Main Upgrade policy dicussion topic

Bad form, Acronis. Your upgrade policy disadvantages your long-term customers. Think about this...

1) On August 15 I purchased 2010 full licence at a discount because it was cheaper than getting an upgrade with add-ons. On August 17 I found out 2011 was to be released less than a week hence.

2) It will cost me $30 more to upgrade from 2010 to 2011 than it would have cost had I waited a few lousy days and bought 2011 in full.

3) I have licences going back to 2004.

4) I have put up with your software not supporting hardware properly and I've put up with having to implement costly workarounds.

5) Companies spend ten times as much money attracting new customers as they do keeping existing ones.

6) A customer with a bad experience is likely to tell 6 to 7 other people.

I feel that I have been ripped off.

What are you going to do about that, Acronis?

As an update to my post from Saturday, Sept. 4, I received a positive reply from Acronis customer service and they fixed me up with a new serial number good for the TrueImage 2011 upgrade version. I still fell within the 30-day period for refund on my TrueImage 2010 upgrade version, but this was the best way to have it handled (new download, new serial number/activation rather than processing a refund, re-purchasing, etc.). So, in my case, I'm passing along kudos to the Acronis customer service team for handling my concerns promptly, courteously, and to my complete satisfaction (and right in the middle of a holiday weekend, too). For what it's worth, I had not paid as low a price as some folks on the upgrade (as I understand it), but had gotten (I believe) the benefit of 10 percent off the regular price via a coupon. In any case, I'm happy to have this resolved so quickly and fairly.

Rob.... Still no contact since your request for a direct conversation.... I remain available through to about 10pm UK time . 5pm Eastern.

Hi Kevin, I have sent you a message. Please let me know if you have not received it.

All, I will have all the open comments on this thread responded to by our forum manager tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.

Rob

Nicely taken care of...all upgrades and numbers are now functioning nicely.

Although I still think the policy was misguided, as represented by the comments in this forum, the support people were always nice after the initial "you don't qualify," thing that got this user a little riled up.

I went through quite a number of them at different addresses and forums to try to raise the consciousness (and perhaps conscience) about how to get and maintain customers, but all were very friendly.

From the regular support people to the managers and more managers, my case has been handled with care and respect, perhaps more than I always showed. And even when they gave me the wrong upgrade number for a few days, after I e-mailed about the problem to a few of my newly-won "friends," they re-registered it with a usable number, which I have now installed.

Thanks...

I now have a much more positive image about your company, which should remain as long as the product works for what I need it for.

Have a nice day!

Dear Customers,

If you still have your upgrade problems unresolved - please contact me direct via PM.

Kad Man,  as I can see you've contacted our Suport Team and your issue was resolved.

Kev, please ping me directly - Rob will be unavailable for quite some time going forward due to business trip.

Thanks,

Andrey.

They sent survey questions. Here are a few comments that I put on the survey.
Somewhat Satisfied:
A bunch of people had to complain before some of the managers seemed to recognize the unfairness of the policy - or just decided to take care of the few loud people while allowing the unfair policy to stay in place for the many people who took advantage of the "I'm going to have a sale and then ask for upgrade money a couple of days later" policy. I'm glad I got the free upgrades, but it would be nice if the policy were changed to show that management was no longer capable of trying cheap scams to make a little more money.

Ease of Contacts:
The original contact was negative: "We're sticking by the [scam] policy." Then I contacted everybody in sight, and added much to the forums, where I was joined by a lot of other folks who recognized the ethical lapses of the people who thought up the sale + 2-days+ later upgrade price. Some of the responders seemed to understand - and were very nice, but the clear impression given was that the main guys took care of the squeaky wheels, but basically thought that the policy was OK, meaning that they are still ethically challenged. It's doubtful that they contacted the other people who didn't complain. They just took care of those of us who complained the most loudly. ...but gleefully got away with the money they scammed out of those who didn't complain.

I'm glad it was fixed, but will watch to see what they do in the future...a great topic for a college class on advertising ethics. Who runs the show? The folks who want the best product for the best price - or the folks who want to trick people into buying an older version of their product so they can make a little more money. We'll see.... Once burnt...

It would be nice to know if there is someone in the loop who would simply say, "That policy was wrong!" Then, when I'm telling the story to my students and fellow computer geeks, the story would have a nice ending. Not just, "they accommodated me," but that they actually could see that this wasn't right.

I purchased an upgrade to TrueImage 2010 at the of June in response to emails giving me a deadline to upgrade for a discount. Had I known that the 2011 version was as imminent as it turned out to be I wouldn't have bought it. In future I will regard sales as indications that a new version is coming and I'll skip the offer.

