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 Topic: Handango Reneges on it’s own Raffle Prize!
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speakeasy
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Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 6:46am | IP Logged
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This is what I sent to Handango -I hope this helps!!
Dear Sirs,
I have enjoyed the selection of software available on the
Handago website, in particularly John Cody's Vnotes app.
The application is very useful to keep track on my
work development and history.
As a director of a small company in the telecommunications
market here in the UK and with a vast amount of experience in dealing with
multi-nationals, I find once again that the 'Big Boy' is bully in the
playground.
Firstly, I have read the correspondence with John and
Handago and it appears clearly that there has been a misunderstanding of how he
could use his Advertsing allowance.
I can understand that an employee has made a mistake on how
his Ad allowance should be used. Obviously to maximise market sales it makes
sense to be flexible on the advertising dates to promote the products when they
are ready!
But a conclusion to completely terminate your relationship
with with John Cody, when clearly there is much benefit to Handango to promote
his excellent products is totally unreasonable and unfair.
His products, from my experience, are completely a breed
apart. It would be very sad to loose the opportunity to upgrade to Windows
mobile 5 that I wish to use and not have the ability to run his applications.
Please consider for all ' Handango Users' the great loss
there will be for the best customer user experience and variety of software
provided by Handango 's excellent product range.
I would like to remind you that it is the individual
creative entrepreneur that has an idea and makes it happen that makes big
Corporate America successful today in the market place!!
It would be great to continue to use John Cody’s products
and purchase them from your excellent company now and in the future.
Isaac Levi
Sales Director
Speakeasy Telecom (UK)
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notaliberal
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Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Posts: 18
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 8:28am | IP Logged
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Wow, I still can't believe the last two communications from them.
John, patience is a virtue, and man you showed yourself to be virtuous son-of-a-gun through that email thread. You were much more polite and professional than I ever could have been through that garbage!
Anyway, I tried my best to convey my disappointment to them. Here's what I wrote in case you don't keep record:
To whom it may concern,
I have recently been made aware of the egregious manner in which you dealt with one of your long time customers, John Cody. I have read through the email exchange you had with John, in it's unedited entirety, and I am left to feel nothing less than appalled.
While I did not purchase John's application through your site, but from somewhere else, I have purchased many pieces of software from you in the past for my ipaq.
Not only am I the "leading tech geek" in my circle of friends, but I am also a beta tester for numerous developers and I am currently getting my microsoft certification. I stay on the bleeding edge of current technology, and as such most of the people I know come to me for help and advice. Many times they come to me with questions of where they can get some new utility to do some specific task on their smartphone/pocket PC.
Why am I telling you this?
I am trying to make sure you understand that when you treat customers as you have treated your long time customer John Cody, you can easily offend far more people than you think. I can absolutely assure you that, unless you find it in yourselves to correct the situation you have created by reneging on your raffle award, I will make every effort to steer people away from using you to purchase products or services. Not only will I NOT recommend your site to anybody, but I will actively recommend it as the one place NOT to use for their mobile software needs.
After reading the email exchange between Handango and John, particularily the portions wherein you blatantly admit that you have no written documentation of the 1 year expiration for his balance with you, and you don't even make him aware of this expiration until 7 months into his year, I have decided to dedicate an entire blog site to the exchange. I will not be posting this link for you, at the risk of your team trying to intentionally crash my server, but I will be bringing it online in the next couple of days. I have a large part in the mobile community and many of the popular forums, so I will be posting a link on the forums for people to visit and make themselves aware of your business practices. I will also keep an eye on this situation, as best I can, with the hopes of being able to someday update the blog entry for this (and the forum posts) with the news that you finally found it in yourselves to resolve this matter FAIRLY with Mr. Cody, assumably by giving him his full allowance of ad time, and doing so without imposing some ridiculous time limit or expiration date with him.
Please take my suggestion seriously and correct this situation with John. I am a very heavy smartphone user, and his Alerts! program is one of my more important apps. Your closing his account, and therefore reducing his sales, is going to severly impact the development of this app, and is going to impact the functionality and usefullness of my device. There was supposed to be an update just around the corner, but this has been stalled somewhat due to the problems you have created.
I hope you come to understand that it is in the best interest of handango to correct this situation AND to make it up to John Cody for the hassle you put him through. It has been my experience that the mobile community is a rather tight-nit bunch who will al be very supportive of the developer in a situation such as this, where the developer has been so obviosuly wronged by the large company...
Thank you for reading,
Jeff Bluml
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GaryM
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Joined: 18 Sep 2006
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 9:04am | IP Logged
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John, if Handango doesn't reverse its decision after reading emails from your concerned customers, there is another approach that you can try.
