Waring about Serif software.

[John Corliss]

I agree.

www.spamgourmet.com is ideal for registering software. You can use a
unique address, include the name of the company and limit the replies.
eg I might give serif this address (e-mail address removed)
it is set up automatically when they email the registration and in this example
would automatically cease to work after 4 emails. It also gives me a fair
idea of who has passed on my email addresses.
About two ago I registered a serif prog from a magazine cd, pageplus 5 or 6.
At first they sent the occasional offer, some fairly reasonable so I didn't mind
- eg the next new version of pageplus for 15 quid. It eventually increased
with their partners stuff to 1 every other day.
I never bothered to try to opt out, but they did dry up eventually.
I believe their emails also use unique HTML image links to check
if you've read them.

Thanks Mel and Aaron. That's good advise for the next time. However,
sometimes I kind of "guinea pig" myself in order to establish a basis
for warning others out there. This was the case with Serif (and 40tude
Dialog as well in fact.)

--
Regards from John Corliss
alt.comp.freeware F.A.Q.:
http://www.ccountry.net/~jcorliss/F.A.Q./FrameSet1.html
Note that I can't see any of Andy Mabbett's troll posts
because I have him killfiled.

 

[John Corliss]

Same experience here. This very morning I have received a letter offering
FineReader Pro 5 at a reduced price, plus free Photomanager. I get similar
offers from Serif at about three monthly intervals. IIRC the last one was a
digital camera for $15. Phone calls every three months or so as well which I
politely cut short.

If anybody telemarkets me, they always get a deafening earful that
they never forget.

I could get annoyed but I must admit I do use PagePlus 5 (free on a cover
CD) for my DTP work.

IMO, there are just too many freeware alternatives out there to have
to put up with Serif's continual advertisements.

--
Regards from John Corliss
alt.comp.freeware F.A.Q.:
http://www.ccountry.net/~jcorliss/F.A.Q./FrameSet1.html
Note that I can't see any of Andy Mabbett's troll posts
because I have him killfiled.

 

[Arnie]

Quote E=mc²(I must admit I do use PagePlus 5 for my DTP work.)
I didn't know they do this, but their software is good indeed.

 

[Mel]

I have to wonder - if I had an unscrupulous company wanting
to sell my client's email addresses, wouldn't I just omit
the ones that contain my company's name in it? (Do a check
and weed those out before selling.)

A lot of people seem to use this approach quoted - I did
too. Evidently the better (and harder) method is to keep a
record of your own and use something like:
(e-mail address removed)

Just a thought.

A fair point, but then again if they drop mine instead of
selling it on that's fine by me

Then again I am quite lazy so I often abbreviate the company name
which means automatic filtering might fail anyway.

 

[Ravi]

Mel wrote:

M> A fair point, but then again if they drop mine instead of
M> selling it on that's fine by me

But then one can't do all the fun finger-pointing and be
comfortable in the knowledge that you've busted 'em

M> Then again I am quite lazy so I often abbreviate the
M> company name which means automatic filtering might fail
M> anyway.

Yeah, I'm guessing something simple enough to be easily
visible to you - but not to them will be good.

E.g. (e-mail address removed)
("serif" spelled backwards is "fires")

Actually this way, no record keeping needs to be done. One
just needs a system that's obvious to oneself that will
thwart basic filtering.

 

[Patrick Connor]

Mr Corliss, and others

Serif do indeed send a lot of emails, but only from themselves and their sister company
The Gadget Store. We do not sell email addresses on. Furthermore to say that the links
don't work to unsubscribe is not I believe correct. If you read the two options carefully
the top one (which most people choose) says

"To unsubscribe from the Hobbies category of offers available from Serif, just click on
this button"

That means no more on this particluar category of software/hardware. However there are
lots of categories of software/hardware. So by choosing the unsubscribe button you will
not get more offers on that email address for that category. You will continue to get
emails in relation to other categories of product.

