I wanted to know what people though of WhoisCart... I am about to purchase... just want some solid opinion
www.whoiscart.net

That's one of the best billing management systems at this
price category.

I think its good, i use it so do alot of other host if you use the search (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=2651813&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending) facility in WHT.

Support has slowed down a little recently. I have an issue that was opened last Thursday that has not received a response. But for the price, you really cannot complain too much.

Here's a site that shows off WC's qucik.php form:

http://www.deezsites.com/whoiscart/quick.php

For the money, WC is very good.

Hi Matt,

The support staff hasn't slowed purposefully, it's that we're launching the new Auracle and are having to make several alterations on the fly (we are using it as live test). Things are smoothing out though - this is our trial by fire.

Best regards.
Alexandre

What's Auracle?

Support Engine we will release soon as Zend releases their PHP5 encoder! *hurry zend*

Originally posted by Matt
Support has slowed down a little recently. I have an issue that was opened last Thursday that has not received a response. But for the price, you really cannot complain too much.

ever thought about using there forums? personaly ive never had a repsonse thats taken longer then 24 hours so i disagree with the slowing down bit.

Originally posted by Flumps
ever thought about using there forums? personaly ive never had a repsonse thats taken longer then 24 hours so i disagree with the slowing down bit.

Yep...and if you look in the forums you will see them directing people to the auracle helpdesk....which I did as the issue requires action on their part and was not a "question".

I shared my experience....glad yours is different but that does not negate mine. Issue has still not been addressed.

And considering they admitted themselves earlier in the thread that support has slowed down while they are launching the new helpdesk script, it seems that I am not imagining it.

Over a week for a response is un-acceptable and I ended up putting an alternate order script in place instead of theirs. I still think/hope it is an isolated situation as the previous support I had received was very timely and helpful.

Hi Matt.

I show no pending support desk issues - you're always welcome to email me if you would like for us to check something first hand. Our goal is never to set anyone aside this way, things do happen etc. A quick email always rectifies things. The slowdown I was referring to is more like a 6-8 hour slowdown max - nothing like a week long!

Cheers.
Alex

hmm whoiscart?

is thtat a shopping cart?

Its a shopping cart for web hosting and domain registration.

I bought it about a week ago, still having issues, support IS slow much of the time... (I have a ticket unanswered from noon yesterday--20+ hours) but sometimes it's less than an hour...only they know why.
I have noticed that the auracle thing is a mess. It only Emails you about one out of 3 times they respond so you need to go manually check tickets all the time to see if they have responded.
The documentation is OK but leaves things to be desired, the on-line tutorial is based on their old version so the screenshots are not the same & things are not located where the tutorial says (they say they are working on a new tutorial).
BUT the price was unbeatable, if I can get the last few bugs worked out so I can put the thing on-line (I really want to be sure it works properly before customers start using it) it will probably be a good program.
IMHO they are the "new kid on the block" of automation and they have a good product but they are spending all their time trying to continuously upgrade it as opposed to working on "polishing" what they have and maintaining support levels.
As an example the auracle support system has an empty knowledge base, no FAQ's , etc. and they say it won't function properly till zend supports php5. Why base your primary support system on php5 which is only weeks old? It would seem more logical to have a good knowledgebase, FAQ's , and fast support based on an older dependable system than to be going "cutting edge" with a support system that is empty of features & buggy...
I think I'll like it but at this point I am tired of waiting on support tickets, spending hours a day working on config issues, etc. etc. ....
If I can get it going and implemented I'll post a more accurate assessment of the program as a whole.

With all respect DDT,

I'm looking at your support tickets, and they were all answered within the prescribed time. 8 hours on weekdays, and 32 hours on weekends. Support is free, we are semantic consultants primarily and whois.cart is something we love that we do as a developmental project. You will pay for support with most other products, and get support tickets answered in much longer a time. Just read the threads here about other software parent companies not answering for days on end. You will find many.

I'd have to ask that your respect our support model if anything, it is well advertised beforehand - http://whoiscart.net/support.php.

Our program is the most customizable, as such, some mechanisms were rendered more 'primitive' to increase speed and prevent decoupling issues. In this respect it is also the fastest. The learning curve does exist, but the forums and my staff are there to help clients overcome it - within exacted times of course.

Why base your primary support system on php5 which is only weeks old?
PHP5 is just fine, and Auracle will be the most cutting-edge support desk once completed.

I must digress to your theory of 'catching up' instead of polishing. This was something that we convened to with our client base in the forums. They agreed that the current support documentation was adequate, that the forums were a perfect complement to those parts missing, and that they'd rather we continue on our next gen system, Silverstar, instead of fiddling with documentation. We are doing what our clients voiced. Whois.Cart() is bug free with its last release, 2.2.50 - and is very stable. The only problems that arise are those out of misuse and misconfiguration. This stable offering has us building a radically different and new solution behind the scenes, and when we release it - I guarantee we will debunk your catchup theory entirely.

