Purchased but undelivered X8 product - help

[Davidk]

This is for the mentors - Ken, Lata or Brian.

I have a student who uses X6 and bought it via the backup CD option. Mainly, as a means of overcoming transmission errors on the horrendously slow internet links that pertain in Australia; an 1.6Gb file takes about 1.5hours at the fastest ADSL2+ links avaialable, assuming no hickups. She has contacted me regarding an X8 purchase that has not been delivered, but which has been charged to her bank account via cleverbridge on 3 March. She claims to have chosen the backup CD and been waiting for it via the mail (in the past, 7-10 days), however it has not arrived. The normal purchase emails with invoices and license keys are similarly apparently not received, gone missing en-route. What she has just received is an email from Corel on 26 Mar saying she has 5 more days of software warranty still to go. She's asked for help in getting the product she purchased, delivered.

I've looked over the Corel VS X8 purchase website, and there seems to be no CD backup option any more. Instead there's 1) an option for download insurance, and 2) a fine print statement in the product description that the site is green, delivery by download only.

Questions for you:
1. Who should she call or contact (in Corel) to get this resolved - other than the bank to refuse the transaction, which generally has lots of negative overtones for everybody, especially when it gets back to Corel. <<I have personal experience of that 10 years ago and the malfunctioning merchant was incensed at the bank's contact with them and wanted me to withdraw. Since I had requested the merchant to fix, they did not, I basically told them to pound sand (as the saying goes). That prior contact detail was provided to the bank when I called to refuse>>.
2. Are you able to confirm that the CD backup option is no longer available with X8?

Davidk

[Ken Berry]

Given the definitive statement on the Corel website, I think it is very clear they no longer offer a back-up disc option. The website says "Delivery: We’re Green - This site offers Electronic Software Downloads only". Moreover, given the other corners Corel have cut with the trial version and making the Blu-Ray burner an extra-cost option, I'd say they think they are saving further money by not having to make actual discs.

But did your student say how she thought she had ordered a disc? And I suppose you asked whether she had checked her spam folder just in case the confirmation/SN email slipped in there somehow?

[Davidk]

Hi Ken,

I suspected that might be the case. But student did not say how she ordered a CD, just that she thought she did. I've posed the question not only about the spam folder, but also the Trash bin case it got there by mistake. No response to that yet - I asked her about 5 mins before posting the original query.

Davidk

[RobertOZ]

According to the Aus Corel site, you can still order a backup DVD

[Ken Berry]

That's particularly interesting and is another example of irregular Corel websites. When I posted above, I had checked on the NZ website, which in fact claimed to be the Australian website, and it most definitely did not mention a back-up DVD but gave the message I included above about being a Green Site with downloads only... It included the insurance entry but nothing else...

[RobertOZ]

Whats even stranger, is that the backup DVD only shows as being available with the PRO version, but not an option with Ultimate

[OBB]

While I'm dealing with a different issue that I'm having with upgrading from X6ultimate to X8ultimate. While on the phone with the Corel tech. I had said that I would have preferred purchasing the hard disk rather than the download but offered NO option to purchase a boxed set for upgrading. And at first he said that you can, so he navigated to the upgrade offer and saw that I was correct and for UPGRADES it is download copy only.

Which also in turn is where I think my problem is stemming from.. And prior to taking the upgrade I was on chat with a sales rep asking how the upgrade actually worked, as there were no detailed information on the page direct. And per the sales tech he stated that I uninstall X6 in its entirety, and from there install X8 and during the new installation that it will ask for my original X6u key as well as the new X8u key... needless to say all it has ever asked is for the new X8u key and never the X6u key... and personally I think this is where the issue I am having is stemming from...

Since it's upgrade but only asks for 1/2 of the full key set to confirm, it derails something in the install process.

Just my hunch anyway at this point...

[asik1]

Amazon US sells a boxed X8 Ultimate
http://www.amazon.com/Corel-VSPRX8ULMLM ... 00T0I6J4O/
also B&H
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1 ... imate.html

But on the other hand we all know that the USA isn't green and got us into this mess

[Terfyn]

I just recorded the downloaded folders on to a DVD so I did not need a backup disk.

[OBB]

Amazon US sells a boxed X8 Ultimate
http://www.amazon.com/Corel-VSPRX8ULMLM ... 00T0I6J4O/
also B&H
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1 ... imate.html

But on the other hand we all know that the USA isn't green and got us into this mess

Yep, fully aware of that but you cannot get the upgrade offer price...

I just recorded the downloaded folders on to a DVD so I did not need a backup disk.

Yes I tried this trick too as well. And also per the remote session tech, the download version (I'm assuming on the upgrade version anyway where it should be asking for my previous serial to confirm). Per him that the installer on the disc & download version differ... Though did not say why or what and did not have a box version on hand to try and test load to confirm.

