The lowdown on the VbTrader.

[PranK]

Hi All,

I spoke to DeanC about this before, its not slander, its just the facts about my experiences with The VbTrader (full version).

I was asking about the VbTrader (full) in the lite thread when trafix PM'd me, said I could buy it for $60 USD if i sent him the money in 24hrs... I was hesitant but couldn't see any real working demo as his 'current' support site (www.ozezyhost.com) has closed the trader for new ads, so i could see it, but not play with it. I thought that I have had such awesome experiences with everybody else from vb.org, I'd just do it, which I did.

It didn't work.. to start with, the installation installed the templates into only one of my styles (small problem really) and you couldn't actually view the listings. You could navigate through the trader and whatnot, but if you tried to view a listing (by far the most important feature), you got a blank screen (like a missing template). Anyway, from here, it took him over 3 weeks to help me fix it. He had admin access on my forums AND ftp access. He rarely replied to pm's (when he did, he was mad at me for getting upset about the whole process). So after 3 and a bit LOOOONG weeks, I finally said that I would post this thread on here about it, and he sent back one line of code to change, which fixed that problem. So, I went about making it live, setting permissions and adding templates. Now, unregistered users can post ads which causes sql errors and he has yet again failed to respond to my PM's for the past week.

Basically, these are the facts;

• I am out of pocket $60 USD
• Its been 5 weeks and the thing still doesn't work
• he has replied to approx 1/4 of all PM's - completely selectively
• it is NOT a good hack or addon

This thread is here for only 1 reason, to save other vb.org'ers from making the same mistake i did... I have since purchased another application which works extremely well.

Thanks for reading.

Christian

[PranK]

btw, I have all the PM's still if anybody would like proof of any of this.

Christian

[Floris]

Originally Posted by PranK

Hi All,

I spoke to DeanC about this before, its not slander, its just the facts about my experiences with The VbTrader (full version).

I was asking about the VbTrader (full) in the lite thread when trafix PM'd me, said I could buy it for $60 USD if i sent him the money in 24hrs... I was hesitant but couldn't see any real working demo as his 'current' support site (www.ozezyhost.com) has closed the trader for new ads, so i could see it, but not play with it. I thought that I have had such awesome experiences with everybody else from vb.org, I'd just do it, which I did.

It didn't work.. to start with, the installation installed the templates into only one of my styles (small problem really) and you couldn't actually view the listings. You could navigate through the trader and whatnot, but if you tried to view a listing (by far the most important feature), you got a blank screen (like a missing template). Anyway, from here, it took him over 3 weeks to help me fix it. He had admin access on my forums AND ftp access. He rarely replied to pm's (when he did, he was mad at me for getting upset about the whole process). So after 3 and a bit LOOOONG weeks, I finally said that I would post this thread on here about it, and he sent back one line of code to change, which fixed that problem. So, I went about making it live, setting permissions and adding templates. Now, unregistered users can post ads which causes sql errors and he has yet again failed to respond to my PM's for the past week.

Basically, these are the facts;

• I am out of pocket $60 USD
• Its been 5 weeks and the thing still doesn't work
• he has replied to approx 1/4 of all PM's - completely selectively
• it is NOT a good hack or addon

This thread is here for only 1 reason, to save other vb.org'ers from making the same mistake i did... I have since purchased another application which works extremely well.

Thanks for reading.

Christian

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience.
I have seen the trader hack on various sites that have replies that are nothing but good. And I believe trafix has good reasons not to be on the internet - jumping on someone for that without knowing what is behind it is not so nice, but I can understand your frustration.

Because you had a bad experience doesn't mean it is a bad or good hack. It just didn't work out for you, unlike it has done for various others.

[PranK]

Hi floris,

If he had, at any time, said to me "oh by the way prank, i am unable to get online much these days because of xxxxx" then i would have been understanding and empathetic for him, but alas, i had nothing.. he chose to ignore most of my pm's anyway.

as for it working for others, thats great!! i am happy for them, what concerns me is that i bought a product, as if i had walked into a pc joint and picked up a piece of software. The product failed to work and I had no support for that product. If this had been freeware, or $5 or something i wouldn't have given a crap, but it irritates me that i paid for a product and didn't get what i paid for.

Anyhoo

Christian

[trafix]

I dont intend to defend myself here but tell you the truth of this whole issue

his 'current' support site (www.ozezyhost.com) has closed the trader for new ads, so i could see it, but not play with it.

I find that to be incorrect ..... the site is www.ozezyhosting.com for a start .... and the demo version of the trader on that site has ALWAYS been open for perspective buyers to add test ads and has never been closed. You can see that there are test ads there now that where placed before and after Pranks registration to my forum.

It didn't work..