Regards.
A

I'm looking at your support tickets, and they were all answered within the prescribed time. 8 hours on weekdays, and 32 hours on weekends.
With all due respect you are correct.
My oldest unanswered ticket is now only 22 hours old and I did not read the part about 32 hour support on week-ends so I was expecting more than you offer. You have 10 more hours (or all day today) for my question to go unanswered before I have a right to complain. I should have read the policy more thoroughly before voicing my opinion. (Although doesn't it seem odd you have time to respond quickly to a post here on a week-end but it takes 32 hours to answer a customer's ticket?)
I also think you should make it clear on your site advertising your product that Whoiscart is a "sideline"
On these forums you say:we are semantic consultants primarily and whois.cart is something we love that we do as a developmental project. I am not sure what a semantic consultant does but Whoiscart is marketed on your site as Built to maintain hosting plans and domain registrations, no other such product comes even close to its speed, clarity and ease of customization. At saeven.net, we're mindful that not everyone are programmers and that the hosting and domain sales industry is complex enough, that the extra burden of code knowledge and software mechanisms could be at least alleviated if not eliminated altogether. We've therefore worked hard to build you a tool whose mechanisms simply work - a culmination of hundreds of user opinions and of years of experience in software development. Simple and unclouded, the system strives to make your life and that of your clients easier.
I didn't see semantics consultants mentioned anywhere.

I am doing my best to give your product a fair opinion, that's why I said I would re-post my opinions if/when the config. issues are worked out and I can actually put it to use.

PS: The main thing I have seen advertised about your new generation "silverstar" is TemplateMonster integration. A feature I see as useless, but I will say there may be many more advanced features you just haven't publicized yet.
It appears it will do more for people using multiple servers with different admin panels on them all from one interface but for the more "average" web host without a bank of servers running different platforms I don't see a lot, maybe it's because none of the links are active yet in the demo" so I just can't see all the other new features.

... they are spending all their time trying to continuously upgrade it as opposed to working on "polishing" what they have and maintaining support levels.

Agreed. Too often, developers treat documentation and support as "nice to have" items instead of a required components of their software development. The really funny thing is, good documentation will save you in the long run because your customers would require support that much less. Software and documentation should go together like wages and income tax, IMHO. :)

... they'd rather we continue on our next gen system, Silverstar, instead of fiddling with documentation.

"Fiddling with documentation" is a really funny statement. My project manager at work would cringe at such a thing. :D

WC may still be successful despite the documentation issue. After all, it does work and is priced aggressively. For me, I think if they added the "polish", they could possibly charge more for the product and more than cover the cost of the "polish".

Mulder

So that anyone reading my last response doesn't get the wrong idea, Whoiscart seems to be an excellent product for the money.
If we can just get through the last of the configuration issues I am reasonably sure the product will do just what I was looking for at an exceptional price.
I just am not willing to give it my "thumbs up" until it is live, on-line, and functioning with customers as I believe it will.
Alexandre at Saven and I have had a few differences and I don't want him to think I am "trashing" the product. I am just on a tight time frame and need the service up and running (and tested) before a magazine ad for my target "niche" comes out in a couple of weeks. I want new customers generated by that advertising to have the ease of automation (as well as myself) and my "admin" time is at a premium with other pressing issues demanding my time also.
Hopefully things will all be solved with another support response or two (they did respond to the oldest ticket, now I'm just waiting on the last one).
I will give it high marks so far for the ease of setting up plans etc. on the admin side but I am anxious to be able to start actually putting customers through the system and see everything working properly.
I went with them because of overall good reports here on WHT.

Hi DDT,

Please don't misconstrue my comment as meaning that whois.cart is a sideline. It is a primary love is more like it, I meant to voice that the guys giving you support are PhDs in computer science and software engineering.

As for Silverstar, you will see :) We are keeping it on the down-low.

Mulder,

The reason the docs weren't agressively churned out was because our client base has voiced that the forums and the docs for 2.1 were sufficient. The screenshots might differ, and there might be a few embellishments or small missing features - but the function and flow are the same. If clients had said: "docs now!" we'd definitely have listened just the same.

Auracle is an integral part of Silverstar's release. It contains the KB system that will contain all of the info for Silverstar - there is method to this development and definitely is not an ad-hoc developmental timescale.

Thanks for the kind feedback gentlemen, it would be my pleasure to revive this thread and get opinions once the new application suite is released!

Mulder and DDT -> Cheers!
Alex

I don't mind that you keep details of Silverstar under wraps. No point in giving ideas to your competition.

I do disagree on letting clients determine whether u write/update documentation or not. Documentaion was a large pct of my senior design project when I was in school. Those PhD's should know better! :D

Two points to Alex for his professionalism in responding to our comments and criticisms. Too often I see ppl on WHT arguing with their clients.

Mulder

One of my customers was unsatisfied with this product. He is not to good with scripting or programming or whatever and said a lot was left up to the end user to get it to work right.

I personally have never used this script was was interested in it as an option.

As far as documentation goes, I never had a problem setting whoiscart up. Documentation for the older version had all the information that anyone would need.

standby

Originally posted by DDT
I am just on a tight time frame and need the service up and running (and tested) before a magazine ad for my target "niche" comes out in a couple of weeks. I want new customers generated by that advertising to have the ease of automation (as well as myself) and my "admin" time is at a premium with other pressing issues demanding my time also.

If this is the case why didn't you order an install key. The WhoisCart team would install and setup the whole system for you.

