Is it me or are the Vestax people extremely rude?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Is it me or are the Vestax people extremely rude?

I got this in reply to my email them concerning the VCI 300 Soundcard, someone please tell me if I deserved the reply:

Dear Gerfried,
I hope youre still about mate,
I have just installed Windows 7 x64 and all appears well with Itch 1.1,
but even so using vci 300 in programs like traktor is still showing me dodgy things

In XP 64 driver was 4in, 2out DirectSound, in Windows 7 it seems to be 2in 2out WASAPI.

The VCI-300 was my choice over the VCI-100 for 2 reasons,

  1. The VCI-300 soundcard that is advertised as 4in 4 out
  2. Both VCI 100 and VCI 100 (version 1.2) appear to have glitches in their firmware, two buttons working with each other
    (effect button on deck b and the fourth FX button on the fx section making the use of both impossible)

what i really want to know is this, is the vci 300 really 4in 4out or not? Cos Serato ITCH is all very well,
and a fun program but I would like to use the audio/midi capabilities elsewhere too.

If this is impossible or not applicable on this unit please let me know.

All the best,
Alex Morse

Dear Mike,
If you have a problem we will certainly help you, and I already suggested you how to get a stable system.
If you want to play around please do so but do not contact me. If you want to continiue Betatesting for Windows, please ask windows once you have problems.

WE ALSO DO NOT SUPPORT ANY COMBINATION WITH VCI-300 and TRAKTOR.

Best regards

Vestax Service Europe
Gerfried Fischer

Rheinstr. 213
53332 Bornheim/Germany

Tel: +49 2222 952372
Fax +49 2222 952374
Email: vestaxde@aol.com
tech@vestax.com

In einer eMail vom 19.10.2009 17:21:49 Westeuropäische Sommerzeit schreibt code.morse@hotmail.com:

Note the name i was referred by and the way the email is written, I’m almost decided on selling the vci 300 after this email and avoiding vestax like the plague, but if i was at fault or gave rise to the response i would appreciate someone pointing it out…

2

I have some thoughts on that

I would go into the whole thing, but maybe just take a look at the link. It has been thoroughly discussed.

http://www.skratchlounge.com/index.php?showtopic=7117

3

I had a look through it mate thanks for that, but what really bugged me was that the bastard spoke to a paying customer in that way, namely, me. As it is I’m a lready considering 2 things returning it to the manufacturer for a refund since it doesnt fulfill my needs and ordering the DJTT VCI 100SE, or getting a pair of TTXUSB turntables and traktor scratch and saying goodbye to controllerism until i can get something which will a. work as advertised and b0 be properly supported by the support company, I know this though, I’m done with Vestax, I wont be supporting anymore of their products.
(DJTT VCI 100 is an exception due to the DJTT having a hand in it)

4

Ouch! That’s downright awful! It’s really bad when a company that’s dedicated to a relatively small market decides to screw customers over. I just wish Rane would make a solid midi controller like the Vestax VCIs. I would be all over that in an instant! Love Rane’s customer service, Sean was always helpful and they would willingly allow me to send my mixer in annually for a inspection/cleaning of the potentiometers, and faders. It still performs as good as the day i bought it 6-7 years ago!

5

i will call Gerfried tomorrow and will ask him exactly the same. If he´s acting like this to a german customer on phone again i will make sure his Boss will get to know. Its a good thing we have “Kundenschutz” /customer safety (?) in Germany.

6

Greatmesk, just one thing, I’m not German, I’m English/Greek, and we communicated via email. by the way, if you like, i think this is the right thing I will send you the entire email correspondence including my reply to that email, I may be pretty angry about this issue, but i like to at least try to be fair, if not at least present all the facts i have.

7

this is priceless…
new reply from vestax on the matter
(segment of email)
"Dear Alex,

sorry for getting your name wrong.
also my answer should be neither sharp nor was it rude.

I only want you to understand that if you want a stable working system it might be best to use windows xp (not64)"

what can anyone say to that… funny thing is my question has still not been answered.

They dont seem willing to tell me if the monitor out works outside ITCH

8

Thats a pretty appalling way to treat a customer, I would send your email chain to someone at Vestax japan and if you can someone in a more senior position than himself in Germany.

Its all very well for them to say “sorry we do not support the VCI 300 and Traktor pro”, but he was plain rude and for someone doing his job not acceptable.

9

My thoughts exactly, I will be looking into this once i can find an email adress i can use

10

Hi Speical K,
it’s more like “customer protection”.

@Topic:
Vestax quote (Gerfried): “If you want to play around please do so but do not contact me”…

I am a Service Delivery Manager here in Germany for a car maufacturer in Munich (guess which one:slight_smile:) and can not understand what that vestax employee (or outsourced customer support?) was thinking.
Even when “handling” angry, pissed off customers or even just plain stupid questions - that is not a wise choice of words reacting to a customer EMail.
If anyone in my team would respond to a customer in that way I would have to question his qualification and/or train him or he’d have to look for a new job (if a repeating issue) . Simple as that.

So actually escalating your complaint can harm or even help Gerfried.

PS: My contact to Vestax customer care/support in germany has been ok up to now.
I’d say average customer support with friendly responses.

