Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to talk to someone from Curious Labs when you need too. Even more frustrating is having to send e-mail for all you inquires and never getting a reply. After having pre-ordering problems for Poser 6 I thought I would just order it anyways and work out the details later. Mistake, mistake, mistake. After sending several messages and waiting weeks with no answer or resolution I have cancelled my order. I will just wait and see how Poser 6 plays out. Perhaps next year when all the bugs are worked out and I don't have to get frustrated at buying a product that doesn't quite work and no one will talk to me or respond with answers. Not even to buy the product! Go figure.

The writing is on the wall for your response to upcoming technical problems. Good luck! I can now say that wait and see is the prudent way to approach Poser 6.

i think selling it through digital river or whatever it is, is not a good idea. suppose its less expensive for CL...using someone else to sell the stuff...but no control.

I already purchased Shade7 LE months ago...so the deal with the pre-order really didn't interest me much, other than the price...I tried to maybe swap out for Shade Standard and pay the diff..can't do it because all is prepackaged and dr handles it....

I did get a response in a couple of days, however, from my online email question...also Katherine who comes here for CL was checking into it via IM...so I have to say I got excellent customer support...although it was not what I wanted as a customer and was forced to buy the P6 package with Shade LE. they were pretty swamped for a bit, plus the store problems...maybe you should try again/

Message edited on: 03/03/2005 17:42

Hi InfoCentral, I had to call Curious Labs yesterday concerning some information about my preorder and got a gentleman immediately and he was very helpful. He directed me to Digital River since I needed some extra info from them for my wire transfer and I got them right away too and got helped immediately. You may want to try again like Dave-So suggested. They may have been swamped before with orders when you tried. Damsel

Bummer on the troubles you're having. But it happens. I had a run in with HP recently so I understand.But maybe instead of lashing out and making assumptions that P6 won't work because you're frustrated, you could try calling them. They're quite responsive and very helpful. You're current strategy really won't get you the help you need. Best of luck.

I for one will wait to see P6 hit the shelves. If not then I'm very happy using P4. CL sounds unreliable to me who zero support unless you call them and pay for a phone call just to order a product online.

What would you expect from a company who rewards their "valued customers" with an opportunity to by their latest product at a discount, but won't tell those "valued customers" exactly what the product is? "Hey! I'm going to make something, it'll be really cool. I won't tell you everything it does, or how fast it'll do it, and it's taken me a long time to get things right in the past, but if you'll go ahead an pay me now I'll give you a discount and deliver the working product when I feel like it! I'll even throw in a beta version in advance packed in this cool box I've already designed!"

What telephone number are you talking about Damsel. The only telephone number I could find on the CL website was to contact the PR department. Other then that there is one for Digital Rivers who when you call with your problems refers you back to CL who then must be contact by e-mail which leads to slow to no response. CL is known for keeping itself well insulated.

With the release of Poser 5, CL gave away too much information, and when some of the features didn't make it in, everyone complained. And they are still complaining. Now, CL is being very CAREFUL about the info they are releasing, and everyone is complaining. If you would rather wait to see what is in the new release, you DO have that option. No one is forcing you to spend your money at this moment in time. There will still be an upgrade price.

But they did state the $89 price for P5 early adopters was "while supplies lasted" for the boxed version. And they have a "no return policy" for electronic versions.

from Curious Labs newsletter "Full details on Poser 6, including the new features and content, will be available by March 10th." and "Poser 6 Windows and Mac OS X versions have the expected release date of March 21st." So you will know "everything" for about 10 days before they release it. The UI still looks like a video game, is it really supprising they are advertising it like one? It is interesting to note that P5 seems to have put dials in a box and P6 has put the document window in a box. I wonder if this represents a trend?

"There will still be an upgrade price." That's what I'm trying to get but no one wants to talk to me about it!

I don't think it's that they don't WANT to talk to you, I think it's because with it being so close to release they are probably very focused on getting it done. I suspect all details (new features, pricing structure, availability, etc) will be revealed on the 10th.

Message edited on: 03/04/2005 10:08

But I am not interested in them providing me with the details. I just wanted to preorder it and use my coupon. It wouldn't take the coupon and now that I am trying to get them to adjust it I am experiencing just how well CL has themselves insulated from the users.

This was the problem after Poser 5 was released. You couldn't get in touch with them except by e-mail and then they would decide when to answer. And with some of my inquires the reply had nothing to do with the question. I thought that CL was turing around with the purchase from E-Frontier but its the same old stuff all over again.

And when you see things starting to repeat themselves you get a little nervous remembering all the Poser 5 troubles. That is why I am beginning to believe a wait and see attitude is the best way to approach the upcoming release. Or CL needs to make themselves more available. Like being able to talk to someone by phone perhaps? That's always a nice first start in building back customer confidence. Or is this is asking too much?

i noticed the phone thing myself...it is extremely frustrating not being aboe to call and get things taken care of. HINT: IM Curious LAbs here ... find one of their recent threads and click on their name....and IM them...that's how I got things taken care of....I'm not saying they're here online right now..they may be just too busy.... But I agree with you infocentral that they need to make it possible for their customers to contact them in a timely manner. If I hadn't had the $89 pre order and $50 off ocupon for over $100 purchase, I would not have ordered the pre order at all, especially not being able to quickly, and I mean when I wanted to, contact them...not when I have to wait for their response....I'm the customer. They should be kissing my butt. Luckily for them , Katherine was taking care of me through one of the threads here.