Check out a site called www.thesqueakywheel.com. This is a site where anyone can post a complaint for others to see. Complaints are automatically submitted to several search engines. When someone searches for the particular company by name, it's likely that the complaint will appear high up on the search results.
Whenever anyone clicks on the search result item, an email message is automatically sent to the company which is the subject of the complaint. This automatic mechanism can generate hundreds or even thousands of emails from people who are potential customers of the particular company. It's an effective way of giving the little guy some additional clout in his dealings with the BIG GUY.
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maxh2003
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Joined: 25 Oct 2006
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 9:05am | IP Logged
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I sent Handango a few of my own thoughts too (and then had to register on this forum so I could post 'em!)
Good luck, John. You have honour on your side!
maxh2003
~~~
Hi there
Regarding Handango dropping Omnisoft's products, I've read some of the other comments that have been sent to you and I have to agree with them. Particularly I must observe that the Smartphone and PocketPC communities are tight-knit indeed and this sort of information gets around very quickly - which is how I heard about this. Now you're on MSMobiles' front page, you can expect *everyone* in the community to find out in short order.
I've purchased about $250 of software in the last couple of years. I will *not*, under any circumstances, buy any more software through Handango until this petty and foolhardy decision is reversed. Moreover I will advise the 20-or-so people whom I have previously convinced to buy Windows Mobile devices *not* to get their software through Handango, and why.
FWIW, if it was *my* company and I was receiving this much flak from the core audience, I would rescind the decision, come clean with a "we were petty but we've changed our ways" statement and give John Cody something worthwhile - like a non-expiring advertising budget? - as a sweetener. That way I'd get some positive publicity from it. Oh yeah, and I'd just *really* hope that John was less petty than Handango and agreed to come back on board.
You lost about $150 per year from me alone.
Max Hedge
www.gamesforsmartphones.com
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notaliberal
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Joined: 24 Jul 2006
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 9:56am | IP Logged
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Oh the irony!
I just got an email from SBSH software, announcing that they have partnered with Handango. :(
So, I replied to SBSH and told them about the situation and that I will certainly NOT be using Handango for any purchases. I also gave them the link to John's email thread, and then I made sure to copy partners@handango.com on the email as well.
Just thought I'd share that bit of news...
Good luck John, they have to wake up and smell the discontent sooner or later...
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Bulis
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Joined: 05 Mar 2004
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 11:25am | IP Logged
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I have been a customer of Handango for a couple of years and have bought numerous mobile applications from you and hope to continue to do so as the service I've received has always been prompt and painless.
I also have a keen interest in software development and I'm always "banging on" about "how generous the programming community is" to my customers. Developers from all over the world converge to find solutions to each others problems with no mention of any financial rewards - it's just their way of saying thankyou to the thousands of developers who have gone before and done the same.
Software developers tend to be at the forefront of technological advancements and therefore have a major influence over what software to buy and where to buy it, many companies have fallen by the wayside based on their opinion.
Which is why I was so surprised to hear how unfairly Handango had treated John Cody. Software developers like John are the heart & soul of your business, if I were to treat my loyal customers with the same contempt you appear to have shown Mr. Cody I wouldn't be in business for very long - and rightly so.
Bear in mind that Handango only offer a service and service providers come & go as new providers offer a better customer service.
I am led to believe that you informed Mr. Cody that he had won $5,000 dollars worth of advertising, yet when he went to claim his prize you wouldn't honour your agreement. This leads me to believe that any emails I receive from Handango offering a similar prize draw isn't worth the paper it's written on!
Power to the peaceful.
__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for & why it is here, it will instantly disappear & be replaced by something even more bizarre & inexplicable.
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GaryM
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Joined: 18 Sep 2006
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 11:44am | IP Logged
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I just entered "Handango" in google news and guess what came up as the top item: "Handango persecuties developers : Omnisoft account closed", which is the posting on mobilesoft.com.
Wow! Word certainly does get around quickly.
Even at this early date, it's my guess that the bad publicity on Mobilesoft, publicized by reporting on google news, will lose Handango sales of several time the $5000 that they saved by (illegally?) terminating John's contract
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tlunsf
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Joined: 25 Oct 2006
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 11:52am | IP Logged
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I'm of the opinion that you have legal remedies. There may be a lawyer out there who wants the publicity, and it would get Omnisoft some free advertising at the same time.