[Davidk]

I'm still waiting to hear back from this lady - it's been less than 24 hours since I posed the questions to her, so I do expect an answer soon - she sounds (tone of email, yesterday) bordering on pissed right off.

Having said that, she encountered serious issues downloading the X6 version 2 years ago, all related to the speed of download on the local internet. Just as a reminder since this thread is probably going to get to Corel sometime soon - in Brisbane city 18Km from the CBD, my nominal ADSL2+ 24mbps connection is the fastest locally available at the moment and barely 1km cable distance from the exchange consistently tests out at 8-10Mbps down using the ISP's local node. Beyond the nodes, it's all gigabit fibre, so the local connection link is the download choke point, and the performance of download falls away sharply as one gets to the outer suburbs and in regional cities. Any self-respecting software vendor that wants to sell into a technologically literate market needs to be aware of and cater for that situation. Quite possibly, that's why the Aussie Corel website mentioned by Robertoz still has a CD option.`

Student resolved this X6 download situation when I suggested she consider the backup CD option, and she was v happy with that. So it's no wonder she is trying the same approach for this latest version.

more later.

Davidk

[Terfyn]

Having said that, she encountered serious issues downloading the X6 version 2 years ago, all related to the speed of download on the local internet. Just as a reminder since this thread is probably going to get to Corel sometime soon - in Brisbane city 18Km from the CBD, my nominal ADSL2+ 24mbps connection is the fastest locally available at the moment and barely 1km cable distance from the exchange consistently tests out at 8-10Mbps down using the ISP's local node. Beyond the nodes, it's all gigabit fibre, so the local connection link is the download choke point, and the performance of download falls away sharply as one gets to the outer suburbs and in regional cities. Any self-respecting software vendor that wants to sell into a technologically literate market needs to be aware of and cater for that situation. Quite possibly, that's why the Aussie Corel website mentioned by Robertoz still has a CD option.`
Davidk

This is the first time I've had a successful download. I normally request the disks. The internet here is so slow that a 4-5 hour download is often seen. For X8 I was lucky and got a good download without any errors. I suggest she goes for the disk set.

[lata]

Hi David

Has your student actually tried downloading the program?
It may be that the internet has improved over the last two years.
After all the disc is a Backup DVD should you have download problems?

Here in the UK I see the backup disc available for the Pro version and not the Ultimate, that seems a little strange?

[Ken Berry]

I think the problem, Trevor, is that the student never received the serial number...:

The normal purchase emails with invoices and license keys are similarly apparently not received, gone missing en-route. What she has just received is an email from Corel on 26 Mar saying she has 5 more days of software warranty still to go.

[Davidk]

Regarding the (commented on) CD intended just as a backup option to download - maybe so. But there are clearly world wide issues with internet speeds that have made the CD a preferred means of acquisition for many VS users.

The matter of CD's being dispensed with as a Corel policy (raised in one of the posts) seems ridiculous - unless Corel wants to completely get out of the software store distribution chain - as in (oz) harvey norman, officeworks, JB hifi to name just 3 I stores who sell packaged software over the counter. A staged release I could understand (date 1 - electronic downloads available, date 2 say 2-3 weeks later packaged CD available), but simply not doing storefront sales and thus having a packaged CD offering does not make much sense.

And even slow internet speeds can seem fast when its coming in bursty page size "read before next" lots. Applying that to gigabit size files on slow links to the home is entirely another matter. In terms of internet speeds changing - yes, it's happening. But very very slowly. The infrastructure in most places - even in rural outback USA - still relies on modems using 100 year old copper technology telephone lines. Sth Korea has been the flag bearer (world #1) for fast broadband fibre connectivity up to 1Gbps to the premises for years, but that country is a special case: small country, population mostly in urban high rises. Building the fibre to connect in that situation is basically easy and not very expensive - running cables up rises in buildings is nowhere near as expensive as digging trenches. So costs: in oz, laying gigabit low loss single mode fibre cable in a trench costed about $100 per mtre 8 years ago ($90 for the trench, $5-6 for the plastic pipes and pits to put the fibre in, and the rest for the fibre cable and terminating it), and when it started in 2009 the initial estimate for the oz national fibre network using 1Gbps "fibre to the premises" (FTTP) technology (the most future proof available) was $43billion to reach 93% of the population. That blew out to something like $93billion before the politics changed and less costly alternatives which are slower came into play. Nevertheless, it's been 6 years and only a hand full of test locations in the country have yet been connected. The main backbone bearers to carry the traffic haven't been finished yet and it will be another 6-7 years before the initial rollout is supposedly finished.

It's pretty clear that the geeks and limited view sales people responsible for developing and selling software that do any scoping of fast broadband availability outside the US cities have a really limited view of that landscape: if it was accurate, measures to overcome the obvious "to the home" transmission issues would have been incorporated in software products as a standard for a long time.

Davidk