Error when trying to buy skins - Stardock Support aren't helping

It appears to me from all the different posts I see that there is some kind of Tier 1 peering problems going on. The problems may not be at Stardock but between certain ISPs. Another reason I believe this is that I've started getting emails 2 to 3 days after they were sent from clients using networks other than mine.

Hi Gavin,

I was the other person with exactly the same problem. For more than 5 days I tried to purchase the premium-skins. I had cleared my cache, my cookies and my everything, but nothing worked.I had the same dropouts at the same stages of the transaction as you.

Unfortunately I can't really help you as my purchase suddenly went through last Wednesday. I have absolutely no idea as to why though as I haven't changed anything on my system, and the email from sales told me to clear my cache, cookies... 

Lantec: My ISP is 'Sunrise' and I am in Switzerland, so I am not sure how that fits in with your Tier 1 problem.

The store is currently being looked at. We don't have a clear answer for you. The trouble is while people have had something of the same problem it actually isn't. We have been helping people individually while doing service work web/server/storewise. I will do another follow up with the developers on this matter and report back anything that I hear. In the mean time if you like email us at support instead of sales and include the link to this forum post. I will do what I can to assist you.

Please refrain from posting any responces you get from our support or sales staff in the forums.

Thank you.

an e-mail is on its way

The weekend traffic was pretty harsh, if you don't hear from us by Weds (assuming that you send the email around the time you posted here) please PM me the ticket number and I will look into it for you.

I've also been experiencing similar problems w/o any resolution.  My last purchase @ the Stardock Store was on Sept. 11, 2008, but on Sept. 13th I attempted to purchase 2 Master Skins & went through the same frustrations as Gavin listed.

I've cleared the caches, changed computers, tried various methods of payment but nothing works!  Simply put as of September 13th I cannot purchase products from the Stardock Store & have no idea why not?

Hopefully this situation will be solved sonn...

I am in the same situation as Aufisch. I tried using two different computers in Switzerland and I have the same issues (I also received the same reply from Stardock as G4E did).The problem also began for me between 12/13 September.

One difference that I did notice is that when I attempt to make a purchase it is now prompting me to re-enter all my billing information. This was not the case before since I always made my previous purchases when i was logged in and it seemed the billing information was automatically provided by my stardock account.

I am currently in Malaysia on a business trip, but all attempts to purchase from here resulted in the same. This may be a different issue as I have been informed by Stardock that certain IP address ranges are restricted from making purchases. I have no idea if Malaysia is on the list or not (is there a published lsit of prohibited countries/areas?).

Can you both post the ticket numbers you have through Support@stardock.com? I can't confirm account information through the forums. I will do my best to bring some resolution for you as fast as possible.

Seabass...My ticket number is #JRB-773736....Thanks

The ticket was sent to the web team by sales to better assist you. Please look for a reply soon (though likely after the weekend). Follow up with me if you don't hear anything back for a bit.

As requested, Ticket ID: NEE-750398

Thanks for looking into this!

#BTY-106080

Seabass I wish everyone was as polite as you.

When I resent the mail as you requested, the reply was that the e-mail was received the first time that I had sent it and that it would be escalated again, no apologies, no "I will look into it personally", nothing.

It is disapponting that after 3 weeks I have still not been able to purchase the skins and the only person who seems to be in the slightest bit interested is you. I have always had excellent support from Stardock (espicially milksama with Impulse).

Has anyone who was having problems purchasing skins solved their problem?  If you have could you please tell me how?

As I have every day since Sept. 13th, today I attempted to purchase a skin through WinCustomize, MyColors etc. and the order cannot be processed.

I've been an Object Desktop subscriber since 1999 and have never experienced a problem like this with no end in sight!

Any info would be really appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

I doing follow ups on several tickets that have reported this problem. In the case of G4E we have taken many steps to solve the problem but have not had sufficant explination yet. Trouble is we are fixing individual cases with downloads and purchases through individual corrections to accounts. I would encourage you MCSAM to contact us at support@stardock.com so we can fix this for you. As it is no account information can be shared in the public forums, of course.

Mcsam,

I still have the problem. I was just looking at the profiles of us on this thread with this problem...

• G4E - South Africa
• Aufisch - Switzerland
• mcsam - Canada
• Omegatec (me) - Switzerland

Have any of you attempted to make a purchase (since 13-SEP) via a computer with a USA ip address? I have tried computers in both Switzerland and Malaysia and neither works. Tomorrow I will remote to a USA computer and see if it makes a difference.

Omegatec - if you do have troubles with that purchase I would like to know about it. Please send an email to us at support (support@stardock.com) with a link to this thread and IP addresses you have used. Thank you much in advance!

Seabass,

Well I finally was able to purchase the master skin ECOLOGICAL by I.R. BRAINIAC today.  I had to connect remotely to my friend's computer in Florida which has a USA ip address. I was able to use my Swiss credit card for the purchase. 

The only minor issue is that it the billing process did not properly recognize me as a Wincustomize subscriber so it charged me the full amount of the product (USD 5.95) and it did not give me the usual 20% discount.  This automatic discount feature used to work for me before 13-SEP. I will follow up with sales@stardock.com for this minor issue.

Hopefully this purchase will provide you with more information for diagnosing this problem. Is it only affecting users with non-USA ip addresses? Has anyone with a non-USA ip address been successful in making a purchase since 13-SEP?

As requested, I will send you a separate email at support@stardock.com with more info.

Thanks.

I have asked our Net Dev group to take a look at this issue. Thanks very much for the follow up and let me know if you have any further issues.

I am still not able to purchase the skins I want, I am now up to 5 in my shopping cart. To date still no contact from support, I hope that they are trying to fix this.

G4E,

I have not had a response yet, but I tried again to make a purchase today from Switzerland with no luck. Are you connecting via a non-USA ip address (your profile location says South Africa...)?

Thanks

Yes, I am in South Africa and have tried 3 different ISPs and computers to no avail.

My basic diagnosis is that some change was implemented around 13-SEP that makes it impossible for us outside the USA to make purchases.  This is just a guess though as any info on this problem's root cause analysis has yet to be shared with us.

I have been trying to buy skins without luck since the 3rd of September.

G4E,

I also have several products I want to buy, including vStyler's Outer Limits skin. I ended up going to maxstyles.com to purchase the product directly from this other site.  

The cynical me is thinking that the effort Stardock Support is puting forth to solve this problem is directly proportional to the amount of income Stardock pulls in from us "foreign users". 

I understand this is still being investigated.