Check out the several threads at alt.binaries.3d.poser In brief, Rita is being told her legal P4 serial is invalid and that there is no help for her by CL support. Feel free to tell them what you think of that. curiouslabscs@digitalriver.com support@curiouslabs.com

Before anyone accuses chevy of whining, which he's not, please understand that Rita is a beloved senior citizen who is respected and adored by all who know her. She doesn't post to the forums here, but has been a regular and positive presence at the newsgroup for many years, she's one of the "stars" in our community, although at the least-travelled venue. I hope that CL will come to understand that this is someone who is honest and sincere. I'm certain that her serial number is legit and that the problem is with record keeping or some technical glitch.

There must be a solution to that...how about secondary proof such as her faxing a photocopy of disks/manual showing number?

This has happened before. Someone here was told his serial number was invalid. It had been used more than 10 times, and therefore was deemed "pirated." They had the record of his buying Poser. He claimed that it wasn't possible for someone to have stolen his serial, and that his computer was well-protected behind a hardware firewall. But they still insisted his serial was pirated. Finally, after he complained for about a week, they relented.

Honestly, this anti-piracy stuff is getting annoying. It doesn't faze actual pirates for a minute. Cracked versions of new software and games show up on P2P before they're even in the stores. But the "protection" measures are a PITA to the honest customers.

If you were a publisher of an app on the distribution level of Poser, what deployment sceheme would you use Randy? ::::: Opera :::::

CL has to protect themselves. Otherwise the sharks (like the giant school currently off of the East Coast) will eat them alive. I can't blame them for being somewhat hard-nosed on this issue. They've been burned enough to justify the attitude. Unfortunately, some honest people can find themselves getting side-swiped by the dishonesty of others. Hopefully, they'll be able to work this one out equitably for all parties concerned.

xoconostle, thanks :) I very very rarely post here. In answer to post 3, she did. Scanned her manual with the serial number sticker on it. Same response. In answer to post 5, no serial or unlocking system at all. Purchases are recorded and saved, with serious attention paid to preserving the customers info. And, of course, the buyer must keep their own hard copies of their receipt. Crackers/hackers/warez pirates/etc are not slowed down, much less stopped by any kind of registration system. The only folks who suffer are the legit purchasers. Bottom line, despite the claims of certain folks that they 'try before they buy', there are no sales lost to the legit customers. IMO :)

Would they not accept the actual CD as proof? Maybe she could send them the CD by registered mail (check that they will accept this as proof of purchase before sending it though). Seems unfair that someone who really has bought the product can't convince the vendor of the fact :-(

CL should maybe stop treating everyone with blanket policy and try actually investigating the claims before issuing a canned response. Rita is by NO MEANS a thief or a problem, just a very good, loyal and long term customer. If they would like to continue to recieve that type of loyalty, maybe they should act like they deserve it. I understand about them wanting to protect themselves. But treating everyone the same and with the same level of suspicion is no way to go about it. I've already contacted CL about this...hope this drums up lots more support.

So, the honor system straight, with a no-key-field database chaser. The cost of even attempting to run the customer support paradigm you describe (with no key field for a product registration) would be astronomical. It would lead to the immediate conclusion, 'this game is not worth it,' and you would just throw up your hands and say, 'let's just put it on the pure honor system' where you would post, for instance, an upgrade behind a payment page keyed around a customer number but no product registration number, and ask people to download it after paying instead of the hundreds of places it would appear for free. Would that work? COuld a company stay in business? ::::: Opera ::::

I've heard of this happening before, not only with Poser, but with Vue as well, where someone's legit serial number was mistakenly listed as pirated or compromised, even tho they had the original media/package etc to back it up. The only thing I can advise is not to give up. There has to be a way to prove hers is legit.

if she is getting simple canned response, has this reached the phone call stage? has she called and talk to CL? I've done that and found them helpful, even once when it involved Digital River!

She has emailed digitalriver and has sent many emails to CL and has called CL. She is getting shuffled from one person to the next. She has sent a scan of her serial etc proving a legit purchase. It seriously concerns me that not one person at that company is willing to take hold of the situation and solve it. While it isnt the normal it does happen. Personally I have changed my mind and will not be getting Poser6 after seeing how they treat their customers, Scott

I cannot imagine anyone being so stupid as to try and use a non-legit serial for upgrading. If CL knows that this serial is not ok, then they have a list of the bad ones. But undoubtably, they also have a list of people who did buy, and which serial they used. So they should know she was the one who bought. Although I read that it isn't absolutely safe (it looks like no method can stop pirating), I like the Maxon way. When you get your software, you get a temporary serial with it that works six months. In this period, you register, and then you get a final serial. They always know who has which serial. Anyways: this is burocracy at its worst. I hope that someone at CL starts a real investigation soon, and start cleaning up their runtimes err...financial dept.

