Ableton Forum

McQ714 wrote:is it a reputable store??? sounds like the store knowingly sold you an EDU license for full license price thinking that you would never sell it.
take the receipt to the store along with the responses from NI. and if they don't rectify the situation, then tell NI what store it was and urge them to pull their products of the shelf of this store. take away the ability for this store to sell anything NI.
you lose, they lose!!!

I thought it was, I've bought various musical instruments from them and I've never had a problem.

anyway when I was in contact with the customer support, I told them that if it was the store fault I could have given them its name, address and contacts, plus a copy of my receipt, but they just told me that I had to deal with it myself.

when I brought up the situation on their forum, someone else from NI answered me saying to tell him those kind of informations because that was (really????) an important issue to them.

why did I have to go on the forum and talk about my problem there to get that kind of support from them?

Joghurt wrote:If you buy a ROLEX from a store and pay the full price, and then find out that it is a 10 € fake, do you blame ROLEX that they didn't mark it? With NI, you definitely blame the wrong guys!

that example doesn't really apply here.

both products are made by NI, it's their fault for not giving me ANY KIND OF WAY to tell them apart.
trust me, there is NO WAY to tell if you have an EDU copy, aside from a sticker on the box, which can be easily peeled off.

sure, for the fraud I blame the store, and I'll rise hell on them as soon as I get Maschine and the receipt back.

the saga continues!

in my last e-mail to the customer service I wrote them that, since they didn't even care about their customer and would let them deal with this kind of stuff alone without any support (even if it's in their interest find out who sells EDU copies for full price), I was going to soon sell my Traktor S4 and I won't buy anything from them anymore.

the nice lady that was (not) dealing with my case, wrote me back letting me know that my S4 licence was deleted as requested.

huahuahuahu I'm laughing because it's so surreal. I guess just because I was bothering the customer support too much with my problem? or because after a whole day of them not giving a damn about this issue, I was so mad that I said I was going not to buy their stuff anymore?

anyway, naturally it was deleted exactly a minute before the latest update to the new Traktor came out! yeah!

wait it gets better.

when I asked what would I have to do now, they said "just activated the product again". yeah sure...

my S4 licence is gone from my NI account if I log in on their website, but it's still active if I check it from the Service Center (the program NI uses to activate their products and to download the updates)!
and guess what? the only way to activate this product is through... the Service Center!
and since it is already active on it, I can't activate it again
I'll have to deal again with the nice lady that was so helpful

wow NI, thank you so much for screwing up everything I bought from you!
it's so much fun to waste all this time dealing with this stuff for me thank you

Edu or normally bought Macbook are exactly the same, so all the other products of any company sold under educationals schemes.Why you want to punish yourself by not buying, using NI products while real culprits are at the store you bought it. Dont know how it is in Italy but in Germany it would be simple to fix, you go with the receipts and details to the police, file the case and wait. WIthin few days the shop will be calling you with apologies, full refund or genuine replacement plus some goodies begging you to withdraw the case. However if you dont go to police first, 9 out of 10 you will be wasting weeks in negotiation and might end up with nothing. That it`s what I lernt here, sadly but it is kind of "shoot first, ask questions later"

ansiaaa wrote:

Joghurt wrote:If you buy a ROLEX from a store and pay the full price, and then find out that it is a 10 € fake, do you blame ROLEX that they didn't mark it? With NI, you definitely blame the wrong guys!

that example doesn't really apply here.

yes it does. joghurt is spot on.
you're moaning to the wrong person. your issue is with vendor, NOT the manufacturer.

NI have done nothing wrong here. Your beef should be with the shop 100%.
There are plenty of scammers out there selling Edu versions and passing them off as full retail.

It's not NI's fault. The store has messed up and sold you the wrong thing. The store needs to get in contact with their supplier/distributer and tell them to get you a full license, not a EDU version. No big deal and should take a few days to sort out.

If your music store does not sort this out for you, you can take further action via some sort of consumer rights organisation that should exist in Italy.

Maybe Berlusconi is the owner of the store, and he needs the extra money for a bunga-bunga party. But bad news if it is really Berlusconi: then I'm shure that he already wrote a law that allows him to sell NI edu versions in italy.

phil909 wrote:

ansiaaa wrote:

Joghurt wrote:If you buy a ROLEX from a store and pay the full price, and then find out that it is a 10 € fake, do you blame ROLEX that they didn't mark it? With NI, you definitely blame the wrong guys!

that example doesn't really apply here.

yes it does. joghurt is spot on.
you're moaning to the wrong person. your issue is with vendor, NOT the manufacturer.

NI have done nothing wrong here. Your beef should be with the shop 100%.
There are plenty of scammers out there selling Edu versions and passing them off as full retail.

again: I blame the store for the scam, I don't want money back from NI or anything, but that example is nowhere near what happened to me

my only blame to NI is that they don't let the user know what kind of version they have. (and a crappy customer support anyway... the only one who show that NI cared about the problem was a NI rappresentative on the forum, who was smart enough to know that stores like that arm their image and their wallet as well)

that's why I wrote my story, so that other people will be aware of that, and maybe start checking with NI what kind of version they have before it's too late and maybe they try to sell it.

I keep repeating that but some people keep only focusing on how I'm trying to bring NI down???

Joghurt wrote:Maybe Berlusconi is the owner of the store, and he needs the extra money for a bunga-bunga party. But bad news if it is really Berlusconi: then I'm shure that he already wrote a law that allows him to sell NI edu versions in italy.

lol unfortunately for us, Italy if full of Berlusconi-wannabe's. they don't even need to write laws for themselves as he does, since the law is so slow that a single citizen won't even bother to deal with it for a thing like this.