Regards,
Phil

dang...time limit ran out on last post

Dear Phil
Avoiding this was why I made sure they offered installation services before ordering and had their staff install it, to avoid problems... (I didn't know their installation consisted of uploading basic files, no configuration...I had to download & install the WHM HAPI and upload, install, & configure that myself.) I have since repeatedly offered to pay them more just to get the thing working but they have continually refused saying that wasn't part of installation.


gx,
I am glad to see someone who is qualified and a user. If you would please go to the Whoiscart support forums maybe you could help answer some of my questions & problems there. After all I have 3 tickets open that won't be answered for at least another 10-22 hours or so. And they encourage customers helping customers on the forums rather than support.
Their last response to my "big issue" ticket was 12 hours ago when they asked a question that I had answered in the same ticket thread 2 responses down at 11am Sat.
So the sum of their tech support was they asked a question on Sat. and I answered. They responded everything was fine. If Whoiscart does not normally generate 3-4 pages of errors on server logs every night then things were not "fine" and I let them know.
22 hours after the original question; Sunday they ask the same question they could have "scrolled down" and known another tech had already asked and seen the answer, and told me that there was "no problem".
But I answered again anyway today. Now 10+ hours later and no response so nothing gained from tech support since noon Sat. and that was them telling me everything was fine...
(I guess that 4 page stream of error messages on my server logs last night was supposed to be normal)

As far as their tech support policy here is the part of the "quote" A. left out of his post above straight from their site and in the context it appears in there.
This is directly under the technical support heading, 1st sentence: Free technical support is provided for Whois.Cart()™ products in their native form via email and discussion forums. While response is usually returned within a few hours, please allow an entire business day for the latter. Our dedicated staff will surely be able to solve whatever problems may arise. To me that means regular support "within a few hours" or a "business day" on the forums. But he is right if you read 4 lines further down you will see Our target support ceiling is eight hours on weekdays, and thirty-two hours on weekends. Which leaves them plenty of leeway since a week-end is only 48 hours and they only promise a "response" like what I had today, not "resolution".
I am really still hoping this program works out. But time=money to me.
I'm no kid doing this for kicks. Wasting all week-end "idling" when I could have been integrating their pages into my site & testing things out leaves me wondering about other things. They have had 1850 buyers according to their site. At $35 a copy that's $64,750 in income.
"A" claims to have 13 employees on staff that according to his post are PhDs in computer science and software engineering.
Does this business model seem funny to anyone else?
From what I have seen so far from what I've been able to get the program to do, I would have paid 3 times as much for it with no regrets if there was tech support & documentation and it was working right now.
But...with all this time on my hands I couldn't help but wonder how you pay 13 PhD's with only $64,750 in gross income....much less pay your ISP, electric bill, buy a few computers, etc....:confused:


NEWS FLASH: Just got a response. 11:15pm to the now 11 1/2 hour old last response that made no sense at all...:eek:
Told me I didn't need the cron that was giving me the problems...I could do everything MANUALLY...sheesh...I thought this was an automation program and had installed the cron because they said that's what made it all work AUTOMATICALLY (sending bills, warnings, and such).
On top of that They informed me tomorrow was a holiday in Canada so they would be on "skeleton crew" am I having great luck with these guys or what??:bawling:

Some of you guys who know programming...If they gave me the "cron" command to paste in (BTW cron just ran at midnight and errors out again. Can't wait to see the logs)
Anyhow if I enter that same command from a command prompt shouldn't it run manually? When I try that I get a "command not found" which is similar to the e-mail "/bin/sh: line 1: 0: command not found" that the cron just Emailed me...
Any Linux gurus got a clue??

Dear DDT,

I think from the get go, we have had differences that should have been clear warning signals that your expectations are incredible and could never be satiated. Whatever led you to scrutinizing our salaries here confirms this to me.

At first, you complain that Whois.Cart() is a sideline, and I categorically explained above that it is a project that we love and is no sideline at all. You cannot seriously claim to justify our salaries as any type of comparison point for anything relating to your complaints herein. The basis of your observations are ridiculous, no one is so omniscient that they could read a webpage and disclose exact income on the operating company. So what if we have 1800 users and charge only $35? Did you even read our mission statement or my comments above? We do this because we love it, I thought I made that clear in response to your initial vent. While I'm not about to post my salary or our income reports, it hurts to see this type of remark after I work from 11:30pm to 12:30 pm on a Friday night trying to help you out (for free) out of my own time. In fact, you persist with the negative exchange the next day quoting that "we didn't know that you wanted to sell hosting" when in fact, I had replied that you hadn't exacted that you wanted WHM connected (apologetically), and having whichever remaining proverbial strips torn off here thereafter because our supposition was ridiculous. How was I to know that you wanted to use WHM, or DA, or none at all? Different issue, not worth the fight.