However the SECOND button says

"To view, update or cancel any of your other subscription options, click on this button"

which shows you all the categories. You can unsubscribe all of them there or just leave
the few you are interested in. I am not suggesting Serifs' methods are perfect, but to
suggest the unsubscribe "met with failure" is not, I think, true. If this is not your
experience then I appologise.

Serif also subscribes to the mailing preference service so if you use that we would not
mail you either, whether you are on the database or not.

--

Patrick Connor
Programmer
Serif Software Europe.

P.S. I did not post this reply to the original John Corliss posting as it has gone from my
server, but I read it on Google Groups.
Sorry

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Mr Corliss, and others

Serif do indeed send a lot of emails, but only from themselves and their sister company
The Gadget Store. We do not sell email addresses on. Furthermore to say that the links
don't work to unsubscribe is not I believe correct. If you read the two options carefully
the top one (which most people choose) says

"To unsubscribe from the Hobbies category of offers available from Serif, just click on
this button"

That means no more on this particluar category of software/hardware. However there are
lots of categories of software/hardware. So by choosing the unsubscribe button you will
not get more offers on that email address for that category. You will continue to get
emails in relation to other categories of product.

However the SECOND button says

"To view, update or cancel any of your other subscription options, click on this button"

which shows you all the categories. You can unsubscribe all of them there or just leave
the few you are interested in. I am not suggesting Serifs' methods are perfect, but to
suggest the unsubscribe "met with failure" is not, I think, true. If this is not your
experience then I appologise.

Serif also subscribes to the mailing preference service so if you use that we would not
mail you either, whether you are on the database or not.

How about the telemarking calls that have also been reported?

 

[BoB]

Thanks for the warning, John. I noticed there were considerable
msgs confirming your findings.

If I had any I must have dumped it. No sign of Serif in my reg.

I certainly hope none of their freeware is on/gets on the PL.

BoB

 

[John Corliss]

Mr Corliss, and others
(clipped)

Regardless of whether or not this post was actually from a Serif
employee (which I doubt, after looking at the header information), I
stand by my remarks. Attempting to unsubscribe from Serif's lists has
been uneffective for me. I continue to advise against installing and
registering their software.

--
Regards from John Corliss
alt.comp.freeware F.A.Q.:
http://www.ccountry.net/~jcorliss/F.A.Q./FrameSet1.html
Note that I can't see Andy Mabbett's obsessive troll posts
because my I have him killfiled.

 

[Gert van der Kooij]

Regardless of whether or not this post was actually from a Serif
employee (which I doubt, after looking at the header information), I
stand by my remarks. Attempting to unsubscribe from Serif's lists has
been uneffective for me. I continue to advise against installing and
registering their software.

I also didn't find a way to unsubscribe. I don't use the email
addreess anymore with which I subscribed because of that.

 

[JunkMonkey]

FWIW, Until I discovered Corel PhotoPaint I used to be quite fond of
PhotoPlus 7 and Serif maintains an extensive network of newsgroups and
forums dedicated to their products. Patrick Connor certainly was very
active as a Serif employee.

However, I agree that in the last 6 - 8 months Serif's email marketing
"blitz" has been relentless (here in the US anyway). Once I unsubscribed,
the level of spam from them has dropped considerably, though it has never
stopped completely.

I'm of two minds about Serif, they give you older, but still VERY
serviceable software in the hopes that you will upgrade to the most recent
product (which I did, a couple of times). I think a MODEST amount email and
snailmail advertising is entirely appropriate (especially snailmail, that
doesn't bother me as much) it seems a fair trade for the high quality free
stuff.

But in my mind, they have crossed the line to the point where they have
breached the business relationship we had. I used to actually look at their
ads. Now I treat them like spam.

 

[Daniel Mandic]

Hello John!


I am very satisfied with Photo 5.5 and I never get even one msg from
Scherif.

Better you retrace your route, at this time you found the version 6,
which was impossible for me to dl from the internet.




Beste Regards



Daniel Mandic