"I don't think it's that they don't WANT to talk to you, I think it's because with it being so close to release they are probably very focused on getting it done." What, you think the customer service reps are coding the app and can't take the time to answer a customers question? History has a way of repeating itself.

What, you think the customer service reps are coding the app and can't take the time to answer a customers question? You have to admit, that would explain a lot. :p

I talked woth Digital River Thursday. There is a technical problem with their Site and the Coupon, apparently. They are working on it. Contact Sales (not Customer Service) and you should get a reply in 24 hours (during the week) Make sure you include your Order Number. I had an issue with the Coupon not applying as well and they promised me it would be resolved. They seem to desire to want to make this right. He did comment that the response to the offer was better than projected, which might indicate the cause of the problem.

"You have to admit, that would explain a lot. :p " You bet it does! :)

What, you think the customer service reps are coding the app and can't take the time to answer a customers question? How many customer service reps are there? If I recall correctly Curious labs is a company of about 20 people total. This is base on Noel's (from shader's cafe) trip to Curious labs where he reported "We had a very successful trip and were able to meet about half the staff (the other half was either in Japan or out sick that day)." He later went on to say "I did manage to herd them all outside for a quick picture." Then shows a picture of 10 people.

I have no idea how many customer service reps are employed by CL, but if they don't have enough they better start hiring some. To say they can't take calls or answer questions because they are busy preparing P6 for release is ludicrous however.They aren't coders, their job IS to answer questions and take calls.

if they don't have enough they better start hiring some. If only it were that easy.

I received a (e-mail) response for Curious Labs stating that there is nothing they can do about the coupon as Digital Rivers is handling all their orders. Fine! I contacted Digital Rivers by phone. Explained the trouble I was having and gave them my order number and coupon number. They said that they couldn't do anything about it as they are only taking orders for Curious Labs and once the order is placed they have no control over it only Curious Labs can act on it but they would be forwarding the information to Curious Labs and they would be responding back to me by e-mail in about 4 days or so. Great! So I have Curious Labs telling me they can't do anything because its up to Digital Rivers. I have Digital Rivers telling me they can't do anything because its up to Curious Labs. I have both companies pointing fingers at each other and me, the customer in the middle, is screwed. So sure enough 4 days pass and I get the e-mail from Curious Labs. And once again, like I wrote above, the reply answer has nothing to do with the question. They say I did get the 15% that was offered for a limited time. But said nothing about the coupon! Which is the whole reason for contacting them. To redeem the coupon they sent me. That is why Digital Rivers sent them the e-mail with the coupon code in the first place. Now I replied to the e-mail stating that I want to apply the coupon to the order since the website wouldn't take it. As of yet I still haven't received a reply. Still waiting for the e-mail from Curious Labs. I hope the answer has something to do with the coupon this time. It would be a lot easier to talk to someone there on the phone. We would be able to take care of it and get everything straight in about 5 minutes. It just so aggravating!!!

"It would be a lot easier to talk to someone there on the phone. We would be able to take care of it and get everything straight in about 5 minutes. It just so aggravating!!!" Ah but don't you know, they are far too busy preparing for the P6 release to talk to you in person. All that coding takes up so much of the customer service reps time.

this makes me want to cancel my order...that is just plain BS !!!! but is it even possible to cancel an order?

Message edited on: 03/05/2005 20:13

If CL or DR won't let you cancel, next step would be to contact your credit card company. CL's return policy states 90 days for un-opened boxed products (and they won't refund shipping) or electronic versions that haven't been downloaded.

Sure enought 4 days later received a message back and they did address the coupon issue. They said if I do have a coupon then they would need a copy of it. And to top things off. They said again that I got the 15% discount offered during the limited time. Why do they keep addressing that issue to me? And why when Digital Rivers send them the message about applying the coupon and giving them the coupon number do they first ignor it and then claim they don't have any information about it? So I send them back a copy of the e-mail they sent me and asked once again that they apply it to the order. Now I will wait another 4 days for an e-mail reply! Probably told once again that I got the 15% discount. This is just getting stupid! Just redeem the coupon like you said you would when you sent in out to me Courious Labs! Geeesh...

1 phone call and 4 e-mail now and still no resolution! After all their talk about my order. And after Digital Rivers sending CL and e-mail with the order number and coupon number. After playing ignorant about the coupon and tell me my order received the serial number screw-up discount of 15%. After sending them a copy of the e-mail with the coupon they sent me. The latest e-mail states "we have put in for an investagation." Now that really tops things off. Just honor the coupon Curious Labs and quite dragging this thing on and on. Just unbelievable.

Still waiting for the investagation. No e-mail yet! Hummmm

Do I hear a faint echo of P5 here ? And this is just folks trying to ORDER the product ? I can't wait to see the sort of threads that will turn up here when folks actually get to USE this latest offering :) I'll stick with P4, thank you :)