I tried Pulse CMS, built several sites for clients with it, but they found it hard to use. There are better options. But even more - Their service is horrible. They care about money, not satisfied customers. Even though my account page said I wouldn’t be charged for their annual membership again until 2/6/20 - it was actually charged on 12/6/19. Once I received notice of the charge, I immediately canceled my account - contacted Paul and Michael at Yuzool and told them of the problem and asked if they would refund the charge. They Refused.
I highly recommend you use another system - I’m sure Joe Workman has better customer service. I haven’t used his Total CMS but I would never go back to Yuzool.
If that’s true and @yuzool won’t refund the money, I’d dispute the charge with your credit card company . All the major credit card companies (at least here in the US) will refund your money promptly.
I personally avoid subscription software. I also avoid per domain licenses like totalCMS.
It’s unfortunate. If you have a good product and good customer service, you don’t have to do this.
And now they are regulating my posts on their forum. They just unlisted my post sharing what happened:
I’m hoping they are just going to do the right thing and I don’t have to go through anymore headaches. This was also through PayPal from a checking account not a Credit Card, so I don’t know if I’ll have that ability.
PayPal is normally very good with this sort of thing. And from your video, it looks like you have a solid case. I wouldn’t wait for them to sort it out as it looks like it’s a habit for them.
You can dispute charges with PayPal although credit cards in the US are heavily regulated by the Federal Reserve and other federal and state agencies. The regulations are heavily skewed toward the consumer not the merchant.
Most banks don’t even question a dispute because of these regulations. They give you immediate credit and charge the merchant.
Even if you use PayPal, it’s best to use a credit card with them. If the PayPal dispute fails then you have credit card to fall back on.
Keep in mind that you do need to be in the right. The merchant can prove that you didn’t cancel in time or failed to agreed to terms the bank will reapply the charges. And if you build a track record of false claims the bank will more than likely cancel your credit card.
Always best in the US to pay with a credit card. Debit cards and direct withdrawals don’t offer these same federal and state-regulated protections.
Thank you for the heads up. This forum is great for stuff like this… air it out for all to see.
Hopefully, you get your refund. I would fight this until there were no options left.
Subscription software is scary stuff to me. If there is no option other than subscription for CMS I would have the end user license the CMS portion of their website. I would not be tied to it in any way.
So after multiple attempts to allow Paul at Pulse CMS to do the right thing, I’ve opened a resolution case with Paypal to see if I can get my money back. $300 taken away right before Christmas is not cool.
This is great. I wonder if you can elaborate on what they found hard to use about the software. I have considered a CMS for a while and have been afraid of just this situation.
So it could have been the way I built with it, but my clients had a hard time with learning how to and actually editing their sites. Even though I recorded tutorials for them and sent them the Pulse’s tutorials. Having to figure out which “Block” to edit, then go into the editor of that particular block to make changes, it just wasn’t as easy and familiar as say Wordpress’ editor. I do believe they have a WYSIWYG way of editing, but we never even got into that.
Maybe that makes all the difference. So that’s my experience with it. For the cost and to avoid any potential customer service issues that I’ve experienced. I think there are better systems available.
Yep, that’s the main reason why I stopped looking at it and decided not to buy it. Per domain licenses paint you in the corner (even if it’s not important today, it might be important down the road). It’s great software, but the license restrictions really kill it for me.
Could you imagine if Rapidweaver limited the amount of websites you could use it on? I don’t think as many people would have purchased it
It’s all about perspective.
If you are building one site for yourself or doing it as a hobby. That’s a whole different thing than if you are building commercial websites for clients for 5k-10k. That $99 for TotalCMS becomes insignificant for the value it returns.
It is all about perspective, and making sure you know what you are buying. I have Pulse CMS in over 20 RapidWeaver websites, and a handful of Blocs ones. I knew going in that Pulse is an annual recurring license, but it allows for unlimited use, and was perfect for me at the time, and is still a good choice for many people.
Slowly I am moving more towards WordPress, because that is what my clients want, but Pulse is still used in some of my new websites, as it does everything I need for smaller “brochure” websites. I’m happy to pay the recurring license fee, because for me this is a no brainer as I use it in a lot of websites.
The use of Pulse might be about perspective. And I agree, it can be good solution. But it’s not $99, it’s $297/year which still isn’t bad if you’re consistently using it.
What’s not about perspective is bad business practice when they will not refund your money even though the reoccurring charge was based on false information in your account. Which is what my complaint is. Not so much their product (although I’ve found several better and cheaper options), but their business practices and customer service.
That’s why I will no longer do business with them and am making sure others know so they can be informed of what they are getting into.
As I replied to swilliam - I have no problem with it being an annual subscription. You must not have understood my first post. I knew it was and annual charge. But my account said I wasn’t going to charged until February when it was actually December. Immediately once the charge happened and I got the correct information I canceled, explained what happened and that I didn’t want another year and asked for a refund. But they care more about that $297 than me as a customer and refused. Multiple times. It would be different if I had let a few weeks or months go by or have made more downloads before requesting. I’m not trying to take advantage of them or get something without paying for it.
In fact, it’s the opposite. They are charging me for something I’m not taking, won’t use, don’t want and was only charged because they had misleading info on my account.
It’s just bad business.