I've checked the option in 2010 to alert me to a new version but I've not had any alert that there's a new version. Does this actually work?

Acronis people, PLEASE could you stop the nickel and dime stuff and just let customers SUBSCRIBE and get free upgrades as long as they're subscribed?

I started and then abandoned a survey sent by Acronis.

Sorry, my time is valuable. You'll have to do better than a $10 Amazon voucher for that length of time. A few minutes free I don't mind, but even better would be listening to the customer here about what changes to make in future.

I agree, 2010 version is seriously buggy (not to mention that it is combined with horrible customer support - at least first support level). Acronis had simply decided that instead of releasing updates for the buggy product it would be better to charge customers the new version price for old bug fixes (optimistically assuming here that they are really fixed). I guess this is what is called now "industry standards".

     Audrey Zarubin wrote:

     Kad Man,  as I can see you've contacted our Suport Team and your issue was resolved.

Yes, my issue was resolved, to my full satisfaction, thank you, though my satisfaction is not due to anything that Acronis did.

I was offered the TH 2011 upgrade free of charge but the product turned out to be just as bad as the 2010 edition so I took advantage of the refund policy and bought Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2010.

You know, I'm so pleased with Paragon that I have actually destroyed my system drive (2xOCZ Vertex 2 SSD's in RAID0 configuration) no less than six times in the last week just so I could restore it and convince myself I wasn't dreaming.

In summary, there is really only one very small difference between Acronis and Paragon; Paragon works, your crapware doesn't.

2010 did have a lot of bugs, but it's still an excellent product, looking forward to a non buggy release.

I purchased Aconis True Image 10 several years ago and would like to upgrade to Aconis True Image 2011. I am considering downloading the upgrade to my existing Aconis True Image 10 program for use on my new computer running Windows 7.

I have one concern. If I download the Acronis 2011 upgrade, can I make a copy of the upgrade on a CD or DVD? If I can save the upgrade to a CD or DVD, what is the procedure for using the CD for restoring my HD on my new computer? Do I have to use the orginal True Image 10 CD, both the orgianl and the upgrad CD's or just the upgrade CD?

I recently had to reformat my HD and I needed the Aconis CD to start the restoration of my computer. Bill Rahm

Bill,

I'm a little unclear as to what you are getting at.

If you purchase an upgrade, then you actually will be downloading the full version of 2011 which has a slightly different installer. The difference being it will check to see if there is a previous version of True Image installed or failing that, will request the old version serial number followed by your 2011 serial number in order to be installed. The actual installation components are exactly the same for the full or upgrade versions.

Obviously you can copy the installer to whatever medium you need to use. I would suggest also making a text file, or from your account download all your serial numbers (from the 'Get My Serial' option) and save the text file onto the media as well. May be even write it on the CD/DVD with version and build number.

You will need to make a new rescue CD, and you will also need to test this to make sure it can see all your hardware. Do not throw out the old TI 10 rescue CD, it may still come in handy.

Did I answer your concerns?

Kad Man wrote:

Bad form, Acronis. Your upgrade policy disadvantages your long-term customers. Think about this...

1) On August 15 I purchased 2010 full licence at a discount because it was cheaper than getting an upgrade with add-ons. On August 17 I found out 2011 was to be released less than a week hence.

2) It will cost me $30 more to upgrade from 2010 to 2011 than it would have cost had I waited a few lousy days and bought 2011 in full.

3) I have licences going back to 2004.

4) I have put up with your software not supporting hardware properly and I've put up with having to implement costly workarounds.

5) Companies spend ten times as much money attracting new customers as they do keeping existing ones.

6) A customer with a bad experience is likely to tell 6 to 7 other people.

I feel that I have been ripped off.

What are you going to do about that, Acronis?

Same here. I have used Acronis since 2007 with ATI10. I have had more than one issue with Acronis, including the corruption of my computer and loss of data. That issue, I found out later, was because ATI10 was not compatible with RAID, which was not published at the time. What I learned then, was that using the "Secure Zone" modified the MBR, so that in the event of a disaster, one could not recover the original disk. I was angry and looked into Norton Ghost. However, from the forum comments over there, it did not seem to be much better, so I stayed with Acronis. I upgraded to ATI11, then noticed that nomenclature changed to ATI Home 2009, then Home 2010. During this time the old Acronis forum terminated and now the new one is online. Not only that, but my previous registrations on the Acronis site are all gone but the most recent Home 2010.