Joghurt wrote:If you buy a ROLEX from a store and pay the full price, and then find out that it is a 10 € fake, do you blame ROLEX that they didn't mark it? With NI, you definitely blame the wrong guys!

Um ... so many things wrong with this type of attitude.

The first of many problems with your 'idea' ...

A Rolex is not the same as Maschine and It does not require registration to use it...

rikhyray wrote:Edu or normally bought Macbook are exactly the same, so all the other products of any company sold under educationals schemes.

yeah but if I want to resell a Mac bought under an EDU licence I guess I can?

I don't think it's really fair, or let's say smart, for NI not to let the owner check in any way possible if he has or not an EDU licence.

rikhyray wrote: Why you want to punish yourself by not buying, using NI products while real culprits are at the store you bought it. Dont know how it is in Italy but in Germany it would be simple to fix, you go with the receipts and details to the police, file the case and wait.

I know, and you are completely right about that, I haven't done anything yet for a couple of reasons:
- I have already sent Maschine to the guy who bought it and I'm waiting to have it back
- I wanna first go to the store and ask them to change it
- if they don't I'll go the the... mmm I don't know how you call it there, well let's say the police for the commerce, taxes and so on

rikhyray wrote: WIthin few days the shop will be calling you with apologies, full refund or genuine replacement plus some goodies begging you to withdraw the case. However if you dont go to police first, 9 out of 10 you will be wasting weeks in negotiation and might end up with nothing. That it`s what I lernt here, sadly but it is kind of "shoot first, ask questions later"

I wanna deal with the store first, because here in Italy the longest route would be going to the police.
since you are german you should know how Italy is considered badly under these circumstancies... well I can tell you it's exactly as bad as they say

anyway, apart from being pissed by the problem, the fraud, and the fact that I had to give back the money and go through all this, and then try to sell Maschine again (its price is dropping fast and I'll be lucky to get the same amount of money I did, + I have to pay the guy to send it back to me)... I'm not here to talk badly about NI or tell you not to buy their stuff or anything. the only warning I gave was to check your licences before it happens something like this to you as well. (ok maybe I reacted angrily when they deleted my S4 licence -_- but that was really retarded by them... come on...)
and I'll surely make the store pay for this.

at least a guy from NI (NOT the official customer support) read my story on the forum and what the name and contacts of the store, which I will be more than happy to provide, hoping they do something about that too.
(actually that's all I wanted from NI, that they cared that someone who buys their stuff is getting scammed. and I told the customer support that I could let them know which store was and have a copy of the receipt if they wanted to do something about them, but they didn't care at all)

anyway thanks everybody for the support and the interest in my little trouble, I know it's annoying reading about someone who is complaining about stuff like this.

NI have some duty of care to their customers Regardless of what a retailer does.

The shop is liable. NI are liable. The customer is also responsible for their actions...

ALL this could have been avoided if NI identified the product as an EDU version with registration.

This happened to me but NI accepted their mistake and did not push their luck.
They also promised me a $50 voucher for the other stuff arounds they caused me but dont respond to my emails asking about it ...

Ben_Binary wrote:NI have some duty of care to their customers Regardless of what a retailer does.

The shop is liable. NI are liable. The customer is also responsible for their actions...

ALL this could have been avoided if NI identified the product as an EDU version with registration.

This happened to me but NI accepted their mistake and did not push their luck.
They also promised me a $50 voucher for the other stuff arounds they caused me but dont respond to my emails asking about it ...

thank you :° at least I know someone doesn't cosinder me a (too much of a) whining crazy guy

was your product Maschine as well?

I want my ghost vaucher too!!!

ansiaaa wrote: thank you :° at least I know someone doesn't cosinder me a (too much of a) whining crazy guy

Hey, you are not alone. I think you are totally right, that EDU-versions should be clearly marked and one should not only to be able to identify such a version by serial number. That's not only a problem for customers but for dealers also - as I think they don't have insight to NIs serail number mechanism.

If I'd be you, I'd go to the store with the reciept (when you'll have it back) and probably also would send a scan of the reciept to NI and ask them for help.

I hope you'll get that all sorted out.

Best,
Christoph

Ben_Binary wrote:NI have some duty of care to their customers Regardless of what a retailer does.

The shop is liable. NI are liable. The customer is also responsible for their actions...

ALL this could have been avoided if NI identified the product as an EDU version with registration.

This happened to me but NI accepted their mistake and did not push their luck.
They also promised me a $50 voucher for the other stuff arounds they caused me but dont respond to my emails asking about it ...

Thats good to here, i like NI products. I used to be a customer service manager of a communications company and if I were the VP of Operations at NI i would want to know first, who the store is and find out why they are passing EDU for full licenses, second, do right by the customer and give him the full license. This is an excellent opportunity for a PR exercise for NI and to rectify a problem in their procedures.

Yes, the customer should always be aware of what they are buying and if there is no markings on the packaging I would confirm what version I am getting. But NI do right by the customer and cease the op for a good PR exercise!

thanks again for the support.
that's exactly my thought... I guessed they would care to know which store is doing that, but the persone I talked to via e-mail didn't really care much.
I'm starting to think that this issue is more common than it seems. one of the MOD on their forum even said it was pretty normal to find EDU versions sold as normal ones on ebay...

anyway as I said, one person from NI asked me the details of the store (even if only AFTER I wrote on their forum)

in the end I'm glad someone from NI stepped in, that's the kind of support I appreacciate.

I'm sorry for any kind of anger that came out of this thread, I'm the first to hate things kind of rants, but it's really annoying to have to deal with issues like this without any kind of support from the companies...