[smhaunch]

Many weeks ago I asked whether a rebate would be available for users of Merlin, the answer was yes. Your website was updated to say that rebates would be available. I spent many, many hours using OmniPlan during it's beta period, submitting buq reports and hopefully helping to make the product better.

Today, I downloaded the real thing and eagerly went to purchase from your store. What do I find? A piss poor mail-in excuse for a rebate program that only applies to US residents! I live in the UK, thanks a bunch guys.

I'll buy the software anyway since it's good and I need it (since I've been using it to manage live projects), but this has left a very very bad taste in my mouth regarding the OmniGroup. Not good.

[Brian]

You have our apologies for the miscommunication here. Myself and the other support ninjas don't know the ins and outs of the legal/financial stuff; it wasn't until this morning when I read your post that it occurred to me that there might be a country of origin restriction on the rebate. We knew there was going to be a rebate, so when folks asked, we told them yes.

Again, I'm sorry this miscommunication happened - we've collectively learned a lesson.

To answer the root of your unhappiness; there are some accounting and tax issues involved in offering a rebate to international customers. I checked with some folks here, and they're looking into what it would take to expand the rebate to cover folks in other countries. I can't and won't make any promises, but we're looking into it.

[relaxingdragon]

I agree, what a screw! I have not found myself so attached to OmniPlan that I feel compelled to purchase it, and being used to Merlin this seals the deal for me to upgrade to Merlin2 instead of switching. Very poorly thought out move Guys!

[mattao]

Please warn us if there is any rebate for non US resident people wich helped to debug through the Beta.

[Brian]

Okay, I just got another update - the details are still being worked out, but we are going to figure out a way to get international customers taken care of.

I'll post to this thread and post information on the website once I know more.

[smhaunch]

Thanks Brian, that's really appreciated! Also, apologies for the foul mouthed acronym in my original post title...

[Bill Van Hecke]

Okay, the rebate form has been rewritten to include customers from all over the planet!

[smhaunch]

I received an email from your sales department with the good news about opening up the rebate plan to your international customers. Unfortunately they still seem to want to issue a paper cheque, in US dollars, and send it on aeroplane half way around the planet (deposit tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere along the way, to help give global warming a helping hand) so that I can then walk to a bank and try to deposit it into my current account. A process surely to be a trying one at least.

Why can't you guys just process a refund against the credit card used to purchase the OmniPlan license, or send the refund to a PayPal account?

After all, this is the internet economy of the 21st century and you are a software house!

[Brian]

Mailing checks is the most convenient method that our operations manager has to get the money out to the largest number of folks. Not everyone has a paypal account, and the software that we're using for our online store doesn't currently support partial returns on items, so we can't go the credit card route.

In the future, we'd like to move bits around instead of paper. Faced with the choice between moving paper or not doing a rebate at all, we went with moving paper.

[relaxingdragon]

My bank charges me 20 pounds (c.$40) to handle a foreign currency cheque, some banks will not handle this at all (as it is considered to low an amount to be practical). Be prepared for disappointment.
Brian, can you ask the sales team how they would like to receive foreign currency checks?
If you don't care about overseas sales, you are doing a fine job, but I think this will, and should, put a lot of Merlin owners off switching. Such a pity!