When I recently received the Acronis offer of "upgrade", just having purchased Home 2010 a couple months ago, I came here to see the comments first. I see the same beefs that have been ranted for years... Acronis marketing has been killing the reputation of the company that provides a good product. I don't think it will ever end.... sorry to say this, but having the ethical background of former Soviets has something to do with it, IMHO. They just don't think like Westerners, and they will always seek to "bury us" as Krushchev once said. (He also exposed some insight with this comment: "Do you think when two representatives holding diametrically opposing views get together and shake hands, the contradictions between our systems will simply melt away? What kind of a daydream is that?") This is what I am talking about.

"When you have to deal with a snake, you must keep out of striking distance." (That's a quote from me... and I know of what I speak. I grew up in the swamplands of Florida.) So I am joining the ranks of those looking for alternatives to Acronis.

Sorry to have to say it, but I ran into similar issues at SiteGround, a hosting service with support in Bulgaria. I left them after two years... I just got tired of their customer service attitude.

Hello Ed,

Thanks for posting, let me help you to sort things out.

I've reviewed your Acronis True Image 2010 Home Upgrade purchase date. I'm afraid it was purchased more than 30 days prior to the release: Purchased: 05 - June - 2010 so I can hardly help here. However I can see that you also own full license of this product registered in your account and it looks like it was a boxed version. I'd like to check if this can be upgraded to the latest Acronis True Image 2011 Home for free. Please send me purchase confirmation via PM on the forum and I sure will sort this out quickly.

As for your registration with Acronis Web site and previous products - those were not deleted in fact. You just used your alternative e-ail which does not have digit "2" in it. If you have difficulties accessing this account you may use Password retrieval procedure here. Please let me know if you were able to access this account and find all your registered products.

BTW I can see couple products that were not registered yet. It is a good idea to register them online as well to have access to Serial numbers and downloads.

We are looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks,

Andrey.

I have a slightly different complaint - I upgraded from "True Image 11" to "True Image 2011" because I read on the site the "Plus Pack Addon was free until November 30th". This was listed right below the Buy/Upgrade buttons on the main page for the Home version. There was nothing stating that this was limited to new purchases only, or that there were any restrictions whatsoever.

Naturally, I did not receive the Plus Pack Addon. The customer service here is abysmal. I refuse to deal with any company that gives preferential treatment to new buyers over their existing customers - consequently, I will be requesting a refund, and will look for another company for imaging (Paragon, perhaps? Going over to test them now.)

Just another unhappy customer...

Neil,

I think it refers to full version not upgrades, if it does then technically an existing user would be eligible so long as they purchased the full version (I could be wrong). Having said that, I agree it should be made clear in the banner - for full versions only.

Helo Neil and Colin!

Thank you for your comments!

Neil, welcome to our Forum, and thank you for finding time to report about the problem, and bring this issue t our attention.

Please accept our profound apologies for the inconvenience with the upgrade. You're actually eligible for obtaining Plus Pack for free, however it looks there was some issue with your purchase and Acronis Plus Pack was not provided for you. We are able to fix this inconvenience. I will contact you via Private message for necessary details on a minute.

Should you need anything else or have any further questions - feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience, we will be happy to help you!

Thank you!

He y'all,

I've been using ATII since version 6. I believe I purchase ATI 2010 and the plus pack early in the product cycle (I'll have to Check to be sure), so I don't expect a free upgrade. However, I a have few comments regarding the current upgrade, as I understand it.

1) It does not appear to me that there is sufficient new function in 2011 to justify an upgrade, even with a substantial discount. Am I wrong? Can someone explain to me what advantages I will see in going from 2010 to 2011? The web site blurbs don't really say much, to me.

2) If I did decide to upgrade to 2011, I feel that the plus pack should be included, or at least heavily discounted, since I currently own the 2010 plus pack. Again, I'm not really sure what benefits accrue from the 2010 plus pack, nor what additional advantages I would see in upgrading to the 2011 plus pack. I purchased the 2010 plus pack primarily for "completeness", just in case I needed it. I don't really know if I have or not. I feel Acronis's decision to make this a separate function/product and charge additionally for it is "unfortunate". If they want to be kinder to us, their existing customers, the should consider an upgrade which *includes* the Plus pack upgrade. at the $30 range.

3) The Best thing I can say about their current upgrade content and pricing policies is that has dis-incented me to have anything to do with this upgrade. Reasons: Cost, Lack of (percieved) new function, and remembering that upgrades tend to be rather disruptive,,,

Given the current financial situation even small, incremental investments require good justification Both for me and for "SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED!"

:)

Best Regards,
Chuck Brotman