There are a couple of dozen people that have purchased this hack, NOBODY else has had ANY problem with instilation or blank screens .... I early report said unregistered members could post ... this was quickly fixed.

the installation installed the templates into only one of my styles

Yes this is true .... BUT the other styles that he added to his site without using the defult as a parent forum ...

He had admin access on my forums

Yes, After her first reperted the ploblem to me I asked for admin access ..... Not even 24 hrs after giving me admin access it was revoked, and he still complained that it wasnt fixed. after 2 weeks of trying to debug his site via PM or email only (without result) i then asked for admin and ftp access. It then took me about 2 days to find the reason for the blank screen. My admin access was again removed as i didnt need it any longer. Recently due to other commitments i am lucky to use my computer 2 hours a day, i advised him of this in one of my PMs.
The reason for the blank screen is the line of code (below) Its a standard VB line of code that resolves the reputation for a member, for some reason this was causing the blank screen on his site and his site only ..... this problem has never occoured before and everyone else is using the same scripts.
During this 2 week period, i consulted with many other experiances vb hackers including IM chat with Kura and a phone call to Erwin (Ex vb.org admin) and none of them could cume up with a logical reason why a page should be blank if the template and the php file is there and correct ... you at least should see the header and footer.

[php]
// get reputation
fetch_reputation_image($seller);
[php]

when he did, he was mad at me for getting upset about the whole process

No, I wasnt upset .... I was angry because prank threatned to distrubute my hack to others, thus breaking the licence agreement.

Now, unregistered users can post ads which causes sql errors and he has yet again failed to respond to my PM's for the past week.

I only recieved a PM informing me of this issue 24 HOURS AGO .... not a week ago as he suggests. Again this unregistered posting issue was previously reported and fixed, but as prank only reported to me last night, without any access to his admin or server .... i had no way of attempting to fix this problem in this time.

Basically, these are the facts;
I am out of pocket $60 USD

I normal cost for the hack is US $100 but as prank showed intrest in the hack by PMing regurally asking questions, I PMed him the $60 offer on the grounds that the offer stays between us and that he dosnt mention it to anyone else (agreement broken now!!)

Its been 5 weeks and the thing still doesn't work

He sent payment to me on the 3 August 2004 ..... by my calculations thats NOT 5 weeks and ive already covered the reason for it not working

he has replied to approx 1/4 of all PM's - completely selectively

Yep i kept all the PM's as well. He has sent me 23 PM's of which I have replied to 13 ot them ... others just contained admin access and ftp details and didnt realy need replying to.

it is NOT a good hack or addon

Thats pranks opinion only! I would invite other vb trader users to reply with your thoughts

[Floris]

Originally Posted by PranK

Hi floris,

If he had, at any time, said to me "oh by the way prank, i am unable to get online much these days because of xxxxx" then i would have been understanding and empathetic for him, but alas, i had nothing.. he chose to ignore most of my pm's anyway.

as for it working for others, thats great!! i am happy for them, what concerns me is that i bought a product, as if i had walked into a pc joint and picked up a piece of software. The product failed to work and I had no support for that product. If this had been freeware, or $5 or something i wouldn't have given a crap, but it irritates me that i paid for a product and didn't get what i paid for.

Anyhoo

Christian

I disagree with your first paragraph.

I think keeping personal things aside of the internet is wise.

[trafix]

Originally Posted by PranK

Hi floris,

If he had, at any time, said to me "oh by the way prank, i am unable to get online much these days because of xxxxx" then i would have been understanding and empathetic for him, but alas, i had nothing.. he chose to ignore most of my pm's anyway.

as for it working for others, thats great!! i am happy for them, what concerns me is that i bought a product, as if i had walked into a pc joint and picked up a piece of software. The product failed to work and I had no support for that product. If this had been freeware, or $5 or something i wouldn't have given a crap, but it irritates me that i paid for a product and didn't get what i paid for.

Anyhoo

Christian

Pm to prank dated 10/08/04

I appologise for taking so long to get back to you as I have been away for a couple of days.

As far as I know You are the first person to report that templates where missing so im not sure what has happened there but this is easy to fix. You are also the first person to have problens installing it! The last person to buy it before you was only about a week ago, and has not reported any problems at all.

The only thing that dosnt work with the trader at the moment is the search script ... but that is beeing worked on by a friend and will be complete soon.............

Pm to prank dated 14/08/04

..................i suggest that you replace the showlisting.php script with a clean one from the vb trader zip file

Im sorry that i cant be online 24/7 as you obviously think i am to provide support any time of the day or night ..... the fact is that i have other comittments and that i am lucky if i get online once a day to check messages etc.................

Here is 2 occassions where i

had, at any time, said to me "oh by the way prank, i am unable to get online much these days because of xxxxx"

[PranK]

I do believe some of your statements to be correct, but I dont agree with others. I dont want to make this a slagging match at all, so I am doing my best to keep this civil and to the point.