For the record,
I have since repeatedly offered to pay them more just to get the thing working but they have continually refused saying that wasn't part of installation.
the actual reply was that no payment was necessary, that we'd do this for free, and on good will. Seems patience however, is not on your currency list where in fact, this is all that we ask of. When someone does something for me out of good will, I say thank you. You're right, $35 is not much to ask, and it cannot justify all our collective salaries and income. The motivation in fact is greater than this and involves an interest in human relations, helping people start off in this expensive and monopoloized market - and most of all - love. We love this product, and love our members equally. This behavior above however, I cannot agree with. I sense such vehemence in your comments and support tickets, which you reopen repeatedly with the same issues while the prescribed time is far from expiry, you badger us here, you write me diatribes to my personal inbox...it has to stop...

Nontheless, I will spare you a diatribe in turn. I'm sorry overall, that our model doesn't suit your personal expectations. Jaimie and Luke, have both voiced a concern with your tickets and behavior, sympathizing with your frustration - and in your best interest, have conveyed that they believe that you should find a different solution - not because our product doesn't meet requirements, not because of anything personal even, but just because they sense a stress too great that even our utmost attention couldn't ever solve. I must agree. There is something here that isn't WHM or Whois.Cart() that we just can't fix.

With greatest respect and honesty, and with regret again that we could not find some postive ground to stand on through this exchange, I wish you the best, and will refund your account as soon as possible even though the EULA does not obligate us to do so. I believe that in light of your behavior and of your comments above, that it is for the best. Having my company dissected, and our motives for support dissasembled and minusculed is not something that I appreciate. I will not stand and be judged on operational laws with regards to National holidays, support times that were well mentioned before purchase, the education of my peers which all have worked for with hours and hours of study and work, our reason for pursuing this project which is NOT monetary in nature, or our company's income.

There is a respect that is not reciprocated here. Our membership for $35 goes far beyond what is advertised, quoting our product advertisement and multiplying fees by numbers will never equate to the human element. Respect, and community. This type of activity, cordially, unfortunately does not belong.

This said, I will desist here on good will, and wish you the best. The negative here, is not worth the postive we want to exchange for it.

With best regards,
Alexandre

Saeven,
I have never said I wanted my money back. I have only said I wanted the program to work.
Again you found time to post a lengthy response here late at night but your staff had no time to post a reply to my support ticket.

You say you are all programmers, then surely you would know the answer to my last post about if it should not run the same thing from a command line.

I have been patient all day long up until your support finally responded at 10pm. You know you offered to do the "install" for free because of the mix-up in Emails with "Luke" which I appreciated and you know I have since offered twice to pay for the complete installation since you personally did not understand the need for hosting and only installed domain name registration support. However you refused, sent me the links to the download, and told me to upload and configure the missing hosting files myself, which I did. (One of your staff did "check" my work and said I had done everything correctly)
I have also been willing to pay for your staff time to resolve whatever the one issue is that remains.

Instead now you offer a refund of my $35 rather than a solution. After my many hours of work on installing your hosting system, setting up plans keys, and tlds, and configuring things per your instructions, and taking up your offer with DirectI and paying them, (and spending a couple of more hours setting up an account with them because of your special offer, you knew I was previously intending to use enom)
So now rather than simply solve the one remaining issue of this "cron job" you will refund my $35, which is nothing compared to the hours of time I have spent and the account I now have with DirectI and the money (non-refundable) I used to fund that account due to your special.
It is my opinion I have been patient and would be easily satisfied by a simple explanation or solution to one remaining problem (which from a response on your support forum by another customer shouldn't be happening). All I would appreciate from your company is solving the one problem keeping me from having an operational, automated, system for domain registration and hosting purchases on my system. How quickly that could be accomplished I do not know but it shouldn't take as long as a full installation and I have offered to pay for the time.

I meant no disrespect to your nation or it's holiday. If you look at the support response I think you would agree it gave the impression I should not expect the "8 hour" response time tomorrow due to the holiday. (Thus the "crying" smiley).

Your offer to me seems retaliatory instead of an offer of reconciliation because of my loss of time & the wasted DirectI account.
It would seem far more professional of you to solve the one problem that seems to be uncommon and holding up the use of the product. Maybe a 10 minute fix on your part to have a satisfied customer successfully using your software.
I don't think my expectations are incredible. We had worked through everything but one issue, how incredible is that?
As I stated I only got to wondering about your salary/income ratio is from things you said in your Emails compared to your low price & customer numbers on your site.
As I said I would have gladly paid 3 times as much if the product was working now and this last issue had been resolved.
Instead if you follow through on your threat/offer to refund my money you will cost me 8 or 10 times the amount of your refund considering time I have spent and would have to spend to buy and install another program and another registration service.

You are well aware that the reasons for urgency in my concerns were based on an upcoming magazine ad for my company and the need to have automation in place and working by the second week of August. So you know it will be technically impossible for me to solve that problem by "starting from scratch" at this point and the incalculable loss that will impose.

I will let those who participate here be the judge of what is fair. I have copies of every pre-sales E-mail and your staff's replies and every communication since.

My opinion is you should solve the one remaining issue here and have a happy customer (and if you look at my posting history I am quick to praise companies who have good products and support)
You solve one problem, charge me if you wish, and your product (and my investment in DirectI) would be operational within 12-24 hours of resolution of ONE remaining issue.

However you feel it better to "teach me a lesson" by refunding the purchase price and letting me suffer the far greater loss.

