Comments for PHP Software Reviews http://www.phpsoftwarereviews.com Reliable and trustworthy opinions Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:28:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 Comment on SkaDate by Jeremy http://www.phpsoftwarereviews.com/?p=17&cpage=1#comment-15 Jeremy Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:45:39 +0000 http://www.phpsoftwarereviews.com/?p=17#comment-15 Skadate has a very buggy script, and they are dishonest. I say this having fallen to them as a customer. I purchased the script to have on my own hosting and had skadate install it. They stated they needed to have Shell Access for the install. What they needed shell access for was to sabatoge the normal settings of the independent hosting company I was using over theirs, so it would appear that their script did not work on that host, and I would be forced to enter a monthly contract for hosting with them. I say this with knowledge as I later moved to another host on my own, and simply uploaded the zip myself, without any shell access, and guess what? It worked! Fortunately, I had a very good hosting company that alerted me to the sabatoge right after the install, as all of my sites went whacky--I hosted several sites on one account, and when Skadate screwed with the Shell settings, they through off ALL of my sites. Maybe if I had one site I would not have been tripped to this dirty trick of theirs, but it backfired on them. My USA host fixed the sabatoge, and guess what? The skadate script worked fine. If that wasn't enough, the handful of support items I submitted to skadate on my paid support tickets, were incompetently handled. They always seemed not to know how to figure it out, it must have had something to do with egads, my independent hosting company, but of course it would all be fixed if I paid skadate to host me! Fortunately I was able to search online on my own, and figure out and solve the mysterious problems they said they couldn't figure out, and I am no techie! They did solve a couple of little things, but the major support item I needed and wanted---guess what? They tried to find a way to make me pay more money for this item to be fixed. And that has been their tactic---try to milk you for all kinds of money once they have you as a customer. Then if that wasn't bad enough, recently skadate has shut down their forum as a move to remove any searchable help reference to their software and force you to pay they for support. And they have the gall to almost double the price of the support that I found to be next to worthless, but worthless it seemed intentionally to move me to have them host my site and make monthly money off of me. Their former support had been around $50 a month, and now they have the gall to charge $95 a month for support. I mean what kind of software do you purchase that then demands you pay them $95 a month for any kind of support? I mean who of us here who are real citizens of the USA would pay microsoft $95 a month for support on Word or Excel, or any pricey software? And who made sure to shut down access to their user forum? I continue to find bugs, and quite frankly, I am just going to scrap their script and use something like joomla, which is free and reliable, has an open, longstanding user forum, and can be trusted. Simply do not buy skadate dating software; if they were honest and trustworthy, I would say yes. But I have found them to be dishonest, and when paid for support, poorly responsive or not at all. The forum moderator can see my ip is a real us ip, but for my protection from skadate sabatoging my site before I switch it over to another software, I have of course used a different name than they know me as their customer---as they sabatoged my site when I was brand new to them and on good standing! So what will they try to do when they read my unhappy comments. But what I have to say is completely true. I am very disappointed with them, because they could have had good business being honest, but instead they want to bully money out of customers and not give standard support. That's my truthful experience as well as my opinion on my real experience with them. I found their software a money trap to bleed you for more, and in this economy, who needs that! Skadate has a very buggy script, and they are dishonest. I say this having fallen to them as a customer. I purchased the script to have on my own hosting and had skadate install it. They stated they needed to have Shell Access for the install.

What they needed shell access for was to sabatoge the normal settings of the independent hosting company I was using over theirs, so it would appear that their script did not work on that host, and I would be forced to enter a monthly contract for hosting with them.

I say this with knowledge as I later moved to another host on my own, and simply uploaded the zip myself, without any shell access, and guess what? It worked!

Fortunately, I had a very good hosting company that alerted me to the sabatoge right after the install, as all of my sites went whacky–I hosted several sites on one account, and when Skadate screwed with the Shell settings, they through off ALL of my sites.

Maybe if I had one site I would not have been tripped to this dirty trick of theirs, but it backfired on them. My USA host fixed the sabatoge, and guess what? The skadate script worked fine. If that wasn’t enough, the handful of support items I submitted to skadate on my paid support tickets, were incompetently handled.

They always seemed not to know how to figure it out, it must have had something to do with egads, my independent hosting company, but of course it would all be fixed if I paid skadate to host me! Fortunately I was able to search online on my own, and figure out and solve the mysterious problems they said they couldn’t figure out, and I am no techie! They did solve a couple of little things, but the major support item I needed and wanted—guess what? They tried to find a way to make me pay more money for this item to be fixed. And that has been their tactic—try to milk you for all kinds of money once they have you as a customer.

Then if that wasn’t bad enough, recently skadate has shut down their forum as a move to remove any searchable help reference to their software and force you to pay they for support. And they have the gall to almost double the price of the support that I found to be next to worthless, but worthless it seemed intentionally to move me to have them host my site and make monthly money off of me.

Their former support had been around $50 a month, and now they have the gall to charge $95 a month for support. I mean what kind of software do you purchase that then demands you pay them $95 a month for any kind of support? I mean who of us here who are real citizens of the USA would pay microsoft $95 a month for support on Word or Excel, or any pricey software? And who made sure to shut down access to their user forum?

