bsherman@MTHVAX.CS.MIAMI.EDU (Bob Sherman) (08/26/90)
Forwarded message: From bsherman Sat Aug 25 20:47:44 1990 From: Bob Sherman <bsherman> Subject: no subject (file transmission) To: bsherman (Bob Sherman) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 20:47:35 EDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL6] I found the following message on AOL.. Thought I would pass it along. Subj: Sider and Ingenuity 90-08-24 03:27:20 EDT From: GlenBredon Msgs: 1 (90-08-24) I would like to clear the air by giving a full account of my deal with Sider, an d I may as well include the smaller deal with the now defunct Ingenuity. I coul d probably be sued for some of these statements becuase I cannot document their truth (which is precisely the problem), but they are true. At the beginning of my negotiation with Sider, I was asked for the price per cop y for having them bundle it, with them doing support and updates as necessary. For this purpose, I asked for the volume to be expected. I was told 2000 copies a month. This sort of floored me, but I asked if he was sure about that and he ensured me that was the approximate volume to be expected. Well, I was somewha t dubious about it, but I figured it was at least in the ballpark. For that rea son, I set the price at $5 per copy. That seemed a good amount which would not add to the hard disk price much, and, with the volume, would provide a nice inco me. I had visions of being able to take an early retirement. So the papers wer e signed and I waited for the first payment, and waited and waited, and called a nd waited. Finally I got the first check and it was rather a shock. It was now here near what I expected. I held it uncashed for some time, considering whethe r I should put this into the hands of a lawyer, but I had to admit to myself tha t I had no case since the contract did not specify any volume. (As they say, get it in writing!) The person who gave me the inflated figure wa s no longer with the company, and I complained to his replacements. I found tha t the true volume was something like 100 units/month. The estimate was off by a factor of 20. Sider had me by the balls, but even then I had a hard time getti ng payment even at the disgraceful rates they had fraudulently obtained. After a while of this I invoked the termination clause in the contact which said eithe r party could terminate for failure to live up to the terms of the contract if t he other party did not resolve the matter within 30 days of written notice. The n they paid me a bit, but quickly forgot about payments soon after. I again inv oked the clause, and this time they failed to rectify, so that is the end of tha t. As it was I let it go on far too long, but I kept hoping that someone would see the light and start acting like an honest company should act. Some people I did deal with, I think were in fact attempting to make things right, but it jus t never happened. Now, the defunct (yea) Ingenuity. I was called sometime in 1988 by a person nam ed David Westbrook about possibly using some of my software on the forthcoming h ard disks by his company called Applied Ingenuity. My first reaction is that I should not get involved with a company whose very name was a ripoff. But he was persistent and I finally agreed orally to a setup and sent him copies of all my software in Jan 89. That seemed to be the end of it, as I did not hear from hi m for some time and he did not send the expected written agreement. However, la te that year I began hearing that copies of DOS.Master were being distributed on Ingenuity drives. I also saw some invoices showing that they were selling it s eparately (never agreed to). Well ok, they were supposed to pay quarterly, so I waited 3 months for payment. Nothing. I waited 3 more months. Nothing. Duri ng this period I was getting a lot of calls for support from Ingenuity customers and it became apparant that Ingenuity was not supplying the full package, makin g it very hard to use. Since I had not been paid a penny, I began recommending that these people demand a refund. I hope they got it. I never got a cent, and the company is now defunct, for which I am not going to shed a tear. -- bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu | bsherman@pro-exchange | MCI MAIL:BSHERMAN