don't hit me: searching UBB licence

[Steve Machol]

I really don't want to appear to be IP bashing because frankly I left them behind and couldn't care less anymore. However I did see some of the emails from IP to Hooper, and quite honestly I've never seen a more unprofessional display of pettiness from any software manufacturer in my life!

The truth is that Jelsoft stands head and shoulders above Infopop - not only in the superiority of it's product, but in the respect it has for it's customers and community. This latest episode only widens the the credibility and ethical gap between the two companies.

[Hooper]

Update:

I am now told that I have my members privleges restored. The only opology to this point is how long it has taken to find out what happened to my account. Yea right. I'll now await a decision as to whether or not I can sell my License.


This was just sent to me anonymously.

"I happened to see your post on Infopop. The last guy I dealt with on eBay was being put through the same by Infopop, although his lawyer said that since they did not prohibit resale in their user agreement, that he was free to transfer the license to someone else."

Hmmm...

[Reef Board]

Hooper ~

Remember, you need infopops written consent to sell your license. Im just reading it off of the Terms and agreements page.

Phil~

[Hooper]

I already sent an email off to them.

just waiting on a response as to whether they want to keep me from selling this license. The trouble ticket I turned in had plainly stated my intentions of sale with my Lease. They are fully aware that I had intentions of selling the License. No response was made to this. Just that this shouldn't have happened. Ok, sure.
Well I did of course print that out too.

Still doesn't solve the situation. Not one mention of what the ticket was about as far as the sale.

We'll see. Things always change quickly when you have a feeling you are about to lose a whole lot of business.

[Reef Board]

So . . . do you think this all happend because you mentioned that you had it up for sale on eBay? I can't see why you can't sell a license. I mean, you paid for it, you own it, you should be able to do what ever you want with it.

Phil~

[Hooper]

Well heck ya....

Sure I believe all of this is happening because of what is being posted in here along with what I wrote at the eBay auction and the Infopop site. I knew they would do this. I also know they are reading this. They should have just let me sell my software in the first place and I too would have left their pettiness behind. No bids meant no sale which would have put them in the wrong for cancelling my license membership. No?

They can't even make me look wrong. Too many witnesses to the behavior.

I will say this though, If indeed I gain the right taken from me to sell my License, I will place it back on eBay. I will not sell in these forums. I would prefer all to purchase vBulletin to save themselves the grief. It was most lenient of vBulletin to even allow a thread to ask for a purchase of a UBB License. which again in my opinion shows what the vBulliten team is made of by allowing this thread and UBB sale questions in the first place. The moderators could have very well said, "Hey, If you want the other, go over there." But I would prefer all that have the knowledge they gain here to purchase a vBulletin License. The UBB software may just be ok for someone who wants to run the cgi saga. But I will not advertise the license here again. Not that I went out of my way to do that.

[Skeptical]

Hooper, I suggest you post your story to as many bbs's out there as possible so nobody else gets burned.

What really struck me was the underhandedness of it all. Sneaking in a rule and then retroactively enforcing it without even a courtesy warning, especially since you paid $200+ for it, is just not right.

This is why I love vB. You know after you purchase a license from Jelsoft that they won't be increasing prices 5 times a year, ending the lease license, promising something and not delivering, etc... But most of all I admire their respect for their customers. I feel Jelsoft really appreciates our business and go out of their way to make us feel welcome.

Anyways, lets not go into ip bashing... So that this thread may stay open and help others in the future.

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by Ed Sullivan
If someone sells a license "under the table", there's nothing stopping them from keeping the license info, therefore giving two parties access to the members' area. Requiring permission/contacting the company is merely a means to combat this -- they could then generate a new license/password and cancel the first account's access.

Ed, I respectfully disagree on this one. Warez folks aren't going to go through that much trouble to obtain software without paying for it. Believe it or not there are chat rooms on Aol, IRC, and a tons of other places these crooks can readily go to get ANYTHING they want. And I mean ANYTHING!

If a company were truly concerned for the opportunist pirate, they'd require that the license transfer notice take place AFTER a sale, without any prior need for permission.

The only reason I can think of for prohibiting the reselling of licenses is simply for profit concerns. Why would company XXX want to miss out on $400 of potential profit?

[WildWayz]

I bought myUBB6 license back in December last year, and I have never used it. I posted onto webhostingtalk.com forums about selling the license and was flamed.

I tried searching infopop's site for any postings on it, and nothing.

I really do not want this license and would love to sell it, but I don't want to break any rules :/

James

[tubedogg]

OK I have been thinking about this and I think I might have come up with the logic behind it. This doesn't make it right and it doesn't excuse their behavior relating to it, but at least it might shed a little light on it.

Something tells me their logic is this: What's to stop a company from having an employee buy a $250 license and then "sell" it to his company, who then uses it on their site? This gets around IP's latest price scheme, which for a large company can run in the thousands of dollars a year. Maybe this is totally off-base but at least it makes some sense to me. Between this and the piracy reasoning Ed mentioned, we might have come up with it.

That said, I was reviewing their license agreement again last night. The line about IP reserving the right to change the agreement at any time might not hold up under eventual court scrutiny but I know it is there to allow exactly this behavior and I have a feeling its' to keep the casual "pissed-off" customer from filing a lawsuit. Obviously a person like Hooper would look further into it, but the normal person might see that and figure there's nothing they can do.

My favorite vB feature? Crap that's a hard question. I love all the mod functions and I love PMs and the birthdays. I love it all.

[chrispadfield]

nah tubbedog i don't think that is it. If you buy a personal license that is what you buy. If then a company came and used that license for their company then they are breaking the license agreement in the same way that if the company pretended to be smaller than it was and got a cheaper license type thing.

The only real reason for doing this is to sell another copy of the software. Sensible business in a way but forcing retroactivly is surley illegal (?) and well just ads more to people's dislike of their company. Oh well, this is another good thread to pass onto people to convince them to choose VB over UBB anyway.

[Steve Machol]

As an aside, has anyone noticed how dead the UBB Forums are these days. I visted there after about four days abscence and I swear there were less new posts than I see on this forum in one day! It appears the price increases, UBB6 fiasco and increasing arrogance are finally catching up to them.

Now to turn this into a positive comment so the thread doesn't get closed.

I like the fact that the vB developers take all bug reports seriously and acknowledge problems as soon as they've confirmed them. The added feature of posting these fixes prior to the official next relaese if very nice indeed. Good job Jelsoft!

[Chris Schreiber]

Originally posted by smachol
As an aside, has anyone noticed how dead the UBB Forums are these days.

Yes, I noticed the same thing myself... no one seems to be posting there anymore....

(Maybe InfoPop is deleting too many user posts)

[Hooper]

In for lunch. Have a busy week going. Thought I would go check my access to the members area.

"We could not find a match for that license number and password. Please use your back button to try again."

12 hours since I received an email telling me that access had been restored to the Members Area.

Don't ask me. But I printed it. Gotta go.... See ya...................

[klisis]

Well, I sent them an e-mail (to sales@infopop), saying I would like to sell my license to scotty and tell me what I needed to do. I hope I will get an reply. It's been nearly 24 hours now. If Infopop ignores my e-mail, it means they do not care.