May 22, 2003

Sometimes, I just want a straightforward answer.
Like when I ask a salesrep what the cost of her company's product is.
She should know that, right? It's her job to know, right?

But every once in a while you come across a company or a sales person who just keeps beating around the bush. Like in the case of the recently discussed FotoWeb software. Don't they know it makes the customer instantly suspicous?

Not only is there no price for the product on the company's website, but there's also no contact info. Nevertheless, after painstakingly hunting it down, I emailed FotoWare, asking for a price quote for FotoWeb. The rep got back to me today, saying that "The best thing to do, is to contact one of our distributors in the US, and discuss this with them." Luckily, she graciously gave me the direct link to the distributor site (since of course the "Information" site is empty), and so I was able to go continue my easter egg hunt some more. I was starting to feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes.

The first distributor, Alisopix, had an online store with prices of various FotoWare products, but FotoWeb was positively MIA (although they list it on their homepage as one of the products they sell). The second distributor, Eroket, didn't lead on that they were selling FotoWare stuff on their site at all, and even after extensive searching, I couldn't find a single mention of it. Ok - next. No luck with the third contact on the list either. Distributor number four looped you back to the swedish FotoWare homepage, with no further information. And, of course, same with number five.

So I've had it.

At this point, no matter how fantastic this software might be, I will not buy it.

Because there are only two reasons, why six sites, who are obviously there to try and sell a product, don't list any information or prices: either the people at the producing company are complete and total numbskulls - or the product is so damn expensive, that everybody who is selling it, is too embarrassed to even mention the price tag.