Dan’s recent PalmGear horror story caused quite an uproar in the developer community – I got quite a few mails complaining about Motricity. One developer I trust very much has sent me the following horror story – as he requested to be anonymous to protect from retaliatory actions, his name has been anonymized as usual:
I also read a story on your site about a guy that is angry with PalmGear/PocketGear/Motricity…
Well I must say I’m angry with them, too. What they do looks like a total lack of proffessionalism from their side, which I can’t completely understand.Although all my shareware products were transfered almost immediately (with a 2 or 3 days delay, which for Motricity can be called “immediately”) to the new site, and recently it also looks like few of the freeware were finally transfered, too (!), I am really disappointed with what they do. They usually do reply to my e-mails in proper time, however if they have a problem solving my issue, they always say they would fix it and unless I keep asking them how are the things going, they seem to do nothing about it.
In November I reported the issue about Palm OS screenshots being resized to something bigger than the natural 160×160. In February I asked them again, and now in April yet again. I still get the same answer that their IT team is working on it
Half a year to change a few strings in the CGI script on their website
Also I have 2 personal issues. While transferring from PalmGear to PocketGear they somehow split my developer account into 2 separate accounts (a few Motricity-powered websites per each account) and now I receive 2 checks each time, one payable to “EEKSQUEEK!” and one to “Eeker Squeeker”. Not a big problem for me (I’m legally registered as “EEKSQUEEK! Eeker Squeeker”), but there’s more to it: they withhold 10% of tax from one account and 30% from the other. They take 10% because I sent them my ITIN and they know that 10% is the only legal tax rate for me now. So I assume they use the 30% rate illegally for the other account.
What’s more, I obviously signed only one agreement with them, so I shouldn’t have two accounts there. And recently I received 2 separate 1042-S forms for 2007, as if I were 2 separate legal persons.
They have this (mostly legal) problem and it looks like they have problems dealing with it or they just don’t care (?)… I keep asking them about it for almost 2 months now, and they still reply their accounting team is really busy “these days” and that they are working on it…I think I have no more problems with them, but these are really PIA. Don’t you think?
Let alone that they are stupid themselves – with the suppression of PalmGear and moving everything to PocketGear, my sales were reduced there by some 60% or even more. So obviously THEY also earn less because I don’t think I’m the only one. Why did they do this unwise step? Why did they shut down PalmGear? Do you know anything about the reasons for this decision, Tam?
Wow, I expected I’d write two or three lines in this e-mail, and I wrote 30 or 40
Anybody else have any problems to share?
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