If you are a customer of the ecommerce provider SWREG you should beware that they may be upselling highly questionable ‘discount’ schemes to your customers. From a post on the Business of Software forum:
This unannounced change was placed at the point of order completion where and leads to a $10/mo discount coupon scheme unrelated to the sold shareware. The way the offer is presented is deceptive - after the order is complete, they show a button with the word “Continue” on it. It looks like you are supposed to press the button to complete your order. Instead, you end up paying for something you probably didn’t want - and it’s a recurring charge.
Another posting suggested this only happens if your customer is in the USA.
I am not based in the USA and haven’t bought anything from SWREG recently myself, so I can’t personally verify the above. But these comments are backed up by posts I have seen on other forums from unhappy vendors and their unhappy customers. If you are using SWREG I suggest you buy a copy of your own software and see for yourself (you can always refund the payment later).
Assuming the above is true - what are they thinking? Either they don’t see anything wrong with it (which is very worrying) or they know its completely unethical, but are doing it anyway (which is even more worrying). It reeks of desparation to me. I thought their upselling of a registration backup service was highly questionable (I think vendors should provide this service for free), but at least it was clear what you were getting.
Vendors looking to move from SWREG to a different ecommerce provider might like to consider companies not owned by SWREG’s parent company Digital River. I use e-junkie.com with PayPal and GoogleCheckout. Other people have recommended Plimus and Avangate. You can compare processing fees here.
You get it in the UK as well, I bought some software a couple of weeks ago and saw it.
I made a few purchases via SWREG some time ago and they started spamming me with these “special” offers:
“Protect Yourself with Evidence Eliminator through SWREG”
“SWREG New Discount Offer on PDANet for Windows Mobile”
“SWReg: Huge Discount on Smartsoft Video Converter Pro”
“25% Discount Ends TODAY for Smart PDF Converter Pro - Easy, Professinal Quality and Saves Time - Limited Time Offer!”
This is really bad for folks selling software via SWREG. Sadly, there are not that many good and reliable services out there. In fact I know of none. We sell our product via 2Checkout and PayPal and get at least one complaint a week about these services from our customers (2Checkout is worse than PayPal but customers do not like going to PayPal, probably they still think that the PayPal will force them to create an account there). This is one of the reasons we are currently opening a merchant account — to have full control over the checkout process.
Roustem, to have a very stable and powerful e-commerce department requires a lot of resources! I will think twice before getting this decision
I’ve been an SWREG vendor since the Steve Lee days. I have a lot of respect for Steve and the company he built. Sadly, DR is not returning that respect these days.
Since the take over we have had our customers being signed up to spam lists (and SWREG refuse to remove my customers from the list). Then they attempted to bribe us, with lower rates, into them getting our customers to sign up for download protection (we always do this for free) and to be advertised to after the sale.
Now we find that, even though we opted to stay at the higher rates, our customers still get the advertising (and not the simple ‘cross-selling’ it was announced as).
After vociferous complaints from vendors and a number of us fleeing the ship, SWREG have withdrawn this deceptive offer from vendors on the higher rates, but it is still compulsory for those on the lower rate.
If SWREG keep this up, before long customers will learn not to trust them, and anyone still using SWREG will be seeing a slump in sales.
As I said above, I have a lot of respect for Steve Lee and the company he built. I hope he never finds out how DR are trying to destroy it.
PS. I’ve also heard reports that RegSoft have imposed a similar scheme on their vendors. I suspect other DR properties will follow suit soon.
The more I read about this the more it seems like a suicidal strategy for DR. I shall be watching their stock price with some interest: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=driv .
This has pissed all vendors off since its inception. Some of us chose to stay on an older (and more expensive) plan when the new contract came in, specifically because the new contract REQUIRES vendors to allow DR to sell their FUCKING USELESS backup plan (a service we already provide to customers FOR FREE!) and to allow them to insert offers into the purchase completion page. I’m not adverse to showing ads for related products my customers might be interested in, but I’d like to show them games from other vendors I know and trust, not POINTLESS and UTTERLY WANK discount coupon subscription schemes.
Sadly, despite some vendors doing everything correctly and keeping the old contract those this rubbish doesn’t happen, we’ll now be tarred with the same brush. I’m also sure DR aren’t that interested in making sure us older customers are kept on - if they were they would offer both plans to new vendors.
We tried to use SWReg which assured us once again that nothing compares to 2Checkout.com so far.
Hello,
The offering is a perks offering for customers. In no way are they tricked into using this, and it is clearly disclosed what they are signing up for. The signup page looks nothing like the order form or SWREG clearly differentiating it from the product purchase.
Customers are also very easily able to cancel the perk offering at any time. They can choose to pay the fee and receive great discounts at very popular, well-known brands/stores within their country.
