Reply To: Karanyi Customer Experience. Caveat Emptor.

[Peter DeLegge]

Karanyi just sent out another email with a promotion, but I’ve decided to put them on pause, and it’s not just because of the way they mismanaged the situation with @jorge. Let me explain.

Karanyi has long engaged in a deceptive marketing practice where they jack up their list prices and then give out fake cash to customers to get deals that really aren’t deals. Deceptively inflating prices for sales violates US FTC marketing regulations and marketing laws in many countries in Europe and Asia. It’s the reason that I haven’t joined Kanayi’s affiliate program.

But the way they have dealt with Jorge hits closer to home. I care about people in this community. I don’t believe what Karanyi has done with Jorge is right and they had the opportunity to make it right and they didn’t. I get that Jorge started that he hated Karanyi — the company. But when you are a business owner, you put on your big boy or big girl pants and you learn to be bigger than that. Karanyi obviously screwed up in this situation. They forced a good — paying customer – out of paid products. Yes, they refunded him, then they forced him to seek refunds from resellers that he purchased their products from.

That was unprofessional, petty, and just plain wrong.

I created this forum out of my passion for making music, out of my passion for ethics and transparency, and kindness to others. Karanyi failed on the ethics front. I was gentle before. I held back, expecting the developer to do the right thing — I even took it for granted that since he took the time to post here that he was interested in making things right with his former customer. He clearly didn’t. I don’t anticipate that I will be posting Karanyi’s sales in the future. Our members can feel free to post their sales. But Jorge and others who have had bad experiences with this developer are free to share their experiences in those threads. I would just ask that instead of posting, “I hate this developer” always explain the WHY. Tell the story of why you recommend against purchasing from the developer. Inform people about your experience.

Increasingly, the big forums censor this stuff when it’s critical of their advertisers and sponsors. I can guarantee you that I never will. If this developer wants to make things right — PUBLICLY — he can do so. If not. Fine by me. I won’t be buying more of their plugins or posting sales threads for a developer I no longer feel good about. I don’t even trust that there won’t be repercussions for my own account after learning what they did to Jorge. Will they tell me that since I posted a negative opinion of their practices that my plugins are no longer going to be usable? I don’t trust that won’t happen. I’m out when it comes to this developer. There are a lot of other choices, a lot of developers who provide great service and don’t engage in deceptive marketing practices or the kinds of things this developer did to one of our own (Jorge).

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

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