From: mre@ukc.ac.uk (Mike)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Warning: Risc Developments
Date: 12 Oct 92 16:04:29 GMT
Reply-To: mre@ukc.ac.uk (Mike)
Organization: Computing Lab, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.

In article <1992Oct12.134247.17122@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:
>In article <1bbjkmINN6u4@oak6.doc.ic.ac.uk> ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:
>[lots of suggested threats, courses of action etc]
>
>I would advise you not to be confrontational. Also be aware that the 
>organisation is split into several distinct parts, each of which is not
>responsible for the actions of the others.
>
>Beebug/RISC Developments used to be very unpopular in some quarters (although
>they were awarded 'best dealer' award in AW magazine a while ago). I do
>believe that they have been trying to rectify this recently.

I can promise you they have not yet succeeded.

>For example, at one time I bought a copy of Ovation from them. After two or
>three months I got fed up with waiting for the promised upgrade, and sent
>it back. Not only did they refund the cost of the package, but they also
>paid for the postage.
>
>Target your letters. Direct them to the Product Development Manager, who I
>believe is a chap called John Wallace (check this first), and say that you 
>are not happy with the drive, giving the reasons. Don't try to be aggressive,
>rude or nasty - it will just put their backs up. They are a big enough
>organisation to not care in the slightest about any threats which you
>may make, so long as they feel that they are on legally firm ground. This
>is especially true if the problems are caused in any way by the upgrade to
>RISC OS 3.10.
>
>The people at Beebug are fairly reasonable, providing you are not being
>unreasonable to them. Set out the facts in a polite manner, and you are far
>more likely to get action than by threats, firebombs etc.

The problems have been around since January in my case.  I started off
nicely, explaining the problem and so on and they refused to answer my
letters at all.  Eventually I rang them up - their attitude?  "You have
bought a piece of perfect equipment from us and we don't want to hear from
you again."  

About two months after the original purchase I got fed up being "Mr.NiceGuy"
and started to get nasty with them - basically I told them that if I did not
get complete satisfaction or my money back I would start warning other
potential users via this newsgroup.  Result - within a week I had a new
version of the formatter arrive through my door which did prevent the
original bug occuring though they still refused to admit that there was a
bug in their code - they blamed it all on Acorn who have STILL refused to
defend themselves.  The accompanying letter I got led me to believe that ALL
users had received this "upgrade".  I now learn that this was not the case
and that Risc Developments are still selling the drive with the buggy
formatter and we are now EIGHT MONTHS after they admitted that their was a
problem and released a fix for it.

Now I have upgraded to RISC OS 3.10 and yet again I have problems.  This one
is not too major I grant you, but their reluctance to admit that their is a
problem does not bode well particularly since the new "*showfree" command
used on their filing system (ie "*showfree -FS idefs" and variants) returns
with the error "Filing system not known".  I'm just wondering what else
they've messed up.

In my own case I have now had to give up - I just cannot be bothered to keep
on bashing my head against a brick wall.  I don't, however, see why Risc
Developments should get away with their profits intact.  If I can prevent
one other person from getting snookered by this company which is only
interested in profit and not in customer care then I shall be slightly
happier.



-- 
Michael Ellis,  Darwin College,  The University of Kent,  Canterbury, England.

    ********* Views expressed are my own and in no way represent *********
    *********     the views of any past or present employers.    *********