SWREG has made this optional for our clients. These are offerings used at Amazon and EBay, nothing new or out of the ordinary for customers.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Thanks,
Jessy
jjex@swreg.org
Jessy,
I have seen screenshots of the order process and I would expect the ‘continue’ button to complete my original order, not send me to some unrelated offer sign-up page. I don’t think its clear at all.
I also have a few questions.
Is this ‘perk’ from the same company mentioned here?:
http://www.connecticut.bbb.org/commonreport.html?bureau=walling&compid=77000102&language=&code=
“Based on Better Business Bureau files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to a pattern of complaints concerning deceptive marketing/selling practices and unauthorized charges to consumers’ credit cards.”
Did you ask the permission of your customers (the vendors) before you added this upsell? Did you even inform them?
Jessy,
Here are a few more posts I found about “Reservation rewards” with a quick Google:
“Reservation Rewards” Rips People Off With Card Fraud
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~jenn/reservationRewards.html
“WebLoyalty.com aka WLI*ReservationRewards Is A Scam”
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org/weblog/the_man/webloyalty_aka_wli_reservations_is_a_scam.html
“Watch Out For Webloyalty and Reservation Rewards”
http://consumerist.com/consumer/webloyalty/watch-out-for-webloyalty-and-reservation-rewards-254064.php
“Scam: Reservation Rewards”
http://www.ahoyhoy.org/wordpress/index.php?p=577
and a whole load more here:
“Ripoff report”
http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit2=Search!&q5=Reservation+Reward
Not exactly what I would call a “perk”.
As I pointed out in my blog post, the one thousand nine hundred and seventeen commenters on just ONE of the blog posts Andy just linked to might dispute Jessy’s characterization of this being “nothing new or out of the ordinary for customers”.
http://microisvjournal.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/conflict-of-interest-payment-processors-vs-uisvs/
This is why I use eSellerate. Seriously, I’ve been using these guys for years and years and they seem very straight-forward. Yes, their fees are a bit higher than some of the others - but their service and support are premium grade, and they wouldn’t pull something like what’s being described here.
Mark,
Actually eSellerate are owned by Digital River, the same people that own SWREG. I understand that SWREG had a lot of loyal customers before they were sold to DR, who started adding their ‘upsells’. Have you checked your purchase process recently?
Some more in-depth details of the ‘upsell’ here:
http://esc.newsgrouphosting.com/esc.public/1127/SWREG—Deceptive-marketing-.html
I bought a program “Photo Slide Show”. I paid € 32,21 with my Mastercard. The date was Mon Apr 30 2007 at 17:20:44.
Till now I didn’t receive anything.
I’am verry disapppointed.
Cor,
The licence key may have ended up in your spam folder. Unfortunately this happens all the time. I suggest you contact the software vendor ASAP (not SWREG). I’m sure they can help.
SWREG recently released a marketing option for clients utilizing our 2.9% + $1 pricing that continues to increase their revenue or lower their effective cost through our revenue sharing. The promotion was on the post-purchase page so it does not affect the order. The customer has the option to “continue” to learn more about the offering where they answer several survey questions, there is a full disclosure, and a double opt-in before they are signing up for the offering. The offering is rewards on travel, entertainment, restaurant, other stores based on their area where they can receive discounts. In choosing partners, we selected only those used by other reputable online marketers (i.e. Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, etc.) that have a history of customer care and satisfaction.
If you are unhappy with your subscription or have any questions regarding your membership to Reservation Rewards or Shopper Discounts & Rewards, please contact Webloyalty.com Customer Service at either 1-800-732-7031 or send an email message to customerservice@webloyalty.com. A customer service representative will be happy to help you.
In our error, the post-purchase page offer was released across the 2.9% + $1 plan and our default order form users. Once we were notified of this error, in a couple days we were able to rollback the problem. We apologize for the issue, and thank you for bringing it to our attention. The offering was only supposed to be released for our 2.9% + $1 users where share revenue with any offering lowering the effective costs for our clients. The permission to present these offers was granted to SWReg in the new 2.9% contract. In return, we negotiate offers with third parties that generate the greatest return to our clients.
Best Regards,
Jessy Jex
Given that SWREG is obviously has no intention of removing the ‘upsell’ I have decided that I will never knowingly buy anything through SWREG again. If SWREG is your only payment processor, you won’t be getting my business. I will also do my level best to avoid all other Digital River companies.
I’ve seen this outrageous scam before, and I can tell everyone here that I do not do any further business with ANY DR-owned site, and I strongly recommend that no one else does, either.
Contact the author of the product you want (that sells only thru DR) and let them know WHY they can’t have your money - see if we can’t make a difference!
I noticed that there was a charge on my card from this company SWREG. I’m not sure what has happened but looks like my card was compromised.
