Was I too harsh on Ontrack (data recovery) ????

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

This is the email i just sent off to Ontrack.com - data recovery (www.ontrack.com)

 

 

 

Quote:

Hello,

 

Well, I am rather disappointed now with my experience with Ontrack.

 

 

This is where my rant begins – I am very tired and annoyed – not so much by Ontrack – but it has not helped , my experience I have had that is, but just my luck over what happened to me so please excuse if I come across rather harsh – I am just exhausted and fed up!

 

 

I downloaded your Demo version of Ontrack Data recovery and Pro versions – they will do what I want so I decided to go and buy the $199 software package. (and was looking into your Data Back up systems as well for possible purchase as I have heard great things about Ontrack)

 

All is going well, that is until it asks for my Country / Region in the Cart area – Well, seems Costa Rica is not in the list? Why is that? I would think a large center of commerce (mainly for online gaming / sports books) would be on that list, I notice you have places like Belize and Fiji, St Kitts and Nevis– island in the middle of the Caribbean! (used to live in Antigua myself – another place not on the list!) So you have places like that on their but not Costa Rica. Your country list over all is rather lacking considerably and makes me wonder how much business you may be losing to other companies that can provide a detailed country list for their customers – or at least a field to type in their country. And an option of other.

 

So I now decide okay it says ”region” so I tried Panama and Belize as the country but it then says there is an error with my card – I assume that is because the country does not match.?? Or are you blocking Costa Rican credit cards?

 

Now, onto the next disappointment – your phone numbers – they all send me to say either email, or leave a voice mail and someone will get back to me the next business day. The other 2 options will charge me a $100 consultation fee and possibly other fees for serviced rendered – but I do not NEED those services – I need to talk to a web master – or a general customer service representative live on a phone. I am sure your company makes more then enough money they can hire some 24/7 support personal for general enquires – even for email as I assume this will not get a response until Monday.(if I am incorrect I apologies) Glad your company does not feel my issue is important enough to provide me with what is required to buy your product at the fault of your self (see below points)

 

Now, you say you are the leading company for data recovery – and yet

 

1. I can not buy your product because your country list is considerably lacking many countries.

2. Emails are not responded to very quickly (sent one in today from Mathiau@hotmail.com) and did not even get an automated response saying you at least got my email

3. I can not get a hold of someone for help to simply buy your product because the only people I can get a hold of will cost me $100 for consulting – which I do not need!

4. Your address fields are too short – my address was cut off by about 30 characters – why not make this longer? Not everyone lives on 123 Main st. Ohio

 

 

(here is my full address just so u can see)

 

**************************************

***********************************

*******

********

********

 

 

This will not all fit in the address + address line 2 fields

 

I know what I want to buy and I need to buy it now. Software / hardware issues do not wait for the weekend to be over before they die on you. But it seems your company wants them to wait, and if not, we have to pay a fee for something we don’t need just so we can talk to a live person and tell them our problem that is your companies fault – So why is it I should have to pay $100 for something I don’t need when Ontrack could of easily provided the proper services to it’s possible future customer?

 

 

I certainly hope I receive a well thought our response on this and not some canned response. I myself do am head of customer service / support /operations for a company and expect a satisfactory answer to this email with what changes can be made in the future to make my buying experiences easier and who knows how many other who simply got fed up and left and went somewhere else to buy their products.

 

[sapiens74 0]

A little on the sarcastic side, but otherwise well written

[jmmijo 1]

Perhaps sarcastic but in this case I think it's warranted. I think there are too many companies, not just those based in the USA, that attempt to be global when in fact they are not quite there yet.

 

I have no respect for any company that uses a hotmail or any other free email service. They should have one for their own domain, such as ontrack.com ;(

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

oh they do - that mathiau@hotmail.com is my address.

 

it is sarcastic more so because i am annoyed that such a larger comapny -that does produce very good products - can not cater to an international customer base and as said - they try to.

 

i mean St Kitts and Nevis? Fiji? - i woudl think Costa Rica would stand out a little more then those 2 islands.

[jmmijo 1]

Sorry I mis-understood the address then

 

But like you say they don't seem too Internationally friendly do they

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

LOL

 

i asked in my email for a non canned response.

 

here is what they email me back with!

 

 

Quote:

You recently requested personal assistance from our online support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

 

We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear back from you within 48 hours. If your issue is not resolved please scroll to the bottom of this message and enter your reply between the lines.

 

Thank you for contacting Ontrack Support. We hope that we have answered your question to your satisfaction. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

 

 

Subject

---------------------------------------------------------------

Dissapointed with experience.

 

 

Discussion Thread

---------------------------------------------------------------

Response (Ontrack Technical Support) - 09/29/2003 09:33 AM Matthew,

 

I'm sorry you had a negative experience ordering off the web. Our technical support and customer service hours for phone and email are 8am-7pm Central time, Monday-Friday.

 

Customer Service: (952) 906-4860

Technical Support: (952) 937-2121

 

I am forwarding this incident to our webmaster so that your comments regarding the E-Commerce site can be taken into account -- you should receive a response fairly soon.