You will make your decision, and other participants here can judge what is fair and professional.
Your pre-sales promises, and my expectations, and whether or not they were reasonable and your willingness to have a satisfied customer with a working version of your product (by resolving one remaining issue that has been unresolved for 2 days) or your decision to be done with me as a customer and causing the greatest damage possible to me in time and money by doing so.

Lets just say that Whoiscart is great. To an extent. Normally I am all positive towards the product but lately, support has been slow (due to auracle, so this is explainable). However documentation from so many versions ago is not acceptable, and the helpdesk won't work for me (i never got my password emailed to me).

Also whoiscart wont accept the registration key sent to me (i should talk to you about this, seaven, however). Whilst I stand by whoiscart, this topic has made me think more before I recommend it.

DDT,

What are your remaining WC issues?

While I agree that WC has some issues, at some point, users have to decide what their expectations should be when they buy this type of software for only $35. I've used free or cheap software for years and documentation and support are usually lacking or don't exist at all. At the end of the day, I know that if I choose to use such software, it's really on me to get it to work. The trade off is, if you do get it to work, you got yourselt some good software for cheap.

Mulderb

Originally posted by DDT
Some of you guys who know programming...If they gave me the "cron" command to paste in (BTW cron just ran at midnight and errors out again. Can't wait to see the logs)
Anyhow if I enter that same command from a command prompt shouldn't it run manually? When I try that I get a "command not found" which is similar to the e-mail "/bin/sh: line 1: 0: command not found" that the cron just Emailed me...
Any Linux gurus got a clue??

As a user of whois.cart and a volunteer Technical Guide on the forums, I just don't get the problem. I have found the support to be more than adequate, I know that I work hard to try to answer people's posts, despite my full time job, on-call, hosting company, wife and two kids including a newborn, and hopefully upcoming new job. And I don't see many people not getting their questions answered.

It's a $35 software. Compare that to the competition and I think the results are favorable. The downside? You have to google for a few things, you have to use a bit of trial and error to figure out some things. I had whois.cart fully integrated into my website, looking completely like my own product, in about a week, and that's without reading much of anything and a few questions on the forums.

Have a problem? Post on the forum. If no one gets back to you, you can try to PM me, though as a normal user, I can't say I know everything about it.

DDT, sounds like you're having a command not found problem, right? I didn't read the whole post, but I'm guessing it has to do with automating the collector.php? You using the wget command? Did you type "which wget" to find out the directory that contains it? Make sure that's the directory. If that didn't fix your problem, then PM me and I can try to help you that way.

See how easy that is? And being civil helps a whole lot more. People who were civil to me, I offered to walk them through their entire integration.

And Google is your friend.

Well this may be long & boring but here is where it stands.
Saven says all their support staff are PhDs in computer programming. The issue involved a cron script, that would "error out" (and generate pages of strange errors on my server logs in the process).
Now to be clear WC never added the script during their installation and when asked they directed me to their support forums where a kind soul had posted some various examples. I tried them and my main issue with WC was that none of them worked. I will mention WC has some helpful customers on their forums and when I posted there a couple tried to help but basically the previously posted scripts worked for them so they couldn't offer much insight.
Wc's support in a nutshell was that the script I was trying should work or I could do it manually, (The script was what triggers WC to E-mail new accounts, bills due, suspensions, etc. to the host)

Now as Paul Harvey says "the rest of the story". My dedicated provider who is very clear about not offering support for 3rd party software has always been exceptionally good to me. I have recommended them here several times but quit because people always posted stuff like ""X" company is $$ cheaper". However when I published the server specs without the name when I was considering going dedicated, one participant here "Joshua" PM'd me that " If you've had a good experience with them for their VPS hosting, by all means, stay with them . Good hosts are hard to come by these days." That nailed it for me. Their support has always been "above & beyond".
So with the lack of help from WC I sent a polite E-mail to my server support acknowledging that they had no obligation to answer since it was 3rd party but here was the script & here were the errors. As the day went by a couple of their people offered opinions but couldn't really help (not unexpected, they don't have a clue about WC). But last night "Victor" came on shift and saw my ticket.
I guess he had a minute to spare because he sent a detailed E-mail explaining how the script was trying to work but that it couldn't as it was written because there was a "trick" to using that type script. (Too technical for me but I appreciated the explanation). Most of all he corrected their script & sent it to me, I logged into my server to change it and to my amazement he already had! Instant fix! A problem the vendor's support (who they claim are all PhDs in computers) couldn't give an answer to in 3 days and one of my provider's server admins who had no reason or obligation to even look at the problem gave me a "fix" in no time. Service "above & beyond" what I could expect from a provider.