Operaguy, To me, a purchase order number is the same difference as a serial number. The only way to login for free updates or purchase upgrades is to enter that number. To install the software, no number is required. If there are suddenly lots of logins on a specific number, then it obviously is compromized. Then the vendor should contact the purchaser, inquiring about the situation. The warez community may distribute the number, but it will only be valid for a very short time. The only way I see to make a serial number truly secure is to customise each copy of the program to only install with that specific number. And that still won't stop the warez hackers. Now, I realise that no system will be perfect, but I disagree with making legit purchasers jump through hoops. And that is really all I wanted to point out :)

Rita is the most legit person I know and I know her personally and have actually seen her disc! she is one of my dearest friends and is elderly and has mulitple health problems and this is causing her great distress i suggested that she indeed reregister her poser 4 disc since it wasnt curious labs at the time of her purchace she did indeed do that yesterday and still it wont allow her to upgrade cl is treating this woman very poorly

Not to imply that this is the situation, but I once bought a Program in the box from a "Dealer" only to discover when I went to upgrade the product a couple of years later that the product I had was good, but owned by a corporation. Apparently the "Dealer" was selling the delivered box sets that a Corporation use to receive when they bought numerous licenses, but only installed one and then the Systems people used that install to place it on the rest of the machines. This is still done, and is the reason I no longer buy from small vendors. Many Computer Shows are filled with these types of deals, as is E-Bay with users selling off their old copies after they upgrade. You can use the supplied Serial Number to activate the software to use it, but when you go to upgrade, it comes back as an "Invalid" for purposes of Upgrades because the original owner had already upgraded the software using that Serial Number. I had a friend who just discovered his 1/2 price deal on Quick Books was no deal for this same reason.

Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/articleview/20/1/296/?sbss=296

Just wanted to pop in and say that this situation had been handled before this thread was posted and that there appears to be a ton of missing and mis-information going on that I wanted to clarify quickly, so yall dont get the wrong idea!

There was a valid reason that Rita's serial number was not working, as she had already used it to upgrade and then transferred the license of her upgrade, making her ineligible for further upgrade pricing. I will not go into further details, but we have made arrangements with Rita to purchase her upgrade. The email addresses posted above are not valid email addresses for support and once she contacted us directly, the problem was quickly remedied. All emails to Curious Labs and Digital River must go through the contact forms on our website to receive a timely reply.

Curious Labs works very hard at its Customer Service! Using valid contact methods such as the email support form are the best ways to get in contact with us!

Thanks!

Tori
Curious Labs Customer Service

Curious Labs
http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/articleview/1126/1/0

Digital River
http://shop.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec_main.entry11?xid=52397&sp=10107&pn=11

Message edited on: 04/07/2005 13:52

Thanks for the reply, Tori.

chevy, ok, points noted, not an easy solution either way IMO Shadow Dancer, I don't get it. If you know her personally and she is not capablable of being highly assertive, why don't you be come her advocate, physically? Fight the battle for her, make the calls, etc. Meanwhile, the news that this software was never registered, way back to before the company was even ownded by present ownership...IMO all comments about CL treating her badly are way out of line. I still think CL should honor this, and probably might, or...IF SOMEONE GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE MAT WITH THIS in a respectful way for all, and indeed she has no claim, with how many gazillion people on her side, I will pay for a new copy of Poser 6 and you various people can sned me shares via paypall or in the mail. That's an open offer to stage a common effort to pay for her to get a license for Poser. ::::: Opera :::::

ok, crossed posted with Tori's post. og

thank you very much tori

I don't know how to post on the newsgroups...but I see Rita was still posting last night about having problems, and I replied at 8am PST yesterday directly from my personal CL email. Can someone of you be a pal and check in with her to make sure she got everything she needs to upgrade? Thanks! tori

Glad to hear the situation's been worked out. I haven't been to a.b.3d.p in a long time (unwilling, self-imposed exile), but I know Rita from there and she is one of the most upstanding people I know online. Now if it'd been chevy getting this treatment... ;-)

i been trying to call her as of 1/2 hr ago she did not receive your e mail tia pamala

If it'd been chevy having trouble, then CL would have to contend with far worse ... Creepy Clown! :-) Seriously, thank you very much for working with Rita and for bringing us up to date, Tori. The troops tend to circle their wagons, but with good intentions in this case. :-)

