I started trying to get answers to a couple of questions by emailing sales@curiouslabs.com yesterday, but after several attempts I have decided to (try) and get their phone # from their website. Now, I can't even access it. (this page cannot be displayed, try again later deal.) These are the things I am trying to determine. 1.)I want to buy the Pro Pack and Poser 4 combo platter. I wanna buy it NOW. But if I do, will I be entitled to the upgrade of Poser 5 at the $129.00 upgrade price? Or does the special bundle pricing leave me on the outside looking in? 2.) I am buying the propack under the assumption that I will still need it to integrate into Lightwave after the new patch for poser 5 is released. Does that sound correct? If I will not be needing it when the new plugin is updated for poser 5, I won't get it because I DO intend on getting P5 as soon as they are ready to sell it. 3.) Any Canadians out there know what shipping costs to Ontario? 4.) Finally... does Curious Labs accept international money orders? A certain spouse of mine will snap is she discovers that perfectly good gardening supply funds were spent on software when the credit card receipt comes in......and I don't wanna sleep in the den again; it wrecks my back and I hate sharing it with the dog. Sorry to bother you guys with all this, maybe a CL official can help me out. Thanks! krimpr@sprint.ca

1. All you need to be eligible for the upgrade prices to Poser 5 is a valid Poser 4 and/or Pro Pack serial number. If you buy the combo, you'll be ready to upgrade. 2) I'm certain that CL will update and provide the plugins for Poser 5 separately, with no need for the old Pro Pack; it's just a matter of time. After all, not everyone who purchases P5 will have owned the Pro Pack, and if CL did otherwise, it would leave a lot of P5 owners out of the loop. 4) I don't know about international money orders, but I hope they accept pennies. I've got an urn full, and it has CL's name on it.

Thanks Little Dragon

Howdy! Yes, I am swamped (only CS person here, also doing website, the beta program, legal stuff and all the other catch all stuff around here) it seems EVERYONE that visits the website has a question about something and yes, our site was down for a few minutes, but it is back. Here are some answers: 1. Yep, $129 using the ProPack serial number you will get in your bundle. 2. Please see the statement under the Poser 5 product information regarding the ProPack. 3. Ya know, we are actually working on finding a cheaper shipping method to Canada. Right now for a Poser 5 box it will be about $55. Please don't send me email yelling at me about this. I really AM trying to get you guys a better price. :) 4. Yes, we take International Money orders drawn on US funds. I am currently working on the new mail order form and should have that available on our website next week sometime. PLEASE don't make me count pennies. :( It will just take me longer to ship your order. Tori cl

Whew... Thanks Tori... $55.00 is O.k, but don't go away! $279 +55 international money order being sent to where? Can you hear me? I'm clicking my refresh button now...

sent here, but WAIT until I get the darn form up...we aren't taking even mail orders yet.

Awww ... but my bank doesn't want to count them, either! (They so enjoy my visits.)

well, if the bank counts them in their cool machine, I bet you'll get Poser 5 a lot faster (cause I can process orders and not count pennies) and your order may come a lot closer to the bottom of the pile if it is lighter. :) PLUS, you will save on shipping charges for your actual order and save money for all the cool content people are going to create for Poser 5.

Oh, all right. I'm getting used to the blind panic and screaming at my local branch, anyway. * walks away grumbling *

I love coinstar. We have a coinstar pig. We fill him with change and then take the cash we get back and put it at the bottom and start over. We are in our early 20's now and are going to keep doing this until we retire and then take a very long vacation. :) We were going to save for the kids that might come along so that maybe they could go to college...but NAH!

Starlet hi! Since you've mentioned trying to reduce the cost to Canadian customers, does that mean you're working on a better price for Europe too? Er UK in particular.......hmm.........does it. Huh. Please? Baz :o)

We are working on a way to reduce SHIPPING cost to canadian customers. Since we ship to the UK from Ireland, you guys get a pretty good break. For some darn reason, UPS, Fedex and Airborne express want to rob people blind shipping across that USA/Canada border. We give pretty much the same distribution cost to everyone. Where they set their margins is really out of our control. As far as online store pricing for Europe. We have priced our products in the European online store in order not to compete directly with our European distributors in your region as per the Curious Labs contract. Please contact your local distributor to compare prices before you purchase.

If that's $55 shipping costs to Canada in US funds I may have to rethink my purchase of Poser 5 :-( It'll end up being close to $400 CA at that rate.....plus we get hit with a huge duty tax too :-( :-(

Hey, didn't I just say we are working to reduce it?! Don't throw your order out. My goal is to half that. :) (Please you think I like all the angry canadian email I get. I just forward it to UPS!) No promises. tori

I haven't seen any CoinStars in my area, Legume. Thanks for the suggestion, though. This urn weighs over a hundred pounds now, and it's only two-thirds full. Time to cash it in, I suppose. Kind of a pity. The coins make such a lovely pile ....

I hope you don't get a lot of angry email from us Canadians. We're usually such nice folks :-) Can you try and do something about the duty tax then?! ;-)

Thanks for your reply Starlet. Can't blame a guy for trying huh? :o) Baz

So, Your Euro pricing is designed not to compete with your European partners. Right? I wonder if Mario Monti is doing anything today... :) later jb

I have brought software across the Canadian US border to the charmed and beautiful land known as Vancouver by 2 means.

One, is to have the shipper use UPS/Fedex/etc/etc/etc/Air Canada. Your comment regarding the hit at the border is correct as the above named companies do not separate out the value of the software (no duty) and the printed docs (duty). Also you are guaranteed to get stung with GST and PST.

The second has been to have them ship by the fastest method possible in US Mail. I get to deal with Customs and they seem quite happy with a 95% no duty 5% duty cut in most things. Also, I dodge the PST, which may or may not be legal so I really didn't say that. :-)

Incidentally, the record is that the stuff generally arrives faster and to my door with US Mail as opposed to slower and having to drive miles to some seriously ugly industrial park way out in the burbs to pick up my package.

Of course my main whine with CL is that they use an address verification system for credit card orders, for secutity I understand. My issuer won't do that, also for security reasons. (I might be able to talk them into it if I notify them ahead of time.) I'm hoping CL will start using the 3 digit security number thing on new cards and bypass the adress verification but I'm not counting on it. So...it will be off to buy a money order if everything else fails cause I'm gonna get this come hell, high water, Canada Customs, credit card issuers who won't respond to address verification systems and vendors who insist on using them. :-)

Oh, and with the above, if CL would put on thier customs declaration a breakdown of the value of software and the (lesser) value of docs that would help no matter which carrier hauls it across the border into the land of the 60 cent dollar. :-)

ttfn

Yeah, my preference for Canadian shipping is also USPS Priority delivery. It's cheaper than couriers, reasonably fast, and they deliver to PO boxes. That's good since I can't have things delivered at work and I don't want to take a day off to wait at home. And like ttfn mentioned, the courier pick-up depots are in the middle of nowhere and hard to reach without a car. Blah.

Unfortunately, we will not be using USPS at this time, just due to tracking issues, etc. I'm working on it, k? We are a growing company that will constantly be redefining our processes as we go. I'm sure most of you have seen the staff picture on our website by now and realize we don't quite have microsoft's resources yet. :)

Add another Canadian vote for just mailing it. Among, for other reasons, their propaganda to the contrary, Fedex and UPS do not deliver to the community where I live. Anything sent to me by courier from those US companies ends up arriving by mail anyway (so the tracking issue is sort of pointless).