GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - Long time elevatedx customer fuming pissed with sites down by error

AJHall · 01-02-2018, 10:49 AM

Regarding this issue:

Thankfully there wasn?t much downtime when this issue was discovered last night at midnight and our emergency SMS system paged everyone. Between 12am and 3am two techs replied to the support ticket first to fix it and then to fully explain what had happened. I was happy to see that response time and damage containment.

The problem stemmed from a payment being sent to a PayPal email address rather than via an invoice link or via our online payment form which resulted in a payment not credited to an account and no software license being updated accordingly.

I just disabled the ability to send direct payment via PayPal, which was an oversight when we changed our invoicing setup to include invoice numbers in payment links as well as require an invoice number on our web site?s manual payment form primarily to avoid this type of scenario.

Due to that I felt a refund was in order as a concession for the error.

Regarding late payments and billing practices:

Elevated X is a month to month software subscription with no contract period. If the software goes unpaid beyond the license period, it simply stops working just like products from Microsoft, Adobe and many other pay for use software subscriptions. As with most, we offer auto-pay as the best method of reducing the possibility of service interruptions due to nonpayment.

Our billing cycles run from the 1st of each month and invoices go out on the 20th for the next month, with payments due on the 1st.

There?s a 2-week late payment grace period that ends on the 15th.

An automated email reminder goes out around the 10th that says the software is set to expire on the 15th.

There?s an option for a user to click a link and extend their license to go a full 30 days late and pay a 10% late fee if they need to go beyond 15th and go a full month behind on payments.

We feel that users being able to go a full month late on payments is sufficient and have no plans to change our billing practices to allow clients to accrue multiple months of past due balances. Doing that would require us to allocated staff resources to handle collections rather than focus on providing support and making improvements to the product that benefit everyone.

Over the past 12 years Elevated X has been in operation, most of our clients have been okay with our billing practices. Most are happy with our software, its continual evolution, and having access to getting US based tech support staff out of bed in the middle of the night at no additional cost as part of the monthly subscription fee.

That said, we realize we are not perfect and are the first to admit to that. We also realize we are not the best fit for everyone?s needs, billing or otherwise. While it?s unfortunate, I always respect a customer?s decision to part ways if they feel we are not the best fit for them, which I hope is not the case here.

AJ

01-02-2018, 10:49 AM
AJHall Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 1,306	Regarding this issue: Thankfully there wasn?t much downtime when this issue was discovered last night at midnight and our emergency SMS system paged everyone. Between 12am and 3am two techs replied to the support ticket first to fix it and then to fully explain what had happened. I was happy to see that response time and damage containment. The problem stemmed from a payment being sent to a PayPal email address rather than via an invoice link or via our online payment form which resulted in a payment not credited to an account and no software license being updated accordingly. I just disabled the ability to send direct payment via PayPal, which was an oversight when we changed our invoicing setup to include invoice numbers in payment links as well as require an invoice number on our web site?s manual payment form primarily to avoid this type of scenario. Due to that I felt a refund was in order as a concession for the error. Regarding late payments and billing practices: Elevated X is a month to month software subscription with no contract period. If the software goes unpaid beyond the license period, it simply stops working just like products from Microsoft, Adobe and many other pay for use software subscriptions. As with most, we offer auto-pay as the best method of reducing the possibility of service interruptions due to nonpayment. Our billing cycles run from the 1st of each month and invoices go out on the 20th for the next month, with payments due on the 1st. There?s a 2-week late payment grace period that ends on the 15th. An automated email reminder goes out around the 10th that says the software is set to expire on the 15th. There?s an option for a user to click a link and extend their license to go a full 30 days late and pay a 10% late fee if they need to go beyond 15th and go a full month behind on payments. We feel that users being able to go a full month late on payments is sufficient and have no plans to change our billing practices to allow clients to accrue multiple months of past due balances. Doing that would require us to allocated staff resources to handle collections rather than focus on providing support and making improvements to the product that benefit everyone. Over the past 12 years Elevated X has been in operation, most of our clients have been okay with our billing practices. Most are happy with our software, its continual evolution, and having access to getting US based tech support staff out of bed in the middle of the night at no additional cost as part of the monthly subscription fee. That said, we realize we are not perfect and are the first to admit to that. We also realize we are not the best fit for everyone?s needs, billing or otherwise. While it?s unfortunate, I always respect a customer?s decision to part ways if they feel we are not the best fit for them, which I hope is not the case here. AJ __________________ Owner, Elevated X - The 4 Time Award Winning Adult CMS Software Company Used by More Than 2000 Adult Sites.