I tried to contact the company, but they do make it hard to contact them for anything. Hopefully, I will get my money back for this fraudulent transaction.
Well I have purchased 2 things from 2 different vendorsand both were processed through SWREG. What a joke. it took 4 hours for the first item to be available for delivery, and this one i have been waiting for about 8 hours now and still no delivery or download link. What is with this company. I can sell digital products in my yahoo ecom store and it is available immediately after checkout VIA paypal. SWREG needs 3 days for this? I just do not understand the logic with using this processor when most (not all) use paypal anyways. I would rather email digital products 1 by 1 to customers after payment than use SWREG.
Bottom Line is SWREG sucks and makes the vendors look like crooks.
MattB
Oh man. We have a $100,000 vendor account at SWReg since the Steve Lee’s day and if this should be true, we will go away from DR/SWreg as soon as possible.
We are selling a serious business software and have no interest whatsoever to mislead our customers. We have never been clearly informed by SWReg about this embarrassingly shady and unprofessional business practice.
And it seems that we as a Non-US/UK company have obviously no chance to verify first-hand.
Enough is enough. While this “download backup” rip-off is annoying enough, this is just too much.
What will be next? xxx movie bundling? Poker gambling invitations?
maria
Open letter to SWReg:
Dear SWReg,
we are generally happy with your services and support.
However, the introduction of your registration backup service was the first hard hit in the face to us as such service should actually be free-of-charge. At least, customers can disable this unwanted option.
But now, a very disturbing information has come to our intention:
http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/07/04/swreg-customers-beware/
Changing to the more expensive royalty scheme to have our customers saved from such shady and deceptive up-sell offers would be no solution as SWReg would still be recognized as a shady eEcommerce service by the general userbase.
I have to admit that you seem to work hard to utterly ruin the reputation you have built-up the last 10+ years.
Unfortunately, your feedback provided in the comment section of above blog posting does not show any sign of reflection or understanding for the situation. It actually diametrically differs from your nice and friendly support.
Please inform us whether you are willing to re-think your up-sell strategy and refrain from such dishonorable business practice. Otherwise we will consider to switch our US $320,000+ SWReg account to a non DigitalRiver account as soon as possible. We are about to switch our CMS and need to setup a new system anyway. We always do loyal business and would love to stick to SWReg but we expect to share common business ethics and I feel that SWReg has changed its attitude towards a very bad manner.
I kindly ask you to escalate this serious issue to a senior manager.
Thank you for your time.
Marco xxx
Marketing & Sales
SWREG ripped me off. I ordered software from them & never got it. Tried to contact them by phone & could not find a number. Contacted them by e-mail & could not get a straight answer. They failed to reply to my last e-mail.
Tom,
SWREG are just the payment processor. You should contact the software vendor (not the payment processor) if you didn’t get your software. However it is still a bit poor that SWREG didn’t bother to reply.
WELL, I WILL NOT READ ANY OF THE RESPONSES ABOVE, CAUSE I HAD ASKED SWREG TO REFUND MY MONEY, AND AFTER THEY REFUND OR WHATEVER, I NEVER HAVE RECEIVED IT BACK!! SO STOP SENDING MONEY TO SWREG, MY FRIENDS!! I HATE SWREG.
It’s not just SWREG, you know. Other Digital River brands (ShareIT and RegNow come to mind) also now have this right to add cross-sells to all post-purchase pages…and the contracts also grant to DR the right to offer extended download and cd on demand as opt-out, no exceptions (unless, presumably, you’re an old client, or can negotiate a non-standard contract).
Meanwhile, the other DR properties in the shareware space are good and costly - eSellerate at 10% to 15%, RegNet at $3+10% - 20%….seems like Wall Street is pushing them hard!
SWREG is a dishonest vendor! They are stealing customer credit card numbers and using them to make fraudulent charges. I purchased software online and SWREG processed the credit card transaction. I provided SWREG during my online checkout with a phone number that is rarely used. Days later my credit card company contacted me to notify me of a series of charges that appeared suspicious. They ended up being fradulent charges!
I had one merchant call me who wanted to verify that an online purchase to their company that was made was legitimate. When I asked how they knew to contact me at this number, they indicated the person who made the charge used this phone number during their online purchase. The only merchant who had this number was SWREG!
Please do not use this company for processing your credit card transactions!
