I think it's like when a relationship goes bad. It was good and sunny with ups and downs but overall it was worth it but then it starts to wane for a variety of reasons and you try a separation for a spell and you come back but then you realize it will never work again and you feel bad for what you had because it's gone and what could have been, but never will be and you watch in dismay as they slide further down the slippery slope away from what they once were. Geez, I almost sounded like Garrison and Jack's Auto Repair there for a minute.......where all the MINIs are clean, all the ECUs have a tune, and all the tires are fresh. Sigh.........
Kinda reminds me a little of this burger place I used to go to all the time when I lived in Baltimore. The place was the same for many years, the greasy smell, the dingy counter-tops, the squawk of the woman behind the counter yelling your order to the guy at the grill. The one day the old man that owned the place up and dies, some young guys think they can keep it the same and grow it a bit more. They clean the place, change the filters, ditch the rude woman that added charm. You go back and it's to bright, the smell is gone, the aprons are clean..you can forgive this so long as the burger is still just as good. When your order arrives and you reach for the ketchup you see it's no longer Heinz but is now Sysco House Recipe Ketchup. You go back a few more times and each time there is a another little thing. Pepsi gets swapped in for Coke, the bun is no longer tossed on the grill to toast in the grease but is now run through a toaster. On the whole the place is the same, they have staying power from being an institution but the regulars have drifted away. While the seats are still full it just not the same. The little details that were there are now gone. What many think are stupid little things such as the napkins are are lesser quality and you need 10 instead of 5. The brand of malt vinegar has changed to something with a little less bite and so on... The people that walk in today for the first time think its great, and if you had just found the place you probably would have too. But those in the know have found new places.
good hosting is relatively cheap these days, especially for a company that charges an exorbitant amount for advertising.
It may be cheap, but the host still needs to care about the users, especially the paying vendors. Mark
I think the point PGT was trying to make is there really no excuse for the performance issues. If you ask me and you didn't, their reporting the performance issues as a DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack is BS. A decent ISP can clear that up within an hour, certainly not taking 3 days. Then you have to ask why would "that other site" be the target. Why not something that has a high profile that IB owns such as CarsDirect.com. An informal look over other IB sites during the downtime showed that other sites were up and not having performance issues. IB has upset quite a few vBulletin owners with their new licensing scheme. You would think vBulletin.com and .org would be a target with a huge bullseye on it right now. They fouled something up when the site was moved from the host Mark used to their own internal servers. If you remember way back in those day the site ran fine on a single medium powered server. Now it's run over 2 high powered servers for redundancy. Ever since they did that there have always been little issues that seem to snowball into a few hours of downtime every few months. This last one was the worst yet. There is also this issue that was demonstrated to them many time were the site goes down every night for 45-60 min at a time in the wee hours. For yucks one morning look at the post time gaps between 2-5am CT, there is often 45-60 min between posts. Considering the number of users and international reach there should not be gaps that big on a consistent basis. There are a lot of errors of omission over there. Ever notice the clubs listing has been stuck on 99 since April of 09. Before I resigned I gave someone that is still there instructions on how to provision a new club. However that person, at that time, did not have the permissions we later found out. I'd hazard to guess that 8 months later the permissions have yet to be granted. Oh well, they had a good run...
A moderator jumped into one thread last night and basicly said that it is OK to bash a vendor, but you can't bash the person doing the bashing. I didn't completely understand that. Jim
If we analyze the thread in question we can see what went wrong and why. OP posts that he has an issue with the vendor. All the items the OP lists are real legitimate issues. Anyone that has been around for a while knows that the vendor in question lacks shall we say...Customer Service Skills. Others then pile on saying there are issues with said vendor. Yest others say the vendor is great and while they do have their issues the product is worth the wait. Yet others now come online and state they too had problems, both with communications and quality of product. The vendor then chimes in and since they lack "Customer Service Skills" makes things worse by attacking those that have said "bad" things instead of trying to rectify the issue. More people go back and forth with the stuff is great vs the stuff sucks. The vendor still lacking a clue again attacks the customer base and makes every excuse known to man but failed to use "The Dog ate my Homework(tm)" excuse. More back and forth between the fainbois and haters. So what do we really have here. We have a vendor that is overbooked, produces inconsistent product, doesn't communicate with those that make noise and then blames the customer for his woes. Do we even have to wonder why this vendor has stopped paying advertising fees and is no longer an official vendor but is using his wifes account at times to communicate to the masses about new products when he should not be doing so at all? From a distance we can see there is a failing entity here. From whet it looks like the vendor is preselling goods and not communicating that practice. So people start to mention things like CC rules that state unless it is clear one takig a deposit for work that authorizing payment when the order is received when they know it will some time before shipment is not a no no. Is pointing out all the failings of this vendor "bashing" them or just warning others about the experience. You will find here on M/A an area specifially created to leave comments pro and con about dealing with vendors. Their status on the site not withstanding. The idea behind a forum is that we share our experiences, good or bad. A vendor that is proactive will use these comments and try and fix any issues. Besides sharing experience it is a good tool for the vendor to learn where they may have a failing of the process. Anyone can sell a product, it is how one deals with the issue when there is a problem is what makes or breaks a vendor. Everyone is going to make a mistake, fix it, learn from it and move on. Don't attack the customer, it only pisses them off even more and turns a manageable situation into something that bites you hard in the ass. So thats a really long winded way to say the vendor earned the comments they got.
Yep, saw that one brewing since about June and have not been at all surprised. I was suprised at the extent. Apparently they've employed the same business practices on BMW owners equally It's kinda like watching a car accident and I have this sick need to see the bloodied vicitims is why I keep reading the thread 'Let me take your money and let you wait for 4 mo's or so and I might send you a likely inferior product' and yet there are those fanbois lining up to say it's ok to not return calls, respond to emails, much less take peoples hard earned money.....:crazy: I will give the NAM moderator this, she did try to stop the main instigator who is calling them on their crap to stop spaming all of NAM. Hell they got enough problems as it is! :cornut: On the other hand the guy has every right to let it be known this outfit is bad news. Please check out my post on my favorite slimy vendor Tunershop
I didn't mean it to sound like some vendors don't deserve "BASHING". I was not aware of the thread in question, but it sounds like one of many that have come up over the last while. Mark
Theres a couple threads if your interested under "Vendor Group Buys" with Riss Racing on the subject line. As I said kinda like watching a car accident in slow motion.....
It sorta goes with a thread elsewhere on this site about settling for mediocrity. The vendor produced some questionable products and is supplied black vinyl to fill in the gaps and had the temerity to blame it on MINI tolerances when it was clearly the vendors QC issue. Some people were quite happy with that explanation and others called it for what it is. Those that accepted it are those that think close is good enough.
This is how you address a problem. Admit the mistake was made, apologize and set out the steps being taken to rectify the issue. Yeah, I know it's a link to the site of doom...
Wow, that was actually well done. Now he just has to make sure his actions match his promises...and then hope the damage done isn't already fatal. You can tell he was surprised by just how interactive the MINI community is. Not the first time I've witnessed that. I think any new vendor who jumps in without having already spent time on any of our forums is probably a bit surprised at that. It's a great thing for them too...as long as they don't give people things to complain about...