for me it's going to the forum which I guess is slightly better than a 404, but still not the home page.
From inside the office it goes to the right place of course. And of course the IT who made the change has went home so we'll chase him down and see about fixing this.
That IP isn't working for me. I can't get into the message board at sellathon because I have an "invalid or expired account". I'm tired, I'm going to bed.
"I'm not hard to get, but I am hard to want"
Posts: 10 | Location: Derry, NH USA Earth Sol system | Registered: July 21, 2008
I'm seeing the new site today for the first time. Unfortunately the new code does not seem to work, my first listing does not show up at all in the tracker.
BTW, support tickets are not being answered, there is no response to questions about what's going on, and no progress reports as to what to expect next. Why are the paying customers there being treated so badly?
I've used VTracker since 2004, never has there been so much neglect and disrespect. I would expect allot of canceled subscriptions this month.
Posts: 18 | Location: NC | Registered: March 26, 2007
Time's up! Auctiva took a good service and ruined it in record time, a mere eighteen or nineteen months.
Now it's time to take the Sellathon assets, including unfulfilled subscription fees, and give them back to the Sellathon founder, Wayne Yaeger. To quote Parker Brothers, “go directly to jail, do not pass Go.” Clearly, those assets won't do you any good and you certainly won't be able to pay the Sellathon staff when the service is shut down, an event which appears to be imminent, but if the service is brought back to life by Mr. Yaeger, it might actually become profit-making once more. You certainly won't be making any more money with Sellathon, for your current subscribers are now running, not walking, to PayPal to suspend their subscription authorizations (I won't be among them as my pre-paid subscription is up in eight months and I'll be on the other line, demanding a pro-rated refund).
Back in January, 2007, Mr. Yaeger said of Auctiva's purchase of Sellathon, "It's a good strategic fit ... Our customers will be taken care of and not exploited." Right.
Mr. Schlicht, please read this thread and others on the Sellathon board:
Auctiva Jeff, I really have to wonder if you realize how awful our service has been over the last year +? Every since Auctiva bought Sellathon, and Krissie left, the service has been atrocious. We go days without service at a time, and days without even a response to support tickets. Over the last few months, the service has been down more than it has been up. Michael had told me that we/I would be compensated for all the downtime either by refund or some extended service, none of which has happened. Sellathon took our draft from paypal last week just like always without a word to any of us for down-time compensation. Now, we log in and have no data at all. Nothing. It is useless. Everything we had is gone. It shows 0 in my account for data as if it were a blank account. What gives? Are there plans for us to get our data back without having to go in and hand edit every single listing with a new sellathon code? Why can't Sellathon people e-mail us and post on the site so the PAYING customers know what is going on? We are always left out in the cold not knowing what is going on. If you can post of Auctiva forums, SURELY someone can post of SELLATHON forums since that IS where we are directed to go as paying customers. When Krissie was there, she would contact us by e-mail within the hour of letting her know there was trouble either on the forum or by support ticket. She would also keep us abreast of updates all day long. Now, nobody lets us know anything. As a matter of fact I had a support ticket that went unanswered for over 7 days. That is not any way to do business, and as a CEO I would think you would realize that. I am a business owner, and I can't imagine treating customers the way we have been treated. Could you please clue us in to what is going on?
This message has been edited. Last edited by: jgmrdh1,
and days without even a response to support tickets.
I checked your 2 most recent support tickets dating back to August and all 5 replies were answered the same day. One reply was done late on a Sunday evening and we replied first thing in the morning. And there was an internal reply on one from 11am about your refund.
quote:
Mr. Yaeger, it might actually become profit-making once
Sellathon was in a pretty sad state when we took over. It would likely have gone out of business. We injected the cash and man power needed to get it running, and to grow the # of counters it handles by more than 20x.
You need the new tracking code in your listings to get tracking from the new site. We're in the process of auto revising listings to put the new code in your listings for you, or you can get the code from our site and revise and do it manually which may be quicker. Our revising is taking longer than we planned. The advantage of the new tracking code is that you should not need to change it again like you've had to do every time eBay has made a change since the beginning of Sellathon.
I just spent a team of people and several months of time rewriting the Sellathon site and services from scratch. More money than Sellathon even makes a year. It's all new and it works. Hang in there until we get your counters revised to the new versions and I think you'll all be a lot happier with the new site and reliability.