I continue to find bugs, and quite frankly, I am just going to scrap their script and use something like joomla, which is free and reliable, has an open, longstanding user forum, and can be trusted. Simply do not buy skadate dating software; if they were honest and trustworthy, I would say yes. But I have found them to be dishonest, and when paid for support, poorly responsive or not at all.

The forum moderator can see my ip is a real us ip, but for my protection from skadate sabatoging my site before I switch it over to another software, I have of course used a different name than they know me as their customer—as they sabatoged my site when I was brand new to them and on good standing! So what will they try to do when they read my unhappy comments. But what I have to say is completely true.

I am very disappointed with them, because they could have had good business being honest, but instead they want to bully money out of customers and not give standard support. That’s my truthful experience as well as my opinion on my real experience with them. I found their software a money trap to bleed you for more, and in this economy, who needs that!

]]> Comment on eMeeting by Joselyn http://www.phpsoftwarereviews.com/?p=9&cpage=1#comment-13 Joselyn Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:36:15 +0000 http://www.phpsoftwarereviews.com/?p=9#comment-13 I have to comment on this article which I found while trawling the internet for more information on Jim Ugi, who is seemingly the one and only person behind emeeting. All seems well with this software until you actually go live with it, then flaw upon flaw just springs out of the woodwork! Various random changes are made to members profiles, head ares cropped, profile views vanish and friend requests spotaneously come and go, monitoring members does not monitor members, as for who is online, it really is all or nothing literally and when someone last logged in is entirely fictional rendering it worth less page space than Jim's helpline phone numbers! These may all seem like little problems but when people are paying you to be able to communicate and display their details on a site and they cannot then it really is a problem, so use the help and suppport you say..... a seemingly logical answers except Jim ( also known as Rob in the forums) has two approaches, one is to ignore you completely , the other is to say he tried it , it works fine! Obviously neither of these achieves much and is certainly no good for keeping your paying members paying! The phone numbers ( BOTH) are permanently linked to an answerphone, Jim only calls back if you are a new customer looking to buy, the email is pretty much a one way point of contact the minute that you have a problem, and submitting a ticket may be easy but getting any kind of useful response is completely impossible. You can't even access the forum until it is too late and you have already paid but you soon see that everybody has the same problems that Jim denies existing.Do not buy this software, do not consider buying this software, do not even waste your time looking at the demo! As I said it all seems fine until you want it to function with members, the worst of it is by the time you get that far the only option that you are left with is to pay someone independant lots more than better software would have cost in the first place or to change it or just shut all down and start again waisting weeks of planning and advertsing budget all because of Jim Ugi and his emeeting or as I prefer to call it E - NOT - MEETING! I have to comment on this article which I found while trawling the internet for more information on Jim Ugi, who is seemingly the one and only person behind emeeting. All seems well with this software until you actually go live with it, then flaw upon flaw just springs out of the woodwork! Various random changes are made to members profiles, head ares cropped, profile views vanish and friend requests spotaneously come and go, monitoring members does not monitor members, as for who is online, it really is all or nothing literally and when someone last logged in is entirely fictional rendering it worth less page space than Jim’s helpline phone numbers! These may all seem like little problems but when people are paying you to be able to communicate and display their details on a site and they cannot then it really is a problem, so use the help and suppport you say….. a seemingly logical answers except Jim ( also known as Rob in the forums) has two approaches, one is to ignore you completely , the other is to say he tried it , it works fine! Obviously neither of these achieves much and is certainly no good for keeping your paying members paying! The phone numbers ( BOTH) are permanently linked to an answerphone, Jim only calls back if you are a new customer looking to buy, the email is pretty much a one way point of contact the minute that you have a problem, and submitting a ticket may be easy but getting any kind of useful response is completely impossible. You can’t even access the forum until it is too late and you have already paid but you soon see that everybody has the same problems that Jim denies existing.Do not buy this software, do not consider buying this software, do not even waste your time looking at the demo! As I said it all seems fine until you want it to function with members, the worst of it is by the time you get that far the only option that you are left with is to pay someone independant lots more than better software would have cost in the first place or to change it or just shut all down and start again waisting weeks of planning and advertsing budget all because of Jim Ugi and his emeeting or as I prefer to call it E - NOT - MEETING!

]]> Comment on webDate by tim http://www.phpsoftwarereviews.com/?p=13&cpage=1#comment-12 tim Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:56:37 +0000 http://www.phpsoftwarereviews.com/?p=13#comment-12 I will tell any and everyone DO NOT, DO NOT, buy this P.O.S. If you ever have a problem with the software to bad. it takes them days if not weeks to answer your question and 90% of the time they will tell you it will be fixed in the next version. version 4 has been on the boards for right at 2 YEARS now. I will never buy anything from them again. i do not care if they where going to sell me one million dollars for $10 would pass it up. I will tell any and everyone DO NOT, DO NOT, buy this P.O.S. If you ever have a problem with the software to bad. it takes them days if not weeks to answer your question and 90% of the time they will tell you it will be fixed in the next version. version 4 has been on the boards for right at 2 YEARS now. I will never buy anything from them again. i do not care if they where going to sell me one million dollars for $10 would pass it up.

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