So now the ball is back in Saven's court so to speak. We will see if he yanks my license altogether as he said he would or if he just offers no further support in the future, or if he realizes and admits his support PhDs should have been able to solve the problem without relying on his customers on their "support" forum and decides to keep me as a customer and to support any future issues that arise. I believe his actions from here on will speak volumes about his company and their attitude towards customers, but I can only wait & see.
It is cheap software, but it promises to perform, they are supposed to be developing new versions, and although they allow themselves very slow support times (up to 32 hours plus) they do say Free technical support is provided for Whois.Cart() products in their native form via email and discussion forums. While response is usually returned within a few hours, please allow an entire business day for the latter. Our dedicated staff will surely be able to solve whatever problems may arise.
Saven also said they sense a stress too great that even our utmost attention couldn't ever solve. I must agree. There is something here that isn't WHM or Whois.Cart() that we just can't fix.
Well they never tried their "utmost attention" so I don't know about that part but he was wrong. The problem was with the script provided by WhoisCart via a link they sent to the post in their forum. But he was right, they couldn't fix it. But someone familiar with those type cron scripts, with no obligation or reason to do so except kindness and [b]caring about a customer[/] fixed it in no time at all.

So now I am just waiting to see what Saven will do from here. He is obviously proud of his company which he gives the impression has financial resources far beyond what WC provides, but says he does it as a "labor of love". We will see if that "labor of love" extends to his customers and he can gracefully admit at least a one-time shortcoming in their support, or if he can't take the "squeaking wheel" and "cuts me loose".
I would suggest that other potential customers who are not fully experienced programmers themselves may want to pay attention to what he does from this point on in this situation.

PS: Before making another public post I Emailed Saven directly about the entire situation first, as soon as it was resolved last night to see what he planned to do. He has not responded to my Emails as of yet. But I did give him the opportunity to respond to me personally before saying anything else here since he said the negative here, is not worth the postive we want to exchange for it. although I am not 100% sure what that statement means. In my E-mail I offered: Should you be willing and able to resolve this issue so I may implement your product I assure you I will either ask the moderators of WHT to remove my negative remarks or will post remarks to the contrary about my satisfaction with your product and your resolution of the situation. But he has not responded.

Well instead of E-mail I guess I got my answer:
SteveK42 said: As a user of whois.cart and a volunteer Technical Guide on the forums, I just don't get the problem. I have found the support to be more than adequate, I know that I work hard to try to answer people's posts, despite my full time job, on-call, hosting company, wife and two kids including a newborn, and hopefully upcoming new job. And I don't see many people not getting their questions answered.
I thought I would check their forums one more time to see who you were and if I had missed your response to my questions there.

My account, forum access, etc. (everything to do with Whoiscart) has been disabled without notice.

So SteveK42 I'll never know about your offer.
Saven never has answered my E-mail.
But I guess I get the idea. Now that someone helped me the program working it's easier just to disable me...
SteveK you mention "being civil".
How civil is that? I have a product that is finally working, everybody should be happy, his support did not have to fix it, and he pulls the plug.
Thanks Saven
You sent your reply loud and clear.

As I said earlier:
I would suggest that other potential customers who are not fully experienced programmers themselves may want to pay attention to what he does from this point on in this situation. ...and now you know.

I bought whois.cart 2 months ago, and slowly migrating it in my excisting system

Its a very good product, simple and fast

once you know to program modules (hapi, rapi) then its easy to customize

my clients doesnt like it, suddenly their bills come on time ;)

my clients doesnt like it, suddenly their bills come on time

LOL at Mordamus!!! :) Btw, you did a nice job of integrating Whoiscart into your site!

Mulder

DDT,

I know said I would desist - but I will continue. Understand that I refuse to fight with you. Note however, that your comments remain unfair, there is a note of denigration across your letter that stains whichever intent you did have with the latter. These sentences:

Now to be clear WC never added the script during their installation

WC didn't install the program, I personally installed it for you with the information you provided in response to the intial torrent of insults you sent us after having received a totally off-topic reply that was destined to someone else (pre-installation).

Setting a cron job to do a GET or WGET on a page is not grounds to involve, again, the education of my company. It is something I left to you, that any person in the hosting business, should have the knowledge to do. Of course we'd gladly have helped - you only sent us an error message echoing that "the command does not exist", to which we replied asking which of the three commands you'd chosen to implement since there are three such commands possible in the post you refer to (which details how to connect the cron automation). The next thing I read, is this post here. Seems you are just on a yo-yo path bent our defaming our company because you are too impatient to acknowledge that support responses have exacted ceiling times. You further cannot possibly fault us as continues:

Most of all he corrected their script & sent it to me
The script is encoded! If anything, he installed the missing command on your server - or corrected a script that another user posted in our forums to be helpful (there are 16000 posts in there, we cannot police them all for accuracy across all possible server configurations). Are you going to open a new topic defaming that person too?

A problem the vendor's support (who they claim are all PhDs in computers) couldn't give an answer to in 3 days
Again we get back to our education. How can you press here and say we are inept when you don't even receive an answer to the question (because support was closed on this civic holiday as discussed in our last post)? Unfair in the least, impatience is not a function of our education - is it?

or if he realizes and admits his support PhDs should have been able to solve the problem without relying on his customers on their "support" forum and decides to keep me as a customer and to support any future issues that arise.
Thank you for having thus supported my initial comments. Again, belligerence that I will not be party to - I refuse...refuse...to fight. At this point, we have claimed educations, and further, we depend on others to run our company, which supposedly does not make enough money in the first place!! Not worth the fight.

or if he can't take the "squeaking wheel" and "cuts me loose".
I would suggest that other potential customers who are not fully experienced programmers themselves may want to pay attention to what he does from this point on in this situation.