Posts: 1562 | Location: Chico, CA | Registered: November 16, 2001
I guess we have to define "sad". For when Auctiva bought Sellathon, the product worked. Now, it doesn't work. When Auctiva bought Sellathon, support was transparent, non-defensive and responsive. Now, well, let's just say it's not.
As for the new site working, I beg to differ. Before the transition, we were given very little information and what information we had, we had to find on our own without the benefit of a heads-up e-mail to paying subscribers, something which is quite trivial, this despite the fact that Sellathon personnel said that this would've been impossible (and what do you suppose that tells us?).
We were told quite specifically on 9/16 that the V3 tracking code would work with the V4 site, but not as well as the V4 could would, ultimately. We were never told we had to add the V4 code and remove the V3 code until today, when Michael G. of Sellathon support told me to do so in a support reply.
You say, "It's all new and it works," but I would beg to differ, for it still doesn't work. I had both the V3 and V4 counters in item 350091390262 and I removed the V3 counter. That item's counter is incrementing in the listing, but still doesn't show-up in the "Live" folder on the V4 site. Rather, an older version of the listing which expired unsold on 9/21 before relisting is being updated in "Expired", with its item number changed out from under it to the new one, but an expiration date still of 9/21. It is, at least, showing the views in "Expired", though your move-to-folder dialog didn't work as there was no result and, I might add, no message to the effect that it had spun its poor, little wheels to no effect.
Then, I revised item 250296434018 to remove the V3 code and replace it with the V4 code in one revision. The KickItBack counter in that listing is incrementing as well, but its views are not being tracked anywhere on the V4 site.
There are two main ways that an outfit can handle its customers and their issues: defensively and helpfully. Please don't be defensive. Help us, instead.
Regards, Jeff Broido
NO STATEMENTS FLAGGED IN THIS ASSEMBLY
Posts: 7 | Location: Northern New Jersey, USA | Registered: September 24, 2008
I have been with Sellathon since the begining.. Customer service was EXCEPTIONAL prior to being aquired by Auctiva Customer service is now nonexistent..Nothing is posted about current problems and DAYS pass while we all wait in the dark.. The tracking service worked very well prior to the aquisition now the service does not work at all.. And if I may ask who came up with the "Kick it Back" name...It is horrible Even if the tracking begins to work I will not tolerate" Kick it Back" on my auction pages.. Perhaps it is time to start listening and responding to your customers (the few who remain)
For when Auctiva bought Sellathon, the product worked. Now, it doesn't work.
When we bought Sellathon the counters were not working a high % of the time, and the database was choking. We fixed that. Over time the number of counters grew by 20x. The Sellathon we bought would not have functioned with 1.1x. It was that bad. Sellathon's original technology was not up to the task. We immediately upgraded the database and spent around $50k on servers to keep it working back then.
quote:
When Auctiva bought Sellathon, support was transparent, non-defensive and responsive. Now, well, let's just say it's not.
Please provide me a support case id # and I'll look into this.
quote:
Then, I revised item 250296434018 to remove the V3 code and replace it with the V4 code in one revision. The KickItBack counter in that listing is incrementing as well, but its views are not being tracked anywhere on the V4 site.
Have you filed a support case?
Posts: 1562 | Location: Chico, CA | Registered: November 16, 2001
Customer service is now nonexistent..Nothing is posted about current problems and DAYS pass while we all wait in the dark..
This is simply not true. I've logged into the support system every day this week and I see all the cases coming in are being answered.
I checked and you filed 1 support case and we answered in around 6 hours. The only other support case besides that was a few months ago and we replied within 1-2 hours on 5 or 6 occassions.
quote:
You have 20x more customers DUH!!!
Not every counter customer is a Sellthon user.
Posts: 1562 | Location: Chico, CA | Registered: November 16, 2001
I've worked in the database world, the internet world and many other industries. I'm sure v4 is a work in progress. Things happen.
I just re-upped. This looks like a work in progress and I'm staying. I looked at one of my listings and then went to the dashboard and my hit was listed within 3 minutes.
