Such a drag ...

On 21 September I received an email offer from Nuance Australia software offering me a “Special Limited Offer” for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 9, as an upgrade to my existing version. It seemed a pretty good offer so I purchased it straight away. I received a confirmatory email, followed the next day by another email advising that they were out of stock and my order was placed on “back-order”. The email also asserted that I would NOT be charged until “the product ships”. Unimpressed by this, and with some difficulty, I managed to send an email to both Nuance and Digital River, the Australian distributor, enquiring further. I received an email from a Derek Austin, presumably based in the US, who seemed helpful and did contact Digital River. I received a further email dated 1 October saying that the product had shipped and my credit card had been charged (untrue: they had already charged me on 21 September). It had still not arrived by 13 October so I sent another email to Derek Austin (no reply) and on 17 October to Barbara P. at Nuance Australia. On 18 October I was sent an email confirming my original purchase and then a further one indicating that as I had not received the product they were creating “a reshipment”. At the date of writing (24.10.06) – more than a month since I received their offer - nothing has arrived.

My advice: be very cautious about purchasing products online, especially “Special Limited Offers” as they may well be very limited indeed.