Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/26/2024

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We contracted with this company to provide a Chamber Database. The agreement was signed in early November 2022, We sent the Data to them to convert in December. We finally got the data presented to us in the software mid April 2023. The training before we were live was the same every week. Much of the data was missing or in the wrong place for each member. Pieces we didn't know we should have been building were missing. We struggled with the Database. If we had questions, we would send an e-mail and eventually get an answer - which was often not sufficient. To talk to a person, we had to set an appointment. Neither of these is conducive to customer service, on their part to us or us for our members. The breaking point was the auction, our biggest fundraiser. We chose this database because it combined 3 softwares for us, including the auction software. On the day of the auction, the software worked for ********************* but then it quit. We had to do the entire event manually. Afterwards we figured we'd be able to enter all the information we had into the database, but the system failed to allow this. Credit Cards were rejected, several members cards were flagged for fraud because of the system. It took us more than a month to collect what could have been done that night. After calls, emails, and a long list of frustrations sent in, we asked to get out of the contract and have our money refunded. They stated that we had 2 weeks to work in the sandbox at the beginning of the agreement and that was the window for refunds. They offered more training and a chance to meet with their auction expert to review what had happened. One of our staff met for several hours with their Auction expert who could not answer questions or explain why it wasn't working. In November 2023, we sent the summary of the meeting to support, expecting a response. In January 2024 I sent an e-mail asking for a response and we were offered more training.

  Business Response

  Date: 02/29/2024

  ********************************** signed a subscription agreement with AssociationSphere on Oct. 24, 2022. They received a welcome letter on Oct. 26, 2022 that included information on how to access their sandbox account, which is provided to new users to allow them to test the software and ensure it meets their needs during the two-week money-back guarantee period. On Nov. 15, the customer emailed their implementation manager saying that they had not had time to use the sandbox and asking for an extension, which was provided to them. The customer did not return the forms needed to set up their account until Nov. 22 and did not submit their final data file until Mar. 10, 2023, and approved it for import on Mar. 14. The data import was completed on Mar. 21, and would have been done sooner had the customer provided complete, clean, and accurate data files earlier on in the process.  Of the amount of refund requested, the data conversion work performed by our team represents $2,249.00.
  
  On 10/5/23, the customer requested a meeting with management to discuss their dissatisfaction with the software. They reported that theyd held an in-person auction event on 9/23 where the software had crashed, leaving them to track everything on paper and then attempt to enter it into the software later, which led to a number of other difficulties. We explained to them that due to the number of variables involved in live, in-person events (such as internet speed and devices used), it would be difficult to pinpoint what caused the issues they reported. There were a number of other customers running events and processing transactions during the same timeframe and there were no issues reported by those customers during that time period. There were also no issues of downtime on our servers or software.  However, we did offer them free personal coaching to use in advance of their next event to help them prepare. ********************************** asked to be released from their agreement and for a refund of all subscription fees paid instead of having another training session. We explained that, as the agreement they signed clearly states, there are no refunds or early terminations of this agreement after the 2-week guarantee period. Additionally, the terms and conditions state that AssociationSphere does not make any warranty that the Subscription will meet your requirements, or that the Subscription will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, error or virus free; nor does Company make any warranty as to the results that *** be obtained from the use of the Subscription. The customer has submitted 66 support tickets and has received a response in an average of five business hours since they came on board.