As far as "feature requests" go, I really liked the total hits/new hits columns with the ability to reset the new column from V3. Oh and I'd like to get the menu from looking at an item's stats to apply to the whole mess i.e. the hilites menu for a folder in v3. The one on the lower left of the item stats screen would be fine.
I'd put this on the sellathon board, but I'm locked out.
"I'm not hard to get, but I am hard to want"
Posts: 10 | Location: Derry, NH USA Earth Sol system | Registered: July 21, 2008
This is simply not true. I've logged into the support system every day this week and I see all the cases coming in are being answered.
My experience of support cases being dealt with is good, however, providing good support should be more than this. In the pre-Auctiva days the support was way more pro-active and also very visible on the Sellathon forums. So if there was a problem affecting multiple users, then everyone would know about it and would be kept regularly updated.
Having worked in IT development for more years than I can remember I can completely understand why you wanted to move towards users filing support cases, rather than simply report problems on the Sellathon forums. It's way easier to manage & prioritise problems, especially for individual user issues. However, if you're already aware of an issue that affects the whole system, or you receive multiple support cases about the same issue, then it would be better for everyone if you posted straight to the Sellathon forums. This not only saves user frustration because at least they know a problem has been reported & is being dealt with. But it also saves the effort of filing a support case, and of you having to deal with so many duplicate cases. The other benefit is it will remove any possible perception that you're trying to hide 'bad news'. I think most people would rather know that something is broken and may take a few days to fix, than simply being left in the dark.
Anyway, I really do hope this new version of Sellathon fixes all the issues we've been having in the past year, as when it is working properly it's a great tool.
Cheers, Tim
Posts: 1 | Location: Hampshire, UK | Registered: September 25, 2008
Sorry to say, you are proving my point, and admirably. In fact, I couldn't have argued the point more effectively.
For if you read this entire thread, and the related, more extensive threads on the Sellathon forum, you will learn at least two very important things:
1) Most requests for help or information on the Sellathon board have been ignored, answered late, answered with errors and not corrected or not answered responsively.
2) If you are able to remain calm and pretend that you are an impartial observer, you will learn that you, yourself, have posted only defensive notes on this thread. Defensive customer service doesn't work, especially if the perception in your user community is that your defenses are devious (such as ignoring specific complaints and responding that your personnel have done something good to counter the behavior being noted, such as quoting support response statistics when we ask for heads-up e-mails), which they appear to me to be, unresponsive and, well, let's just say that some of your responses don't match our memories.
Defensive customer service doesn't work; that's a known fact and avoiding defensiveness is one of the cardinal rules for responsible outfits whose main motivation is to provide excellent service.
And you can claim, if you like, that the site is working, and ignore most claims to the contrary, but the fact is that, although the new, KickItBack counters are incrementing in our listings, only a small percentage are showing-up on the V4 site. Yes, I've reported my list of items which have had the V3 code replaced (properly and manually) with the V4 code to Michael G. via a formal support request. A prior request made yesterday, enumerating a subset of our bad counters, has not yet been acted on.
It's swell if it works perfectly for you. It just doesn't work for your customers.
Tracking stopped working for me back in June Some auctions would track, some would not The "support" I received was only an acknowledgment that a problem existed I have been paying for a service that has not worked properly for the last 4 months I have manually pasted the new code in 8 auctions only 2 are tracking..I am sure I am not the only paying customer who is just a bit tired of platitudes..I once believed Sellathon was the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel I no longer feel that way.. Bill
We appreciate that you spent time and money to get it working. Do you think it would be possible to send somebody by the Sellathon board for half an hour to answers some basic questions about the new version?
Posts: 18 | Location: NC | Registered: March 26, 2007
I can completely understand why you wanted to move towards users filing support cases, rather than simply report problems on the Sellathon forums. It's way easier to manage & prioritise problems, especially for individual user issues. However, if you're already aware of an issue that affects the whole system, or you receive multiple support cases about the same issue, then it would be better for everyone if you posted straight to the Sellathon forums. This not only saves user frustration because at least they know a problem has been reported & is being dealt with. But it also saves the effort of filing a support case, and of you having to deal with so many duplicate cases. The other benefit is it will remove any possible perception that you're trying to hide 'bad news'. I think most people would rather know that something is broken and may take a few days to fix, than simply being left in the dark.