The Shame of Pixel Farm

I have just had the biggest surprise of my VFX career when trying to move my license for PFMatchit from my old 2,1 Mac Pro (with an aged on its last legs graphics card) to my new machine.

I contacted Pixel Farm technical support to ask if they would create a new license for me as the new machine obviously has a different Ethernet address which is used to lock the license to a particular machine. I received the following reply:

Hi Guy,

Thank you for contacting the Pixel Farm Ltd, please fill out the attached license declaration form and send it back to me. We will require the new PFHostID of the system you will be transferring the PFMatchit license to. There is an administration fee of £200 for transferring the license - I can send you an invoice for this charge as soon as I get the green light from yourself.

Kindest Regards

Jena Scott

Operations Administrator

The Pixel Farm Ltd

Unit 1 Pattenden Business Park

Pattenden Lane

Marden

Tonbridge

Kent

TN12 9QS

T: +44(0)1622 808670

M: +44(0)7795 843371

F: +44(0)1622 833019

E: jena@thepixelfarm.co.uk

£200!!!

Yes, £200 (or $320 US) administration fee. That's exactly 33% of the price of the software alone just for moving the license from one machine to another.

Frankly this is a shameful attempt to make money at the expense of a customer who has entered into a contract in good faith bearing in mind there was absolutely no mention of this charge when I purchased this software. I've rechecked the Pixel Farm website and Escape Studios to see if I missed any mention of an administration fee, well I can't see it anywhere if it exists at all.

I have to say that the resellers Escape Studios have been very supportive and not to mention surprised by the size of the fee too. I really don't know what to do and how to resolve this for the best. I am in no position to throw £200 after bad money but I feel I want to fight this out of principle. I am going to seek legal advice and get in contact with consumer protection groups.

I own every piece of software on my Mac and spend a fortune each year upgrading it and I would never advocate piracy. But what message does this send to the customer? Does it send the message that we value your custom? No it doesn't at all. What benefit do I have for being a customer of the Pixel Farm over a scumbag pirate? Clearly I'm not valued at all and just seen as someone to exploit.

I've given Pixel Farm an opportunity to respond and earlier today I have informed them I intend to take this matter further. Perhaps this is an honest mistake, a typo and will be a storm in a tea cup soon to blow over. If not I can only reasonably come to the conclusion Pixel Farm are shysters and this a naked money making scam.

By way of comparison last year my Macbook Pro's HDD died and I was forced to move my Imagineer's software (Mocha and Mokey) to the Mac Pro. Imagineers use a similar licensing system, they sent me a download link and new license files by return of email and charged me not a single penny £0.00!! Not to mention £200 is almost three times what I paid for the Syntheyes 2011 update!

I can absolutely say that they may well have got the money for PFMatchit out of me but they will not get another penny in ridiculous administration fees and I'll never buy another product from them again.

If you feel similarly to me about these charges please let your colleagues know before they purchase anything from Pixel Farm.

Buyer beware...

_________________________________

Update:

I have been emailed by The Pixel Farm to say it has been a misunderstanding and they "overlooked" that I had a current maintenance agreement! Strange, because I've been logging into support and downloading updates to PFMatchit all this time. I have been given my new license file an PFMatchit now runs fine on my new machine.

But, and it's a big BUT, if you don't have a current maintenance agreement with the Pixel Farm for your product they'll quite happily charge you £200. The maintenance for PFMatchit only costs £100/yr!

Why should you need maintenance to move the software from one computer to another without incurring a massive charge? Why does it cost so much when simply running a keygen takes no more than 30 seconds? It simply must be naked profiteering there is no logical explanation for the cost.

I simply must find out who to write to at Pixel Farm and explain, from a customers point of view, how obscene this charge is. In the long run it will be counterproductive, honest customers will simply turn their backs on a company that treats them like this and they'll either go elsewhere or they'll simply download a crack.

I am all in favour of piracy protection but not to the point where it impinges on my consumer rights and enables me to be exploited and scammed. A nodelocked license, as far as I'm concerned, is meant to stop you running the machine on multiple computers at the same time. Fine. But absolutely not meant to punish you when, for many, legal and completely honest reasons you might want to move the license to a different machine.

If there are any people out there reading this post who have pirated PFMatchit I'm sure it makes them feel somewhat vindicated.

Dear Pixel Farm treat your customers like decent human beings as they are the ones that support you long term. I sincerely hope this has been a massive mistake and you'll get around to sorting out a system that doesn't treat your customers so shabbily.

I'll never walk into another software purchase without know exactly what it is going to cost to move the license, will you?