On Monday, a change was made to the hardware on my computer where TradersStudio is installed, which resulted in the Security Key protection mechanism they use to be invalidated. I have e-mailed them to ask for a new key and the whole week so far we have been e-mailing back and forth about the merits of preventing piracy at the cost of preventing paying customers to use the product, but I am yet to receive a new security key from them, 4 full business days later and since this is Friday evening, next week is probably the earliest I can hope for, which would be a week after my request. The latest reply I received from them was that since I didn't upgrade to the latest version that they cannot guarantee that everything will go smoothly, but still no key and no reply from them either after two e-mails asking them what is taking so long. I hope this is not normal response time from them, (although the last time I had a hardware change, they tried to charge me $75 to provide me with a new key), but if you are a user of TradersStudio, please be aware that when you make a change to your hardware, you potentially might be for days unable to use TradersStudio and if you do not have backups of your strategies, you run the risk of losing your custom development. - F
It seems that this was a miss communication. First as I explained to you , you were running version 2.0 which is no longer supported. About a year ago we sent several E-Mail to tell you that you had a free upgrade for 2.5 coming based on the buyers agreement when you puchased the product, "Charter Owner". Version 2.0 now crashes on many computers which is why it's not a supported version. So support wanted to make sure that was not your problem. You told them that you needed a new key and since you had requested them before they assumed you knew to send the hardware ID, You were waiting for your key and had not sent the hardware ID. When you sent the hardware ID , we sent the key shortly after. I have changed some proceedures with support and made sure they give directions , even to people who have already recieved keys. Here at TradersStudio Support is our most important asset, remember software is really a customer service bussiness which most companies have forgotten. In terms of the $75.00 fee, which has now been raised to $100.00, it's for addition key beyond 2 active, keys. For example if you buy a new computer and deactivate the old one no charge. If you want to run the software on 3 computers , then you can pay the extra fee and not have to deactivate the old key. Considering that TradersStudio is 1/6th the price of it's major competiors , like Trading Blox's I think it reasonable.
This is a fairly weak excuse to say they assumed I would send the hardware key and this is why it took them 4 days to get me the security key. What you are implying is that when a customer ask for a new security key but did not provide the hardware key, your tech support will not ask for it and will do absolutely nothing. As I have told you via e-mail, your Tech Support dropped the ball on this one. As simple as that. Instead of making weak excuses, the respectable thing to do is to admit it and take steps to prevent it from happening again. You seems to have done the latter, which probably is indirectly admitting their mistake. After all if they didn't do anything wrong, there would be no reason to change the policies. I have also told you via e-mail that you have one of the best products available, superior to many more expensive products, but that your poor customer support is what is preventing me from seriously using it or to recommend it to anyone else. That you continue to come up with excuses and refuse to admit that anything was wrong, unfortunately is just more justification that support is still not ready for prime time. Undoubtedly, you have many customers happy with your support, but if I am the one waiting for 4 business days for a Security key, that doesn't help me that Johnny got his key within an hour. Does this means if your hard disk crash and you didn't have the foresight to disable the current TS installation on it before, then you will need to shell out $100 to get a new key?
If you read my response I admit Tech support had an issue and I made sure it will not happen again. The mistake was they assumed you knew that you needed to send the hardware ID, they did drop the ball, they should have directly requested it from you after 24 hrs if they did not recieve it and given you complete directions on how to send it. In terms of a harddisk crash, that not a problem. If someone has not asked for many keys over and over again, like claiming 4-5 computer crashes in a few month, support will not give them a hard time. They also can't reject a key for a customer without it going to a support supervisor who reports to me. I am sorry for any problems this has caused you and I am sure you will be very happy with the new versions of TradersStudio coming out in the future.