Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Date: 08:26:32 01/09/02
As a way of giving myself a Christmas present, I decided to refresh my collection of Chessprograms a little. So far, I owned Hiarcs 7.32 and Fritz 7, and I wanted some new ones, notably with a good interface and WinBoard support. After looking around a little, I decided on Gandalf 5 + Century 4 (from Rebel) and Shredder 6 (from ChessBase). I asked my mom for her credit card, launched my browser and placed my orders. No real problems on either site, except that Rebel's site forgot to tell me where to download the internet version (ChessBase doesn't even have that), which I could use while waiting, and ChessBase still hadn't figured the Euro out yet. No problem, I mailed info@rebel.nl, and got a quick reply (and another identical one from another staff member the next day) where to download and how to apply the patch to remove the expiry date. ETA Rebel: 1 week / 2-3 days (depending on who you ask it seems) ETA ChessBase: no idea, they didn't inform me of anything After checking my regular mail 3 times each day, and a horribly long wait (or so it seemed) today the first package arrived. Gandalf 5 and Century 4. Seems like Rebel mailed fastest and beat ChessBase to it. No problem, Shredder will probably arrive tomorrow or so I guess. Guess again. ChessBase just mailed me demanding that I explain why the credit card holders name doesn't match up with the name on the destination address, and also asks for an additional security code that is somewhere on the card. So basically, it looks like it took them a week and a half to even get as far as _reading_ the order. In the same time it takes for Rebel to process, ship _and_ deliver, ChessBase only got as far as reading the order. Very impressive. Now, for additional fun, I of course have since long given my mother her credit card back, so I have no idea what the 'security check' is. Also, the email was not sent from ChessBase, but from chessland.de. I don't know what that is, if it's related to ChessBase, and their website doesn't work either. Do they reasonably expect me to be as stupid to send over the credit card info *over* *plain* *email* to a domain _I don't even know_ ?? I mailed back explaining that she was my mother, and simply refused to give the security check. So far, I am all but impressed by ChessBase. In fact, this is by far the worst support I have ever seen. They are also the first ones to complain about the credit card. I have ordered several times with it before. To Ed Schröder: congratulations. You aren't ahead of the competition, you are literally running circles around them. Lex Loep's interface is very nice (yours is too, but DOS is DOS :) I just wish Century would work under it... -- GCP
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