You are not other customers DDT, you are one individual. Only a small percentile of our users do have strong programming skills, and if you had surveyed the remaining portion that have no programming skills as to how many we've gone to extreme lengths to help and teach foremost with; server relocations, recompilations, migrations, etc - you would apologize. This 'ball in the court' you suggest involves that this whole tirade in fact is a game that we are playing - something I was sure I kindly refused with my first post.

Quoting a portion of an email sent to my inbox on a civic holiday saying "I'll retract if you fix it" is blackmail outright don't you think? You know, we'd have fixed everything anyways, on good grounds, for free. All we ask is a bit of reciprocation, respect for our support deadlines (which continues to be an issue with your posts in mind), and of course not to play these types of games here - they just end up hurting everyone - like war. Again, I refuse to fight. Why don't you quote your whole email while you're at it though? I won't do so though I could, because I can respect its contents and the apology you offered as to what possibly could have driven you to be so impatient (which I sympathize with and hope you will overcome).

On that note, best of luck with your situation, and if you find the heart to apologize for these ridiculous games I personally will gladly accept, and the support with my staff will continue without altercations as it has gone, and would have gone similarly still even without this unnecessary thread. I'm sure the our user community will too - you've upset a very many of them which have emailed me this link over the weekend. In fact, I have a total of 245 private messages and emails saying that this post here, just wasn't right. I agree.

Best regards.
Alexandre

Hello,

I am the second Technical Guide at the Whois.Cart() forums, as such, I know my things and can say the following...

By "Installation License" you mean installation, the word "Installation" itself is pretty self-explanatory, that means, it doesn't say it includes configuration. Just so you know though, there are third party persons who offer install and configuration for the same price or less, myself included in those people.

For you to install most scripts you are required some knowledge of the language it was developed on as some manual configuration steps are required to get everything running ok.
The "cron job for example, there is plenty of information about that on the forums, you just need to do a simple search and/or read the sticky topics. If not found, just ask us at the forums, support is great on all ends, Saeven's staff is -by far- one of the fastest (if not the fastest) compared to all of the ones for other companies on the market.

Support is limited to the problems with the cart itself, not problems with server configurations and other things that are relative to that, in my opinion that is good, given the fact that their support staff is not payed thousands of dollars to work on user's individual needs, they are a group to attend a userbase they have acquired over the pass of time.

The user community exists because of people like MadStu, SteveK and myself, who like to help on our free time, we use our knowledge to help others on their quest to growth of their hosting and/or domain business.
I think I speak for the persons named on this paragraph when I say, that we like to help out the Saeven crew lightening the load on the support and growing with the experiences.

Problems like these arrise thanks to a simple mis-understanding and impatience in almost all of the cases, sad but true. Alexandre has been more than polite on all tight situations and myself have helped him on testing different stuff, and he has helped me learn more on the programming world, when he speaks of programming, it's his area, I've seen his work, works good.

A bit of advice? take a deep breath, if you drink, take a beer, take a look at some of the information at hand, and start again.

A person I know once was explaining to me some code he was making, back when I was starting in this area, and said said "The point I am trying to make is that some initiative is needed on the part of the end user to educate themselves."


Just my two cents, if any of you don't understand me, don't worry, not many people do, and I don't expect the impossible.


Regards,
Elisamuel Resto

Saven,
I had typed a much longer reply to your post but it was lost inadvertently and I haven't time right now to retype the whole thing.
Basically You mentioned only one part of 1 of 4 Emails and took that our of context and called it blackmail.
The only reply to my 4 Emails was one where your only statement was I will respond when I have the chance later tonight..
And yet you came here and posted a lengthy response.
I will await your other responses and depending on what you have to say decide on whether it is worth the time to re-post my original response.

DDT,

I have only two emails.. an apology regarding above, and the second, a question about whether or not we were able to handicap your use of whois.cart. To which I responded that we couldn't handicap installations (because there is no callback) and that it is good for the length of the current encoding etc..

A.

Overall - I like whoiscart, it's had some bugs here and there and some minor annoyances, but overall it works for me, and it's simple and fast and doesn't have a crapload of unnecessary addons - straight and to the point. I've always had good service out of any questions I've had (and boy have I thrown some at Saeven to make your hair curl!).

Saeven and DDT should continue this offline. This thread is closed. * If only I had the power. :) *

DDT,

Yes Whois.Cart does have some downfalls, but for the price it overcomes them. Sure you can pay $20/mo. to get a program that does exactly what whois.cart can do. That was your choice to begin with.

As far as I know, you are the only person that has ever had a cron error. This would have nothing to do with whois.cart because you can cron job just about anything. I'm lead to believe that your host has taken the blame and shed it all on the Saeven crew. That is a typical response coming from someone who gets paid to have things perfect (your host). Instead of blaming WC outright, you should have setup a cron job with a different script to actually see if your server is configured to allow cron jobs.

You brought this topic here to bring WC to blame. As far as it looks here, they aren't to blame. You were just lead to believe it was the script that had the problem because of your wonder, fantastic, awesome, knowledgeable, TRUSTWORTHY hosting support team.

I believe that Saeven did the right thing in refunding your money. Your lucky cause most people wont.