Never received anything from you Tori

Tori, Perhaps you were thinking of another customer? It appears that there are holes in your customer service techniques if there are this many problems with Rita and she says she has nothing from you yet. I've watched this problem unfold in the NG, and I have to say, I have not been impressed with your responses so far. I myself had a problem with you (*CL & DR) on my order. You lost my payment. I spent hours on the phone getting it straight and while I did get my copy, it cost me LOTS of money and time in long distance calls and frustration. All for an "Oops" from your customer rep. Maybe someone needs to contact Rita Denenberg from Curious Labs---I'm sure you have her number by now, and get this cleared up once and for all... Laura

Laura- Unfortunately, it was Digital River you were dealing with, not Curious Labs. I will forward your comments on to our representatives there, and my greatest apologies, but please note it was not Curious Labs who lost your payment. It was Rita (not another customer) who emailed me directly who got my email from a long time customer I have worked with. I emailed back yesterday morning immediately after getting her email (as most customers who work with me directly and with Curious Labs directly will find) and the situation was exactly as described, her serial number was marked used, admittedly by her, and there was no recourse through the online store because once a serial number has been marked used, the system does not discriminate between customers. Rita, I got your email direct to my email and replied yesterday at 8am and reforwarded to the email address today before I left to lunch. I am unsure as to why you are not getting my replies. Please submit an email through the online customer service form on the website and I will attempt to reply via there, if for some reason you are not getting my direct email. I will also try and PM you the details I emailed right now. My apologies, we are trying to help! To everyone... Please use the links above to contact both us and Digital River. We are experiencing high volume, but really are trying to get to most things as rapidly as we can and email to Curious Labs via the web form is your best bet! (Please do not email the wrong addresses posted at the top which go to no one and are not working addresses for direct email.) Sorry for the confusion! Tori

Rita has now posted here that she has not recieved anything from you Tori as of 3:43pm central standard time on 4/7/05. Click on her name and email her directly ? Don't make me get Creepy Clown to come put the mojo on ya !

We are experiencing high volume, but really are trying to get to most things as rapidly as we can Yes....it helps to understand this fact. There is a lot going on for CL right now.

While it may have been Digital River I dealt with, so far with you assuring everyone that you made arrangements with Rita, and that this whole thing had been handled before this was posted seems to be a bit of jumping the gun on your part. Look, I'm really not trying to be argumentative, but you haven't made any arrangements and it hasn't been handled. So why would you say that it had? Again, my skepticism regarding your high quality of customer care seems to be well founded.

i spoke to rita on phone she has yet to receive anything from you tori she assued me you were in her friends list so your email would not go into her spam folder she has repeatedly called you and only gets your voice mail i called you also this am and left her e mail address if youd like to post her way to update here or to me i can forward it directlly to her or i can call her i feel semi responsible for he diffuctry because it was me she sold her p 5 to my e mail address is 27jewel@bellsouth.net please remit if you cannot get her mail to her i already have p 6 so i have no intrest in using her info tia pamala

Boy.....it must be nice to have so many people going to bat for you.

I need to meet Rita. She must be a really, really wonderful person to inspire such a reaction from others with her complaints.

Under similar circumstances, many people are fortunate if the crowd doesn't start throwing rotten tomatoes......or bricks. In one direction or the other.

I don't spend time at the usenet group. Perhaps I am missing out on something.

I hope that you all can get this worked out so that everybody is happy.

Wanders off humming "To Dream the Impossible Dream".......

"Don't make me get Creepy Clown to come put the mojo on ya !" Oh lord, Creepy on the loose at CL with access to the information for all those female customers and employees?

I recommend just mailing Rita a free copy of P6. Good PR. Of course, you'll then have to deal with the multitude of others wondering why they didn't get it for free........ sigh With some, you just can't win.

*" Boy.....it must be nice to have so many people going to bat for you.

I need to meet Rita. She must be a really, really wonderful person to inspire such a reaction from others with her complaints.

I don't spend time at the usenet group. Perhaps I am missing out on something."

She really is a wonderful person and is loved by many members of the NG---most of us would go to great lengths to see that she was not abused or disrespected in any way or even inconvenienced.

And perhaps you are missing out. You won't know until you try hanging out there. alt.binaries.3d.poser

Come by see what it is you are missing.

