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Bait & switch upgrade price?


murrayE

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At http://www.retrospect.com/en/upgrades/wizard.dtml?step=product, the price listed to upgrade my Windows Retrospect Pro 7.6 to 7.7 is $29 (electronic). When I click the "Select" button there, I'm taken to the page http://go.iomega.com/en-us/products/backup-software/backup-software-upgrade-pc/pz2ea0076/ where the price is now the considerably higher $49.

This looks like some kind of "bait-and-switch" or other devious and possibly illegal scheme.

I have screen shots to prove the discrepancy.

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The link to the correct price for the upgrade to Retrospect 7.7 has now been fixed (so both show the lower price, the that had been listed on the first of the two linked pages).

 

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the electronic download: there's nothing whatsoever I could find on the page of the Invoice as to how/where to download it -- not even so much as a statement that an e-mail with the requisite link would be forthcoming!

 

The Iomega/EMC2 sales operation would seem to be in need of some mending.

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No, that's not the link you want. You'll be receiving another email which will provide you with the link and license code that you'll need to download the 350 MB upgrade. They had some problems with the FTP download site and this final email was delayed. I got mine last night and had no problems downloading and installing the upgrade. The new disaster recovery image, which you'll need to burn to a CD, is also included in the download. I backed up both my computers last night and everything worked as it should. I haven't tried to boot from the DR CD, but will later today. Good luck. - Dave

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I did finally receive an e-mail which purports to give me a link to an ftp site for downloading my upgrade from Retrospect 7.6 Pro to Retrospect 7.7 for Windows. But there is no _FTP_ link in that message.

 

There is a seemingly relevant _HTTP_ link there, adjacent to my alleged new license number. But that link is useless: I tried both the new 7.7 license number and the old 7.6 license number there. With either, it just takes me back to the same page on the web site where I originally entered my 7.6 license number in order to buy the upgrade to 7.7. And rejected without even so much as a message indicating why -- just the same page again with the License Code field now cleared.

 

I sent e-mail around midnight last night about this latest fiasco to the two individuals at emc.com who had replied to my original e-mail message about the initial upgrade pricing error. I have had no reply yet, some 11 hours later.

 

The Retrospect upgrade process has become as baroque, error-ridden, confusing, and unreliable as the Symantec system used to be.

 

I suspected things were going to be difficult as soon as the upgrade process link took me to an Iomega page. Has Retrospect grown too big for its boots, with its (inept) integration with EMC2?

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The URL adjacent to the license code is where you want to go. When I attempted to manually enter the new 7.7 license code, I also had the difficulty you're experiencing. But, when I copied and pasted the code, even though the email says not to do that, it worked and I was able to proceed with the download. Good luck. - Dave

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The e-mail gave an order number and a license code. I used the latter at the supplied URL:

http://www.retrospect.com/en/upgrades/wizard_intl.dtml'>http://www.retrospect.com/en/upgrades/wizard_intl.dtml

That's what did not work when I entered the license code (whether old or new).

 

I just phoned EMC. After going through a baroque multi-layer automated answering tree system, I finally got a human in customer service. That person in turn referred me to tech support. The tech support rep said the link was wrong and gave me, instead, a link that took me to:

http://www.retrospect.com/en/upgrades/wizard_intl.dtml

 

I asked why there was a different link in the e-mail. The tech support rep said that was customer service; I should ask them.

 

Your company's service is a mess!

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Actually, things are even more baroque than I expected...

I downloaded the .exe from the link cited in my previous message. Used that to install the upgrade. Was prompted for the license number. I entered the number that the e-mail message from emcinsignia_licensing@emc.com said was my "new license code".

 

I got a message saying that was just an "upgrade authorization code", and that I had to supply my original (old version) license number in order to get my new license code! And I could do that by phone or on the web. So I clicked the Web button.

 

Up pops an error box saying that the number I had entered was not a license code but rather an upgrade authorization code.

 

Well, to make a long story short, finally I got to the SAME web page that, yesterday, I had used to get to the page where I placed my upgrade order. (Got that?)

 

And on that page, it was now dimly apparent, I had to enter my OLD license code (although it did not designate it as such) and, as the Upgrade Authorization Code, what the emc e-mail had called my "new license code". That took me to a page that gave me my (really!) new license code for 7.7.

 

And on that page there was a link to a download of the ugprade -- and that download was a DIFFERENT file from any of the files listed on the page from which I had previously downloaded.

 

This is truly a case of what my beloved high school calculus teacher called, "insanity cubed"!

 

My advice: don't buy anything from EMC/Retrospect/Iomega until they straighten out their act. It just is not worth the hassle.

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Oh... I just got another e-mail, from emcinsignia_customerservice@emc.com, with a completely different (alleged) "new license code". That number is different from either the alleged "new license code" sent in the original e-mail message and the (real) new license code I got on the web.

 

This new message does, however, seem to have the now-correct link for where to download the upgrade file.

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And now I got another e-mail, from a completely different e-mail address -- iomega@rm.iomega.com -- acknowledging my registration of the product.

 

Unfortunately, this message appears replete with HTML mark-up, and no attempt to view the message body in my e-mail client (Thunderbird) as HTML works. So I have a lot of gibberish there.

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The e-mail gave an order number and a license code. I used the latter at the supplied URL:

http://www.retrospect.com/en/upgrades/wizard_intl.dtml'>http://www.retrospect.com/en/upgrades/wizard_intl.dtml

That's what did not work when I entered the license code (whether old or new).

 

I just phoned EMC. After going through a baroque multi-layer automated answering tree system, I finally got a human in customer service. That person in turn referred me to tech support. The tech support rep said the link was wrong and gave me, instead, a link that took me to:

http://www.retrospect.com/en/upgrades/wizard_intl.dtml

 

I asked why there was a different link in the e-mail.

Both links look the same to me. Perhaps that is part of your problem.

 

Russ

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No, the link provided by the technician was NOT the same as the first one I just showed; as I said, the link he provided took me to the second one I list, which was the same as that other one I had tried to use before.

 

I didn't include the technician-provided link in my message since as I wrote my last message I did not remember whether it was www.retrospect.com/upgrade or www.retrospect.com/update, www.retrospect.com/upgrades, or www.retrospect.com/updates. But I did type exactly the URL he gave me, and that took me to the page I cited.

 

No confusion on MY part!

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