This post has been really useful. I was thinking of moving over to SWREG but was surprised by their polices, including the dumb “back up” link. Huh?? They undermined my trust. I started to look for a new option after wasting an inordinate amount of time trying to get a ShopFactory/GlobeCharge site to work. I like the ShopFactory stuff, but GlobeCharge (whom i was “stuck with” because i purchased ShopFactory software to build my shopping cart) supposedly processes the sale and delivery of digital content (in my case, MP3s). But their “technical support” is EMBARRASSING. I had the impression that i was dealing with (polite) high school kids with no technical or business knowledge whatsoever. It could take up to three days to get a reply to an email. The “response” was typically a link to a .pdf that i had read months ago, and which did not answer the relevant questions. After reading the DR/SWREG post, GC seems tame by comparison. ejunkie is not a name that would inspire confidence in the “over 30″ shopper - and with their dreadful “logo” good luck if you are selling to Christians.
I agree that e-junkie isn’t a great name. The customer never sees it though, apart from the URL briefly appearing in their browser address bar for a second or two before they are redirected to PayPal.
I AM DISTURBED AND FRUSTRATED BY THE NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS SOME SIMILAR TO MINE WHICH I HAVE JUST NOW READ ABOVE ABOUT SWREG.
I PURCHASED SOFTWARE PRODUCT FOR $49.95 THROUGH THEM ON 11/8. THE LINK THEY SENT ME WAS WORTHLESS. I TRIED TO CONTACT THEM ABOUT THE LINK, TO NO AVAIL. FINALLLY I WROTE SEVERAL EMAIL AND FILLED OUT TROUBLE TICKETS. THEY HAVE REPLIED TO NONE!!!
FINALLY, I JUST WROTE TO JESSY WHOSE EMAIL ADDRESS I FOUND ABOVE.
Finally i have received my money back! right on chrismass. But this has taken a HALF YEAR though.
Why have it not get earlier to me, i am now sorry for my bad words.
They just charged me.. How do I cancel? I do not remember ever ordering from these people - this software stuff….
I have been reading about all the SWReg business dealings as well as hearing how they unsuccessfully launched the new Control Panel without really testing it. My partners and I left SWReg last year and we have never been happier.
Not sure if this helps anyone but we looked at several other ecommerce providers and finally found one who we highly recommend. Our new provider is cleverbridge, they went way beyond our expectations in helping us migrate our product catalog over and setting everything up. Also, we have an Account Manager (Chris) who actually calls or emails us back, if you ever look for a new ecommerce provider look at these guys. Ask for Chris when you call, he has been good with us.
Cheers
I received a call from a computer sales company wanting to know where my computer should be delivered.? This was the day after a purchase from swreg. There were also a couple of smaller charges to my card. I am now very suspicious of swreg and digital river and will not consider them for my software business.
wow.. we were looking into switching to SWREG this week. I am glad that this was brought to my attention, at least now I can speak with them and confirm if this is a part of the deal or not. If it is, well then… I don’t think we will be going with them.
btw, Marco… did you get a reply for that ‘Open letter’ you sent to SWREG?
http://www.SWReg.org also known as http://www.SWReg.net and http://www.cardquery.com and owned by digital river all seem to have unethical practices steer clear! They do unauthorized charges, and unlike pay pal and more ethical online Ecommerce sites they let any vendor sell their product even if its a scam company like http://www.alstrasoft.com and http://www.revou.com both are horrible companies and zero support buggy scripts and scam type of company they tell you anything you want to hear to get your money!! http://www.alstrasoft.com was so bad they have rebranded to http://www.revou.com and as many complaints that are out there and requested refunds http://www.SWReg.com does nothing to regulate the problems they just make it worse! I fought to get a refund which they only did a partial refund and did that same back up registration charge well two weeks later they recharged my card without authorization!!! And out of 10 emails they never answered why they did the charge and then finally deleted the link i had to do alot of research and call other numbers all owned by digital river and all they do is pass you around and say that http://www.SWReg.org is seperate and they dont have a phone number and they pass you around its the biggest joke out there.Any company that allows a scam compay to collect your money and not take care of the problems and then does unauthorized charges should be shut down but just for your info the whole company Digital River inc seems to be a scam they own 650 seperate companies!! All seem to operate the same way,it became very clear there needed to be a reconized site out there to help protect online consumers and warn them to stay away so i am building http://www.BBBofEcommerce.com it will be up and running next week as a temp site it will be a bulletin board but will grow into a great site for consumers to check sites out! Please report scam sites,problem sites and even sites that do great business! Any questions or want to help build the site please contact me Cody@xeleven59.com thanks
I was just about buying an upgrade from cbox.ws and found out at the point of payment as i was being redirected to SWREG. There i found additional button of purchase of some unkown and unsolicited offer.
At that point i had to stop, to do a little research which brought me here. thanks guys, particularly Andy Brice and others, for this alert.
I went back to my vendor http://www.cbox.ws and found out surprisingly and strangely too that that cbox does not have a contact page, where you can complain or correspond with them.
I have been using cbox’s free version products for some years, this latest twist has also cast a slur on the reputation of cbox and other SWREG associated vendors.