 

 

 

 

lol - they give me the numebr and their hours - that is what i was complaining about!

 

 

but then the web master also sent me an email which made me happy.

 

Quote:

Mr. *****

 

 

 

I am sincerely sorry that you recently had a negative experience on our web site. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our web site, and rely on feedback such as yours to do so. Just as an FYI...we made some changes to our e-commerce system some time ago and were required to significantly reduce the number of countries we are able to process credit card transactions for. Some time has passed, and I believe that it is now time to re-evaluate that list. At your urging, I will take it upon myself to personally see that this gets done. Thank you for your feedback.

 

 

 

Please let me know if your issue was resolved or if you still need to purchase our software.

 

 

Thank you,

 

 

 

Ronda Kemper

 

Internet Marketing & Database Manager

[jmmijo 1]

Hmm, could possibly be the prodding needed to get this done

 

You may have invented your own cattle prod proving once again the ePen is mightier then the eSword

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

 

i got another email today but deleted by accident! from the same marketing guy - saying he spoke with his uppers today and they are going to try to make some changes to the site and review what countries they allow CC transaction from as explained and as i had assumed countries not on the list were ones they were not accepting transaction from - usually due to high fraud rates - understandable. and that i can call the 800 number and they will process my order over the phone

 

OnTrack i just say has proven them selves! - but still needs better weekend support

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

I guess i made a difference with Ontrack!

 

Now on their purchase form where you put in your address they have added this field!

 

 

Quote:

If your Country/Region is not listed, please call 952-937-5161 to place your order by telephone.

 

 

Good job ontrack!

[el_vago32 0]

Quote:

I guess i made a difference with Ontrack!

Now on their purchase form where you put in your address they have added this field!

Quote:

If your Country/Region is not listed, please call 952-937-5161 to place your order by telephone.

Good job ontrack!

Yeah!!, complaints may work sometimes...I made something like that with Orange guys (cell phones services providers) because of an error about a cell's info that was wrong. results?, they would change it with no additional charge.

i luv to feedback to those b@st@rds, hehehe

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

really restores lost faith in a company when they do go the extra step to right a wrong.

 

 

Now thought i am trying the CEO's credit card from the US and it gives me an error as well..LOL

 

 

well. time to call an be transfered around about 5 times again between the tech department and some ditsy receiptionist who kept putting me through to support when i needed sales.

[jmmijo 1]

Well they both start with an "S"

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

well i spoke too soon

 

 

looks like Ontrack dropped the ball again!

 

 

i called in -0 to place the order in over the phone - lady took the credit info everytying - said that in 15mins i should get an email with a download link and if any problems they would call.

 

This was on Wensday - it is now saturday and i still have not gotten an email or a phone call - AND i emailed them yesterday and thursday again!!

 

 

ARGHHHH

 

So - what other options do i have beside ontrack for datarecovery?

[jmmijo 1]

You could try R-Studio, it's what I use and it works great, even on munged RAID Zero arrays

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

kew kew

 

basically all that happened was windows had an error when assigning the drive letter

 

 

does that software have a demo so i can make sure it will do what i want?

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

yes it does - me trying it now.

[jmmijo 1]

The demo only allows you to recover file sizes of 64k or smaller

 

But you get the idea of how it works. They even have a Network edition so you can recover to a destination say on NAS/SAN or some other workstation or server share

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

ths kew - as long as the demo can at least show me what i need and that it can do it, i am more then happy to buy it!

[jmmijo 1]

That it will do, it will gladly scan a drive and/or an array and tell you what it can recover

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

hey jmm,

 

 

in r scan - what does a folder with a refd X though it mean? does this mean it can not recover it? or does it mean the demo simply can not recover it?

 

 

 

Ontrack is useless - their standard recvery -all the files it pulls are corrupted and the RAW recovery of it pulls files - renames them t like

 

file1.*

 

and what ever the extension of the file is and puts all the same ones in to folders so all.exe files it finds go into a folder called exe

 

 

So this stinks as how do i know what programs go with what dl''s and what .rar file go with each other - frick'n joke it is!

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

i lvoe this a 2mb $80 program does what a $200 - 30mb program CLAIMS it can do

 

 

IF ANY ONE NEEDS DATA RECOVERY - USE R-STUDIO!!!!

 

 

heck - it was finding folders from 3 or 4 formats ago!

[jmmijo 1]

To tell you the truth I can't recall what that X means, sorry. I basically would recover what it would find on my raid array, it's wasn't 100% but about 80% or so, that made me happy

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

yeah i think it was just soem old old folders it picke dup on - it got everything that i had lost

[jmmijo 1]

Glad to hear that

[Alien 1]

Mr G - When you say Windows had an error when assigning the drive letter, I'm a little unclear on what you mean. If you were running either 2K or XP, couldn't you have just used the built in tools to manually assign the drive letters? [well, I know XP has the tool, but I'm not 100% sure that 2K does]