Originally Posted by trafix

I dont intend to defend myself here but tell you the truth of this whole issue

I find that to be incorrect ..... the site is www.ozezyhosting.com for a start .... and the demo version of the trader on that site has ALWAYS been open for perspective buyers to add test ads and has never been closed. You can see that there are test ads there now that where placed before and after Pranks registration to my forum.

If this is the case, I apologise, I was unable to post an add (as you can see by the lack of one on your board). I apologise for getting the URL incorrect.

Originally Posted by trafix

There are a couple of dozen people that have purchased this hack, NOBODY else has had ANY problem with instilation or blank screens .... I early report said unregistered members could post ... this was quickly fixed.

Regardless of the others that could get it to work, mine didn't which you knew. Also, I had the problem of the unregistered users posting, it was not fixed when I got the hack

Originally Posted by trafix

Yes this is true .... BUT the other styles that he added to his site without using the defult as a parent forum ...

something which i have never had problems with before. All other hacks have installed fine. I am not saying that my setup is correct, just the way that I have gone about it.

Originally Posted by trafix

Yes, After her first reperted the ploblem to me I asked for admin access ..... Not even 24 hrs after giving me admin access it was revoked, and he still complained that it wasnt fixed. after 2 weeks of trying to debug his site via PM or email only (without result) i then asked for admin and ftp access. It then took me about 2 days to find the reason for the blank screen. My admin access was again removed as i didnt need it any longer. Recently due to other commitments i am lucky to use my computer 2 hours a day, i advised him of this in one of my PMs.

Alistair, cmon man, you know how long you had both admin & ftp access for. I sent them to you in a PM and never got a response from you (apart from the first time advising me of the issue with the non parent style, that was the only response). I was somewhat uneasy about a guy that I didn't know, having ftp & admin access on my board. Again a case of you not responding to my pms. I dont recall a PM where you advised me of this, however i will check through them. Even so, it would go days at a time that you would not reply... it takes 2mins to tell me that you are looking into it.

Originally Posted by trafix

The reason for the blank screen is the line of code (below) Its a standard VB line of code that resolves the reputation for a member, for some reason this was causing the blank screen on his site and his site only ..... this problem has never occoured before and everyone else is using the same scripts.
During this 2 week period, i consulted with many other experiances vb hackers including IM chat with Kura and a phone call to Erwin (Ex vb.org admin) and none of them could cume up with a logical reason why a page should be blank if the template and the php file is there and correct ... you at least should see the header and footer.

[php]
// get reputation
fetch_reputation_image($seller);
[php]

I understand that now, you advised me of this at the beginning of this week.

Originally Posted by trafix

No, I wasnt upset .... I was angry because prank threatned to distrubute my hack to others, thus breaking the licence agreement.

It was an empty threat so you would respond to my pms, i apologise for that.

Originally Posted by trafix

I only recieved a PM informing me of this issue 24 HOURS AGO .... not a week ago as he suggests. Again this unregistered posting issue was previously reported and fixed, but as prank only reported to me last night, without any access to his admin or server .... i had no way of attempting to fix this problem in this time.

Mate, i asked you a few questions through the week and again they went without replies.

Originally Posted by trafix

I normal cost for the hack is US $100 but as prank showed intrest in the hack by PMing regurally asking questions, I PMed him the $60 offer on the grounds that the offer stays between us and that he dosnt mention it to anyone else (agreement broken now!!)

Um, are you curious as to why?

Originally Posted by trafix

He sent payment to me on the 3 August 2004 ..... by my calculations thats NOT 5 weeks and ive already covered the reason for it not working

Ok, thats my mistake, I apologise i was looking at the wrong paypal payment. But it still makes it 3.5 weeks in total.

Originally Posted by trafix

Yep i kept all the PM's as well. He has sent me 23 PM's of which I have replied to 13 ot them ... others just contained admin access and ftp details and didnt realy need replying to.

why would i have sent admin access and ftp details in 10 seperate PM's? that makes no sense! you yourself said that you only had this access on 2 seperate occasions!

Christian

[PranK]

Originally Posted by floris

I disagree with your first paragraph.

I think keeping personal things aside of the internet is wise.

Then we must agree to disagree!

[PranK]

Originally Posted by trafix

Pm to prank dated 10/08/04


Pm to prank dated 14/08/04


Here is 2 occassions where i

I appreciate what you have posted, but I am failing to see you advise me of this;

Originally Posted by trafix

Recently due to other commitments i am lucky to use my computer 2 hours a day, i advised him of this in one of my PMs.

Its late, I am tired, I am extremely unhappy about this situation. We will never come to an agreement, so I am unlikely to reply again to you Alistair, you just seem to ruffle my feathers.

You could do the right thing and refund my money, but I dont expect you to.

Christian