Wpmu Dev Wordpress Wiki Plugin Scam

If you have read this hub before then you will know that I had some fairly unflattering things to say about both the WPMU DEV plugin and their support team. Were they valid criticisms? Absolutely BUT I am now delighted to add that one member of their team stepped up and actually showed some concern about the customer (me). Demonstrating initiative Tom Eagles, a tech support guy at WPMU DEV reached out to me personally and said "Hey, I'll help you." He showed great trouble-shooting ability and an honest concern for actually resolving the issue, whatever it was. This guy is a credit to their team and company and should be promoted to the head of their support department. Maybe then his attitude will rub off on the rest of the team. If you ever need technical support with one of their products, don't waste your time with anyone else, just ask for Tom Eagles and he will help you with whatever your problem is.

To be completely unbiased and truthful I must also tell you that the issue with the Notifications function not working was a problem on our end and had nothing to do with the plugin itself.

This is a review of the wpmu dev Wordpress Wiki Plugin that is supposed to convert your wordpress based site into a wiki. Sounds simple enough, right? Well that's what I thought too before I was, unfortunately sucked into buying this plugin. In short, DO NOT BUY THIS PLUGIN.

What's wrong with this plugin, you ask? Excellent question. Well, for a start, it doesn't seem to work.At least no one in their entire technical support team could get it to work, anyway. Let's examine my own experience with this product in detail so that other bloggers don't waste their own money purchasing this rubbish.

$20 Wasted the wpmu dev Wordpress Wiki Plugin

I have a sailing and boating resource website that my readers wanted to turn into a wiki so, off I went in search of a plugin that would do that for me. I must have been having a bad luck day because I was unfortunate enough to come across this website http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/wordpress-wiki.

I asked several questions on one of their forums and never received any kind of response. This is when I should have ran for the hills and avoided being robbed. But I wanted the plugin. It occurred o me that maybe I could get a few simple answers to these two basic questions from their facebook page. Nope. Tried that too. Also without a response. Never fear, I thought, maybe they are the kind of business that are only interested in talking to people after they have taken their money? So, like a dummy, I forked over my $20.00 and downloaded the wpmu dev Wordpress Wiki Plugin. What a mistake.

Having downloaded the wpmu dev Wordpress Wiki Plugin and activated it, I quickly realized that the notifications feature didn't work. This feature is supposed to email you when someone makes a change to any of the wiki posts that you are subscribed to. Well it doesn't work, or at least it doesn't for me. No Worries, I figured, now that I'm a customer, I'll be able to contact their technical support team and get it resolved in a jiffy. Wrong.

WPMU DEV Has The WORST Technical Support Team

I go to their website (listed above) and try to open a support ticket. For the life of me I cannot work out how to do it (and I ran five support teams for the largest mortgage company in the US by the way). And there's no way to ask how to do it either, so you're kind of screwed at this point. Back I go to the forum and, making it VERY clear that they already have my money, I ask for some help. Never got a response.

OK, I'll try their facebook page again. Starting with "I just purchased this product and I need a little help with opening a support ticket..." Six times I posted that message and never got a single response.

I had my support staff look at this website to see if they could work out how to open a ticket. Nope. So how do you get a response from WPMU DEV's support team?

The ONLY way that I got any kind of response from the WPMU DEV team was to open a charge-back. For those that don't know, a chargeback is when you tell your credit card company that the product you purchased does not do what was claimed by the seller. Well, since you pay these characters with PayPal and PayPal doesn't allow chargebacks on software, I started to get a little suspicious. In fact, I can completely understand why WPMU DEV uses PayPal, so that you can't chargeback when you find out their wordpress wiki plugin doesn't work.

Nevertheless, I attempted to open a charge-back anyway and sent an email with the subject of Charge-Back Pending to any and every email address I could dig up on these guys. Not as easy as you would imagine any reputable company would make it.

Finally I get a response.

Now, at this point, you might be thinking that this doesn't sound all that bad. Well I'd agree with you if I'd been able to get the issue resolved quickly. Their support team took THIRTY DAYS to help me even be able to open a ticket. You read that right, thirty days to open a ticket. They wouldn't even listen to my problem until I could open a ticket. Fair Enough, you might say, there's a support process that needs to be followed. Right. But here's the trick and why they want to delay tickets for as long as possible. Because you only get 30 days of free support. If you want support after that, you have to pay a monthly fee. Starting to get the picture? I sure was.

Remember, my question was simple, Does the notification feature work or is this a known bug? I could not, under any circumstances, get anyone at WPMU DEV to even respond to that question. For over 30 days But this horror story is far from over. Sit down, you're going to need a stiff drink before this is all over.

I finally get a support ticket opened after 30 days. Thus begins the second 30 day period where the same, simple question STILL doesn't get answered. As a point of fact, the support member, Joe, didn't even know that the plugin had a Notifications function and had to ask me for a screenshot as to where to find it. Not a real confidence booster. I felt like saying "Hey, Joe, isn't there anyone there that you could turn around and ask before we waste another day of support time here?"

Note: Due to the time difference between Australia and here in the US, it takes a day to get any kind of response at all. More lost time.

But I sent Joe the screenshot.

So Joe has the screenshot. Will he tell me if this is a known bug or if this notifications functionality is supposed to work? No, in fact he doesn't respond at all for weeks. I see now why their support tickets do not have time and date stamps on them.

Three weeks later I inquire about getting a response. Helpful Joe posts a long note in my ticket (sending it all the way too the bottom of his queue again by the way) blaming me for the delay in response. Eh? He says that I added information to the ticket so it's at the bottom of his lengthy list of tickets. Ah, Joe, you asked me for the information and now you're telling me that, because I provided it, my ticket is delayed? It was becoming ever more clear that they make their money from selling support and not from selling a working product of any real value.

Joe goes on to tell me that I should just sit and wait fora response even though my time is ticking away. It's only money, right Joe? My money.

He goes on to explain that the way their ticketing system works, every time a response is added, your ticket goes to the bottom of the list. A list that I assume is extremely long since it takes them weeks to even respond to your ticket. It's worth noting that this kind of ticketing process guarantees long ticket times and that this did not stop Joe from posting self-laudatory remarks in the ticket. I assume in case any supervisors were reading them.

The only fast response I got from Joe was when he wanted to Pat himself on the back for being a great support person, despite not even knowing the very basic functionality of his very simple software. This support team is beyond belief and not in the good way.

Needless to say that this went on for over two months and I never received any kind of actual technical support. I am left to conclude that the notifications functionality does not work at all. I sent an email complaining about the lack of assistance I received from Joe and the reply I got back was basically a "Tough Luck, Fella" response. Great customer service. I repeat, NEVER BUY FROM WPMU DEV.