General Information & Statment of the Facts.
With today's rapidly growing computer industry the software market has literally gone wild and is also growing in leaps and bounds. So quickly it is hard to comprehend who is doing what, and what software lives up to the advertisements designed to market it.
New software names and companies are springing up all the time. Quite a good number of software titles are subcontracted with existing companies which is why we frequently see more than one company name printed on the software boxes. So who do you go to if you have problems or questions when there is no name on the box that you have dealt with in the past whom you may trust ?
In an informal survey we have learned about 10% of the software on the market is worth the money you will pay to buy it, and actually lives up to the advertisements and hype designed to sell the products.
Even Sam's and Wal Mart will no longer allow you to return opened software even if it is defective from the manufacturer. The software develpers themselves are also very reluctant to stand behind their own products.
Best Buy has a very large selection of software but their policy for buying software is almost completely uninformed. The people there in charnge of software purchases do not know if the software is any good or not because they don't have to use it, they do not consult with a qualified software review agency and they don't have to return your money if it isn't any good. They have a large selection of software, all right, but you will find they have as large a selection of worthless or nearly worthless software.
I have managed to return software there in the past but I had my review of that software in my hand and had to speak with the manager on duty and convince him that I was not just taking the software home to make a copy of it and then return it to the store to get my money back. This is also why I always try to buy my software on CD ROM because I have no intention of stealing software from anyone. Besides that the software on CD ROM is less likely to get destroyed as is magnetic disks. I understand that people who pirate software is what originally caused Best Buy not to accept software returns that have been opened. (Now they won't accept it back because they know the software developer won't stand behind it, yet they still sell this junk.) The problem with that is how do you know it is defective if you don't try it out ? If it is defective, then how do you get help to resolve the problem ? If the software is bug-ridden having it exchanged for another box of bug-ridden software doesn't help you at all. If you can't get help then what do you do if you can't return it where you bought it ? Personally I think it is about time that Best Buy thinks over their software return policy at least for CD ROM software. I know one thing for sure, I am very strongly rethinking about where I buy my software from in the future. It's worth a few extra bucks for the peace of mind to know that Babbages will accept the software back if there is something wrong with it.
Remember if you buy software from someone who does not accept returns after the box has been opened you may just be stuck with it because the company who produces the software certainly won't give you your money back unless they have a 100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back policy in the box. That kind of guarantee on software is almost impossible to find. Because of this many software companies simply rush their programmers to produce a product that isn't ready for market. They know people will buy it if the box is fancy enough and the hype is misleading enough and they know people will get stuck with it. The game producer gets their money just the same and the people end up being robbed. If you are reading this I would just about bet you have bought software that wasn't any good. You may have tried to get help to solve your problem but never got any real help and could not get your money back on it.
It is our desire here at ISC to help inform the public about software and hardware before you buy it. We want to inform you about the policy of certain software manufactures as well as the stores that sell the software. We want to help you know who you are dealing with and if you choose to deal with a company whose reputation isn't all that good after you read about them here then you may know you were advised before hand. If you have problems with software, hardware or a certain company and you want to tell someone about it, we would love to hear your story and may very well post your message here for others to read.
Remember, the Independent Software Consultants is made up of people just like you who want to be better informed shoppers and want to help inform the buying public before they buy. Consumer Reports does a fine job but they wouldn't listen to me when I tried to report a bogus company in New York that was operating without a business license and selling software to the unsuspecting public. Consumer's Reports wanted me to send them a "donation" of $1000 and they still would not guarantee me they would listen to what I had to say, or let me file a report. The BBB listened but wouldn't file anything on the company until I spent a great deal of time, money, and effort writing letters to government agencies in the area where this bogus software company was located. They said, "We don't do the research, we just file the reports. You must do the research yourself."
This wasn't the first time I had problems with the BBB over problems with some company that had bad business methods. Another computer chip company near Tulsa, OK cost me $500 when they refused to send me computer chips which I ordered from them. Why ? Because I had placed the order from MO when I got the job and the guy who was coming to my house here in AR had to travel here from IL. I placed my order for the chips from MO and the company said they would send them to the address I gave them (my office here in AR). Then they checked by calling my office phone that I gave them and no one answered here so they canceled the order. When I got here and the man arrived to do business, I had no chips. I called the company and they told me why they had not sent the chips. This caused the man to have to remain here for two extra days waiting on the order of EPROM's and when they finally arrived they were the wrong EPROM's and wouldn't even work. I had the order in my hand showing what EPROM's I had order but the chips in my "hand" were not the same. Thus the company had made two mistakes that cost me and this other man a good deal of money. He could not stay another day and we had to locate some EPROM's from another source and paid twice the price for them. I reported this all to the BBB in Tulsa, OK and they wrote a letter to that company where I had ordered the EPROM's from. The company wrote a letter back telling the BBB and myself they were a large company and they didn't care if I didn't like it that they had made a mistake. They even refused to apologize for costing me and my customer $500 and 3 days time. When I saw the BBB was no help at all I refused to contest the situation and wrote it off as another expensive lesson.
More and more large companies think like this. They are big and powerful and busy and they don't care about the individuals. If they screw someone over it's no big deal because someone else will still be buying their goods and it's no skin off their nose.
Because of this I have organized my internet group which I have been directing for over 2 years now into the Independent Software Consultants. We are a growing group now and we want to help you as well as to hear your stories about these kinds of things. If you have software or a business you want to recommend, or if you have had a bad experience with software or a company we want to hear from you.
We do not accept any funds for what we do, our efforts are totally non-profit. We buy the software we test just like you do, and if it isn't any good we are the ones who pay the price. Yes, you could say we are paying for the privilege to inform the public.
ISC members volunteer their time and efforts. We all have other jobs so we must do our work here on the web site when we can. We all have great hopes for this web site and we intend to have reviews and interviews here with our group members for you to read.
Something changes here just about every day so check in every now and then to see what is new or what has been changed.
If you want to sign up and help us with our web site, send me some E-Mail and introduce yourself.
Thank you for stopping by and we hope you enjoy your visit here.
...Bryon