you’re giving me, it feels more like I’m being ignored and brushed aside rather than you truly know this is the issue.

-Michael

July 29, 2009- From Michael G

Hello Michael,

I apologize that you feel that way. It’s just that usually in these particular situations, the problem is has to do with the HD sound cards. Could you please further explain how exactly it stopped working for you, it was hard to indentify what the problem exactly was in this thread. I can try to look into it further and see if we can identify any other problems or possible fixes, if not like I said the only remaining option that we have found for HD fixes is to uninstall. If that’s the case I’d be obliged to offer a full refund of course.

Kind Regards,

Michael

We are going around in circles at this point. I have run a Customer Service department before (not to brag, it’s just a fact), and I know how people normally ask for requests. Normally, you have people giving no information whatsoever about the issue, they just assume you can figure it out for them. I had at least tried to be open and very upfront with all the information I knew in the very first request, and even added additional info as I kept trying to find the solution. I was even willing to answer more questions about the issue. In his response, Michael G is just trying to put this issue back on me in a passive manner, yet he doesn’t have a specific question about what (“Could you please further explain how exactly“) I wrote before, which implies that 1) he doesn’t care 2) he didn’t read it.

July 29, 2009- My final response:

Hi Michael,

Here was the original support request:

Message: A few days ago I downloaded 1.9.0.4 to upgrade over 1.9.0.1. Even though under the Sound applet in Control Panel, it shows SRS working (the application also says it is working without errors), there is no sound. I have checked to make sure the volume is up, the sound is not muted, but there is no sound whatsoever. Once I change the default sound back to the Soundmax, however, sound is there again. While SRS before worked with no problems, the new version doesn’t work at all. I also don’t have 1.9.0.1 anymore to reinstall. I have uninstalled the new version before reinstalling, tried resetting the system to make sure the audio drivers are in place- none of that works. Again, everything from the Vista standpoint is working- everything reports that sound is playing back, but it is not. If I switch to the default sound, everything works fine, but obviously SRS doesn’t work. What can I do?

As I said above, when I run SRS, it believes it is working. The sound meters go up normally, but there is no sound. Once I disable the software and switch it back to the sound card, everything is ok. I am not running any additional sound software. Also as I have mentioned before, before upgrading, SoundMax worked fine ever since I bought, 0 problems.

Since then, I have switched to Windows 7 Beta, build 7100, in hopes the error would be solved, but it has not. Under Windows 7, I am using SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio driver version 6.10.1.5510 on a Lenovo T61P.

Please let me know how I can clarify this further for you.

Thanks,

Michael

Today is August 8th, 10 days after the last contact. No response. I’m not going to even bother e-mailing back. I suppose SRS will be happy now, they’ve gotten me to drop it.

I’m just going to post it on this blog and e-mail http://consumerist.com/, and if I’m lucky and this is kind of a big deal, they’ll pick it up.

Tags: customer service, fail, Random, srs, Tech

09.08.2009 Random, Tech View Comments

Tiger Airways Website is a Bait and Switch [FAIL]

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Image via Wikipedia

Internet shopping is great. It’s there to be 1) more convenient (quicker) 2) and often, cheaper. I practically do all my shopping online- EBay, Amazon, etc. I love it.

Enter Tiger Airways.

I’m heading to Singapore for a few days in late September. Get a recommendation from Jin to check out Tiger Airways for pricing (AirAsia doesn’t do a HCM to Singapore direct flight)

I go to the site, pick out the dates I want, it’s online, the process is straight forward. Ticket price is $114 for the round trip- nice!

I then proceed to fill in my CC info.

Denied.

Try again.

Denied!

Try again.

DENIED!!!!!! WTF!

Jin then tells me he has never been able to get his cc to be accepted by the website while ordering from Vietnam, and that I would probably have to go to their official office at Le Thanh Ton, Q1.

The price online is only for online users. Which means I don’t get that price at the official office.

Not convenient. Not cheap. (aggravated annoyance)

I thought that if VN users get the shaft for some reason (you do pick your country when you go to the website, and Vietnamese is listed, so they DO expect Vietnamese to visit), well, maybe my dad can order for me from the US. That way, the IP is in the US, and my CC is addressed in the US anyway, so no fears of fraud.

Nope, denied. Multiple times.

I then try using PayPal’s Generate Secure Card feature. This lets you create a one time use credit card number (legit) linked to your PayPal account. Good for security- if someone steals the number, they can’t use it.

Denied, big fail denied.

Now, I have no more ideas, other than to accept higher prices at the cost of less convenience. I head over to the office, bringing cash to complete purchase (online, they don’t accept American Express, and I had failed with my Visa before) I figure why chance it they don’t accept any credit cards at the office at all).

I ask if there is something wrong with the website.

They say, “Oh, it doesn’t work from Vietnam.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t handle the Internet part, that’s operated in Singapore”- she was kind of annoyed with the question, which may have been 1) she gets this question all the time, and knows it sucks 2) she herself sucks.

Not exactly the answer I wanted, but what can I do? 35 mins later (a bit long considering I didn’t wait in line), transaction completed.

Pricing comes out to be $135 USD for the round trip.

About 20% more than what I would have paid online. Not cheap. Of course, I have to consider the extra 4 hours that I wasted in terms of trying to order online various ways, and then having to go to the office, and not including my dad’s time, compared to as if the order had just been process the first time, like it normally does for me.

Sigh. A true bait and switch.

