Can I rant for a moment please?  I'm nearly two hours into a customer service call to Adobe and I'm angry.  Two years ago I bought FLEX Builder 2. (I qualified for the academic version so that's what I got and I have been clear about this throughout.)  Then this past March I decided to upgrade to Flex Builder 3 and did so without seeing any caution about the academic version.  Well after reading Shane's post about the free training I was all set to move along.  But when I tried to activate it it told me my FLEX Builder 2 serial number wasn't upgradeable.  No biggie I'd call customer service today and find out what's going on.

Well, it started out great.  The service rep decoded the two serial numbers, said they were valid and so there'd be no problem, he'd just give me a challenge code.  This is where the problems started -- the window into which I was to enter the challenge code wouldn't open.  No problem, he'd transfer me to tech support.

I go through the call director who takes my basic information again and transfers me to tech support for server apps.  Once again, I provide my information explain my problem PLUS the new wrinkle with customer service.  SHE decodes my serial numbers and tells me the FLEX Builder 2 can't be upgraded.  I explain that customer service had come to the opposite conclusion and she implies that customer service lied to me.  So I ask her to switch me back to them.

We make the transition back to customer service about 50 minutes after I started there (and I'm not even angry yet).  The new customer service rep (shift has changed in the meantime)once again confirms my identity and listens to my problem with the addition now of my escapades with tech support. She once again decodes the serial numbers, confirms that the upgrade should work, gives me the impression that the folks in tech support are idiots, and transfers me back to them.  Now the bile is beginning to rise but I'm still calm and polite.

Well, I make it back to the tech support call director again, once again he he says he'll transfer me to the tech expert.  Then I hear some tones and I'm disconnected.  I call back to customer service. As the call begins I'm still quiet and polite.  I identify myself, again, and ask to speak to a supervisor immediately.  In order to do that he must know what the problem is. So I explain it again, all the way through to the disconnect.  His supervisor can't help me, he'll just transfer me to tech support.  I say no, not again I want to talk to your supervisor and I get "Hold please".  This is where my vocal volume starts to rise. He comes back on and asks if I'm at a server.  I said no, a client PC.  He then wants to know how I can be using FLEX Builder as that is Server software.  I ask how he can be doing customer service when he doesn't even understand the products.  After a few more holds he says he'll transfer me to his supervisor, and he does transfer me -- right out of Adobe's phone system.

So I call back.  This time they don't waste any time.  After less than a minute on hold some one picks up and hangs up.  So I call back.  This time I refuse to provide anything beyond my customer ID and insist on talking to a supervisor.

-- It's important to note that the final (and resolving) conversation just happened as I was finishing the last paragraph.

Again, though quite angry I start out quiet but insistent.  I must have made my point because it took only two or three episodes of "please hold" before she agrees to transfer me and does -- to tech support.  At this point I refuse to volunteer any information to anyone but a supervisor.  She finally agrees and I'm back to customer service again.  There's at least one more disconnect and call back before I end up at tech support again.  This time I don't think I even got a "please hold" but the tech support person just stops talking and I sit listening to silence for nearly 20 minutes.

Now suddenly I hear a click, a recorded "please wait" and a new voice enters the picture -- someone from sales!  I have to admit that this guy took ownership of the problem and attempted to resolve it without transferring me.  He did some checking, decided that tech support was right and customer service was wrong.  He wished he could help me but I was not entitled to upgrade except to another academic version which, I admitted, I'm no longer eligible for.  They'd be happy to refund the price of the upgrade edition and let me buy the standard version for $250.

I don't know whether I somehow should have figured out that I couldn't do the upgrade.  Maybe I didn't read close enough.  That's not the point. I've been buying Adobe and Macromedia software for something like 20 years -- right around the time Adobe acquired PageMaker (which came with a runtime version of Windows).  I deserve better treatment than I got.

- Customer service should have had the correct information in the first place.

- If Adobe is going to use low cost level 1 support staff who can't (or aren't allowed to) do anything but follow a script, they need to have someone immediately available to handle the calls (or customers) that don't fit the script instead of sending the customer around in circles.

- I shouldn't have been lied to about being transferred to a supervisor.  If there was no supervisor to transfer me to, the rep should have told me so (or been allowed to tell me so).

- And back to the foundation of all this, if Adobe had asked for my serial number when I bought the upgrade we could have avoided all this, had a happier customer, and maybe an extra $200 in its pocket (it was an impulse buy).

In my present state of mind I'm tempted to declare that I'll never use Adobe products again and that I'll never recommend them to a client.
But, I can't do that.  Adobe has a number of products that are essentially unbeatable.  I will continue to use them and, where appropriate, will recommend them to my clients.  It's obvious that the quality of Adobe's developers far surpasses that of its support staff.  But the company needs to treat customers better.