Laura

xenophonz (and anyone who's interested,) "the gang" at alt.binaries.3d.poser are a lot of fun, but be forewarned: That newsgroup, chartered by the infamous Dr. Legume, is a "no rules" group. Thus, some rather raunchy imagery gets posted sometimes. :-) But mostly it's a great place for good times, supportive feedback, and daily renders. That's where I made some of my favorite Poser-world friends; it's a unique place because there's no store attached, among other reasons. Before he passed on, Don Tatro initiated a weekly "model challenge" as he had at the Bryce group in the past. chevy and badco have kept it going. A model is posted each week, members have the following week to post renders using it. cooler has come to the rescue many times when the scheduled modeller pulled a no-show. As you may also know, Don modelled the original Creepy Clown (later improved with badco's help,) so there used to be a lot of Creepy and anti-Creepy fun there. Maybe there still is; I had to shelve Creepy for awhile but he seems to have wandered into my Poser 6 runtime. Rita is a quilting expert known for Americana themes. Her Poser work tends towards snapshots of everyday life, very charming and insightful. She did a series a couple of years ago based on the notion of "the good old days." She wanted to show that our ancestors in fact had harder lives, it was really cool. She's got a winning personality, a kind word for everyone, and is sort of like the "mom" to that group, which is why there's so much respect and support for her. Dean

She's got a winning personality, a kind word for everyone, and is sort of like the "mom" to that group, which is why there's so much respect and support for her.

Ah.....that makes the picture a lot clearer for those of us that aren't "in the know" for the newsgroup.

I was somewhat mystified. I have a feeling that others were, too.

Send her a free copy of P6. That should straighten out the problem. Message edited on: 04/07/2005 17:36

I feel very very blessed to have so many friends who care about me. Received a message from Tori and cannot directly comment on the message at this time. But I will tell you Hubby aged 85 is very upset and told me to forget the whole thing. He has never cussed but I heard language from him that would curl your hair. I don't like seeing him like this and feel badly that I have caused him such grief. We couldn't afford the deals to solve the problem she offered even if in very good faith to get Poser6 and I am at this time inclined to go along with him. So thank you fine people for any influence you may have had on CL. Bless you all!

RE: post 20 - operaguy I am right there to set up a paypal account to collect the purchase price of Poser6 and have it sent to Rita. I've got webspace and bandwidth to spare and would happily put up a page just for this reason. Let's see what happens with Tori at CuriousLabs. RE: post 38 - xoconostle Actually, BadCo all on his lonesome (Hawktoey helped) has kept the weekly Model Challenge going :) But thank you. I just maintain shar3d.com, the free place to post free poser stuff. RE: this thread - everyone It's nice to see a calm conversation about a potentially big deal over what might have been a little problem. So far, it looks like it is being dealt with, albeit slowly.

From a customer standpoint, that is very disturbing news Rita. It seems to me that after all that has occured, CL still doesn't get it.... We'll still be seeing you in the NG Rita. ~AS

We offered Rita the $89 price point, which was a lot lower than the $149 upgrade from Poser 4 she was requesting, so I am unsure as to what the price offer has to do with the situation here. Unfortunately, you all should note that she is legally not eligible for upgrade pricing, having already purchased and transferred her rights to upgrade pricing to another customer, but Curious Labs made a very special exception, not only granting her rights to upgrade, but at the early adopters price. I am unsure as to what else Curious Labs could do to make this situation better. Sorry!

"I don't spend time at the usenet group. Perhaps I am missing out on something." Just to make a few points clear. 1. The Poser usenet group is a place where we police ourselves. There are no jackbooted thugs to tell you what you can and cannot talk about. Allmost every type of image is welcome and allmost every type of post is also welcome. We do not, however, contrary to popular belief, allow child pornography or copyrighted materials to be posted there. Both of those things will get you booted from your isp in a heartbeat and we will turn your asses in that fast ! You can read the Poser newsgroup Faq and Charter here: http://www.ab3dp.com/ ab3dp = alt.binaries.3d.poser 2. Don Tatro did not start the Model Challenge but did support the idea that we all at the NG came up with. Hawktoey and I bought some webspace and we run the MC out of there along with tutorials, the Faq and the Charter and also the Poser files which are little bio's of the people that post to the newsgroup. Chevy runs http://www.shar3d.com which houses models for those that don't have their own webspace. 3. Chevy, you know I'll do my part if it comes down to getting Rita setup. One way or another, she will be taken care of !

Tori, if the $89.00 still stands, I will execute the transaction immediately. ::::: Opera :::::

Sorry if I misrepresented anything guys. In my memory Don suggested the model challenge but that was awhile ago, and since turning 40 my memory is not what it once was. I do remember what Don's first model contribution was, but I can't say it here at Renderosity. ;-) I'm glad to hear that you've kept it going, badco. Very cool of you. Hm, I have an idea that might help ... I'll drop by the NG later tonight. Dean aka "Dean West" at the NG.

Opera, sounds like you have a similar idea. Perhaps I can help pitch in. IM me if you like.

Not a problem Dean. Its not like my memo........ummm what were we talking about ?

LOL. Wait, why am I laughing?

Wait just a minute, this isn't sexkittens.com ! Who in the heck are you and where are my pants ?

lol bad co your so bad but thats why we love ya :)