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jkovacs
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Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 1:30pm | IP Logged
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John,
Based on what I've read I am deeply dissappointed in Handango for their actions. What they've done simply isn't right and I support you. I sent the following message:
To Whom It May Concern:
After reading the detailed account of what has transpired between Handango and OmniSoft I want to let you know that I am both dismayed and deeply dissappointed. Handango's actions to date, including the cancellation of the OmniSoft account, have been unfair and unnecessary. OmniSoft and the John Cody franchise of applications is highly regarded among th user community and and John Cody is well respected, talented developer of mobile solutions. To be treated this way by a partner organization is very disturbing.
As a consumer of mobile applications and a regular customer of Handango I am now questioning whether I want to do business with a company that would treat a small developer like this. Nowhere has the anonymous "Partners Team" indicated that John is wrong--in fact, s/he admits shortcomings on Handango's part--but you still treat him like this even after he has tried to compromise with you.
By these actions I believe Handango is hurting all mobile application developers and thereby hurting the mobile user community. I ask that you kindly reconsider your actions and fully restore the cancelled account and honor the advertising credits awarded to OmniSoft. Its the right thing to do and until such time I will no longer make any purchases through Handango and I will do my best to pursuade others to follow as well. Regards, Joe Kovacs
I wish you luck and hope that Handango does the right thing and until they do I will not make any purchases through them.
Joe K.
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shaneaus
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Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25 Oct 2006 at 2:09pm | IP Logged
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John, I am apalled that they would close your account to avoid honoring a raffle prize. I have never heard of such stupid deplorable b#$% Sh#@.
I sent them them the following email. Although, I wish I had read this forum first as there were some good ideas/arguments and I may have written mine differently:
Dear Handango Partners Team,
I purchased my Smartphone about 1 year and a half ago. I searched your site and a couple of others that I located online for some software for my phone. The software that excited me the most was John Cody's software, specifically Alerts! and Vnotes. I purchased Alerts! when he released the WM5 version. I have been anxiously awaiting the new WM5 version of Vnotes.
I have read an extensive posting on his website regarding the communication between your team and Mr. Cody. It does seem to me that he was asking entirely reasonable questions regarding your service and the raffle prize. As I read the communication between your company and Mr. Cody I also had the same questions that Mr. Cody had asked.
It appeared to me that almost all of the questions he had could probably have been answered if you had just sent him a message to call someone and you could have resolved the whole thing by telephone. In my experience being able to verbalize and discuss an issue allows for the specifics to be addressed in a more efficient manner than to debate continuous points via email that are difficult to describe by text.
He won a raffle prize from your company. That doesn't seem to be in dispute. However, normally when a person wins a raffle (or any prize) any restrictions to the usage of that prize would be delineated at the time the raffle was won. Mr. Cody has stated that he was not advised of those restrictions. So, the prize should have been honored. For you to dishonor your prize because the winner asked reasonable questions that you didn't want to answer was very unprofessional.
It sounded like you would have had a John Cody software advertising blitz for a few days! His software is very well designed, easy to use, and he provides excellent customer support. All that could have done is helped you both by making sales for him and for you. You may have lost some revenue from other customers in the short time. But, you could have also advertised that his ads were the result of winning a raffle and that would have made your organization look good.
You chose to dishonor your company, your raffle, and Mr. Cody by not only not honoring the raffle but... by closing his account????
Regarding closing his account - in my opinion that is entirely inappropriate. He has been with your company for a long time. I have purchased several programs from your site only because I was attracted to your site by his software. I would have continued to purchase software from your site. However, your removing his accounts from your service will hamper his financial ability to upgrade/update his programs. His programs are the one I use the most on my Smartphone. If the removal of his software from your site causes his software to not be updated or sold in the future then I will boycott your site forever and I will advise all of my friends that have Smartphones and PDA's to do likewise!
You could have informed him that you felt it was becoming too difficult to honor a raffle awarded by previous management and that had been awarded a year in the past and allowed his software to continue to be advertised in a normal manner. He may have been upset but agreed. You didn't even offer him that option!
You didn't even offer him the simple courtesy of a phone call to discuss your business. It seems to me that you are exercising poor business practice and poor business decisions. It is your business and those types of decisions are yours to make. But, if you don't allow him to sell/advertise his product on your site then you won't have my business or any business from my trusted friends.... EVER AGAIN!
I also went to the msmobiles web site and posted a comment.
Best luck!!
I assisted with beta testing for Alerts! And, although you gave me a free coupon for doing so I still paid for your program. I will do the same for Vnotes. And, I hope that the other beta testers will also do so to support you due to your loss of revenue by Handango. I know it's not much. But, its about the best I can do.
Shane - loyal customer... of Omnisoft
__________________
Using a Cingular 2125 with WM5
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