Tags: airlines, fail, shopping, tiger airways

07.08.2009 Travel View Comments

Avoid www.blogohblog.com for Theme Design Work [FAIL]

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

Image by locusolus via Flickr

(What a simple blog title I’ve chosen today)

Unfortunately, I had a bad experience with BlogOhBlog recently, and its owner Jai Nischal Verma, and that’s why my new theme is taking a bit longer than I was expecting. For now, I’m using the Wordpress default, which is quite nice and error free.

The Story:

Originally, I was randomly checking out different themes for the site. I really liked the Blamatic theme, but it had a number of big errors, so I wanted to find someone who could help fix it. Stumbling upon BlogOhBlog.com, I contacted Jai Nischal Verma, who quoted me a price of $75 for my requirements. A few days later, I had some additional requirements, for which he then quoted me a new price of $100.

In the end, he finished perhaps less than half the work; it looked great on FireFox and Opera, but was trash on every version of Internet Explorer, which is still over 70% of the world.

Here was the last round of emails:

Jai,
Regarding the widgets issue in Firefox, the issue is not caused by the widgets. If you looked at the screenshot, you would understand what I mean.

My requirements were clear, and I was upfront about them. For example, the requirement clearly asks for fixing of all bugs and standards compliance. If there were any issues about how difficult the tasks were, you should have brought that up when you issued the quote, or perhaps even midway, when you realized the requirements were difficult. What happened, however, was that you turned in the work twice, saying you had completed all the tasks, but in fact had not. And then when I asked about the tasks that had not been completed, you said they were too difficult or impossible and that you were done with the project.

What you have left me, then, is an unusable theme. I am certainly not going to use a theme that only works for 20% of the world. Now, I will need to find someone else to start over on the project.

If you are not going to finish this project, then I expect my money back, as an incomplete project has absolutely no value to me. I have switched the theme for the site.

Sincerely,

Michael

From: Jai Nischal Verma
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2009 10:20 PM
To: Me
Subject: Re: Custom Order from BOB

Hi,
I am sorry to say but the theme blamatic has too many issues. It uses sifr library to render your header titles in flash (try and right click on your header titles and you will know or your blog title) which can cause rendering errors in IE so I cannot really help it. According to my advise, you should just trash the theme or should have done it by now. Your choice.
I will not make any more changes as I have done enough fixing for $100. Plus you keep ranting about widgets issues. Dude, I am not responsible for fixing your widgets as you can install 100 other plugins and complain about their widgets.
Jai.

Right after I received his email, I noticed he had gone in my site (he had FPT and Admin access) and started deleting things from my site, (think about how scary that is), including his work, so I had to cancel his accounts.

I don’t doubt that Jai is a very skilled and intelligent guy- I tried to look up negative feedback on him before I contracted him, and nothing came up, so that had made me feel confident going with him originally. His website is nice and you can learn a lot about design and Wordpress from him. Overall, he seemed trustworthy. Unfortunately, at least for my situation, he was not. I paid him $35 of the $100 up front, with the rest due at completion.

The big issue was not so much that he didn’t complete the project, but that he lied about it. He twice said all the requirements (that he had accepted and were laid out for him clearly- he could have asked for more detail if they were not) had been completed, and I had to basically call him out and show examples of the errors still left. Am I supposed to believe that he didn’t know about the errors? That he didn’t know it was completely broken in IE, among numerous other errors and incomplete tasks, yet still asked for the full $100 both times?

When I called him out on the incomplete work, he started to say how X requirement was too difficult or Y requirement was creating the problems, that my “unprofessionalism” was to blame, and he refused to do any more. Some of the things he did finish, were things I could have done myself (and have in other themes), but that’s why I had asked for a quote on the full package of fixes, so I could let a professional do his magic and so I wouldn’t have to worry and spend my own time.

Incidentally, in the e-mail above, Jai blames the sIFR library for his inability to fix the theme, but sIFR themselves claim otherwise (see left for IE6+ compatibility): “Of course sIFR degrades gracefully when used in an non-supported browser: the default HTML text will be shown."; “sIFR is supported by the following browsers: IE6 and above.”

Perhaps after he started, he learned my requirements were too difficult for him, or he had underestimated them. He tried to lie about it and blame me instead of being upfront and saying, “I made a mistake in the quotation, can we renegotiate this?” or “This is causing some issues, can we do it this way so that I can make it fit your requirements? I would have listened and found a compromise with him.

But he didn’t. Now I have an unusable theme and lost time (anyone who’s had to audit someone else’s work knows how time consuming it is) and $35 in the process.

This really sucks and some other words not fit for this blog.

If I’ve learned anything from working the last few years is that you have to be really careful when working on projects with outside partners, regardless if you’re the client or the contractor. I’m really glad I only paid $35 up front. Normally, I’m used to paying in full with Internet transactions, like on EBay, but I thought I should ask for a tiered payment just because I knew how projects can go. Trying to imagine if I had paid the full $100 and had this happen, I would have gone absolutely berserk.

Some people think that if you do some work, you should automatically get credit for it. For example, you ordered Pho at my restaurant, but I was out, so I decided to give you Bun Bo Hue without asking you and letting you know that I was out. I gave you something, it may not be what you ordered, but you got something. So now you should pay me the price of the Pho. Right?

No.

Avoid BlogOhBlog and Jai Nischal Verma. He may be capable of doing good work, but as I learned unfortunately, it’s a gamble to see if he will take responsibility for his work commitment.

If you’re considering him and you’d like to learn more about what happened, feel free to comment or ask me. I’m more than happy to forward the email thread and let you judge for yourself.

Time for me to look for another coder.

Tags: Blog, blogohblog, fail, Tech, theme, wordpress

18.04.2009 Blog, Tech View Comments