So I leave you with this,
Good luck finding the PERFECT SOLUTION:rolleyes:

it is an excellent site!

In the post I inadvertently lost I had expressed my desire to do just what "mulder" suggests and put this whole issue to rest.

Saven has taken remarks from my Emails sent with the very intention of resolving the matter person to person in an amicable way out of context. Here is some more of the E-mail I sent Alexandre to place the remarks in context rather than some type of "blackmail".
As I have mentioned the magazine advertising I have invested heavily in will come out in two weeks or less. I need the automation software to make this advertising pay for itself and hopefully allow me to continue to grow my hosting income and continue some more marketing. I ask you to take my situation into consideration and the many hours I have spent to get to the point where everything about your system seems ready for implementation except the one "cron job" issue which is confusing to me. I am no computer expert and once your staff said the cron was necessary to make things automated, today another person says the opposite....I hope you will see the advantage to us both in solving this one remaining issue and letting me put your product to work rather than causing me the added stress and financial loss of having no solution for automation in time for the anticipated advertising response. It would seem there should be a solution to this one problem that probably is a simple thing either being overlooked or misunderstood. Then a sentence or two later came the part he refers to as "blackmail" Should you be willing and able to resolve this remaining cron issue so I may implement your product I assure you I will either ask the moderators of WHT to remove my negative remarks or will post remarks to the contrary about my satisfaction with your product and your resolution of the situation.
I do not view this as blackmail but as an attempt to reach resolution to a problem person-to-person.
A while ago he responded with the following (edited to the pertinent portions)If you would like to make amends however, apologize publically on WHT....
my problem isn't with cron, but instead with a series of irretrievable hours and years of image-building which you've stained with just a few paragraphs in the world's largest english-speaking webhosting community, over just a few hours of admitted impatience - still without any form of formal apology.
I'm not looking for a non-confrontational post, but instead for closure on a Pandora's box that you've opened publically. I'm not interested in defamation lawsuits, online confontations, or cron scripts - just in an honest apology to attempt to mend some of the damage done.
If I do so he offers to "encourage my peers to acknowledge your pending support tickets with utmost urgency". However he makes no mention of restoring my account or all the other disabled features.

Thus:
Although all my efforts to resolve every "complaint" in this thread have been communicated with him/Whoiscart support privately first I will make a public good faith effort here as per his request (I am in no mood for "defamation suits" or more "online confrontations" either).

I am making this "good faith" effort with every attempt to comply with every condition prescribed in his E-mail to me in the hope Alexandre will do more than what he has promised and restore my standing to that of any other customer in all respects regarding my account with them and the features, upgrades, support, and all benefits associated with any other such customer forthwith.

I formally apologize for statements I made about your company's finances which were presumptions. I have not seen nor do I know the financial operations of Saven.
I also apologize for not having completely read the entire support policy which includes the part about a "target ceiling of 32 hours on week-ends" and clarify that it was simply my opinion that such a time was too long and it was my fault for not fully understanding what I agreed to when purchasing the product as far as "support times" and the level and methods of support that would be provided as stated on the Whoiscart web site. Thus I should have waited patiently instead of complaining here.
I have not used the other products he mentioned in a previous post where people wait for days on end without support so I was not aware that was common with other products of this type.

I also apologize for not comprehending the following:
(I cannot post the forum link tech support gave me for setting up the cron because I am still locked out and cannot copy it. However the forum is where support sent me for the answer and the following statements are direct quotes from Alexandre at different times) "The post you refer to was posted by a user to help those in need since we don't support or touch server side configurations."
In his post above he says If anything, he installed the missing command on your server - or corrected a script that another user posted in our forums to be helpful (there are 16000 posts in there, we cannot police them all for accuracy across all possible server configurations). but in another E-mail he had instructed me that "The forum however is 100% accurate. Posts that pertain to older versions, have all been pruned by now. Do search for pertinent information at every step"
I sincerely apologize for not being able to put the combination of those statements to use to obtain support as per their policy. It is a comprehension failure of my own.

In closing: To make every effort to comply with his request of "an honest apology to attempt to mend some of the damage done":

I fully and formally apologize for any damage I have done by expressing opinions on this forum that may have stained "irretrievable hours and years of image-building" for Whoiscart. I also admit fully that some of my statements were based on presumptions and not fully reading the terms of service posted by Whoiscart. I realize now, that being new to automation software, I had unreasonable expectations and although I have not yet had the chance to implement this software it appears that it will do what is advertised and they do try to respond within the "target ceilings" for support published on their web site.

Further I apologize personally to Alexandre for continuing this exchange with him after he had clearly informed me by E-mail to "Please go through the proper mediums, auracle.whoiscart.net, or the forums for support. I never offer hands on support "

I sincerely hope I have covered everything I was asked to apologize for. I hope the Whoiscart software, company in general and my future experiences with them turn out to be as good as what I had hoped for when I purchased the product after hours of research on these forums.
I also hope to be able to return to these forums with recommendations and praise for the product and company once I have implemented it and seen it "in action". Furthermore I sincerely hope this apology is acceptable to Alexandre, his company and it's heirs and assigns.

It appears this thread has run it's course. The two users can continue communication in private if needed.