11

Leon R thats exactly the quote i took offence to. I have already started looking into a refund for my piece of kit cos it doesnt work as advertised, and I am put off continuing to try to get it working due to this response

Gonna try and get a refund then look into the VCI 100SE and see if i can get it

12

Well leon you saw mine… Insulting both me and my intelligence that bloke is, doesnt bode well for Vestax no wonder they are “losing customers” (read that on a page somewhere concerning the vci 300 itch bundle, frankly i cant say I’m surprised)

13

Well to answer your question, yes the VCI-300 does have 4 outs

2x Mono Master output - or 1x stereo master out
and
2x Mono Headphone out - or 1x stereo cue out

If you have a PC and want to use it with Traktor you need asio4all to have access to the other 2 outputs as traktor just detects 2 outputs - i think this an issue with Traktor and not.

I wouldn’t hate on Vestax just because of one lowly customer support agent, go up the chain and get in contact with his superior and inform them of the issue you had with one of their support agents.

14

its not that BentoSan, but its obvious that they dont have their shit together anymore, i havent been given 1 straight answer to my questions from the get go, been slammed by Vestax support for using XP64, while last night I was informed by Matt-C on the Serato forums that XP64 was in fact supported, I’ve been insulted by the way i was “spoken” to (via email), I can understand a piece of software being attached to a piece of hardware, but a piece of hardware that doesnt perform as advertised with anything other than the bundled software, is essentially 750euro for a glorified paperweight. I dont have the time or the patience to screw around with company reps when i could be mixing and creative. And at the end of the day if the hardware company rep doesnt know what os the the software is compatible with or not, how can you trust them? Now please dont get me wrong, I’m not hating I’m just very disappointed, all my research yielded was that ther non operative headphone out, when not using ITCH wasn’t mentioned anywhere, which is misleading, if it had said next to the “make sure you have a 32bit os for ITCH 1.03” will not/may not operate with applications other than ITCH I could respect that, but this is just bollocks. Anyway I loved the VCI 100 and years ago the Vestax PDX D3 decks, (lovely stuff), and intend on looking into getting the VCI100SE if i can cos after using the simple VCI 100 a couple of times I fell in love with it. What i have seen with the 100SE has blown me away and it seems to me to be a fantastic investment, but after the last few days I’m rather upset and angry, and bitter, i think understandably so.

15

I know how you’re feeling

but I gotta agree with Bento here, and say don’t hate on vestax. It does seem as if they have a hard time getting good reps.

All I can say is that on two occasions, I was getting the run around from the US rep. I called Tokyo and told them what was going on and they squared it away, overnight. If that ain’t great customer service, I don’t know what is.

Please, don’t everybody start calling there and say I told you to do it.:eek:

I think part of the problem when e-mailing them is whacky translators. I don’t know if it still does it, but their system would let you see what your e-mail had been translated to. It was hard for me to understand what I was saying, and I had written it.

16

Drimachus I’m not hating mate, honestly, in fact i just changed my vci 300 for a vci 100, kind of proves it, but at the moment i confess to being quite angry, I"m about to start looking into DJTT upgrades to further improve the vci 100. It seems all s turning out ewell though, I went to the shop i got it from gave em the lowdown and they not only emailed japan to complain about the the rep, they changed my vci straight up and threw in a 130W Pioneer amp, so at the mo I’m chuffed to bits :smiley: I pretty much got the best out of the deal so maybe that support bloke was a blessing in VERY good disguise.

Bottom line, I dont hate vestax but one of the reasons I’m upgrading firmware etc from DJTT is so i wont have to deal with Vestax support my faith is a little shaken right now, and I got more answers here from one reply by Bento than I got in 5 days correspondence with Vestax support, so I’m really happy i bumped into this forum :smiley:

17

BTW - its not Vetax’s fault that the VCI-300 doesnt work well with Traktor, its Native Instruments fault. Also no where do they advertise that the VCI-300 works Traktor, all they say is that it has midi for programs other than Itch. Its up to the other companies (Like NI) to support it.

18

Bento thats not what i said mate, the only thing i would have been satisfied to see on the reviews i looked at would have been sometihng to the effect of “*limitations when used with software other than Serato ITCH” “or other DJ programs not supported” or something like that on the box or the vestax/serato websites.
Not one review i have read said anything about the soundcard’s restricted outs when using programs other than the bundled one, the only point i did read in the cons of one review was “limited support outside supplied software”.
Had i known that, I probably would have been happily anticipating the VCI 100SE and wouldnt have gone through this whole palaver, anyway, I can contentedly say that this issue is now over for me, I’m getting to grips with mapping the vci 100 and loving it!!!

19

Glad to hear you got sorted out mate!

20

That’s some pretty shameful customer service you received. I’ve been in C/S for years and if one of my agents was sending e-mails like that, I’d reassign him.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, I’m sure he’s had to specify that XP64/7 can’t be used a billion times, and he’s probably frustrated to an extent. I’d blame Gerfried for being a bit of a douche on e-mail, but Vestax deserves the blame for shitty product support overall. It’s not Gerfried who is saying your setup is unsupported, it’s Vestax, and companies will often dictate what their Customer Care can and can’t say. It’s quite possible that he was instructed to completely deny support to unsupported setups. Anyone who’s worked with internet tech support knows all about that…