Garbage online support options

I have been a user of Macromedia's web products for many years now and have recently upgraded to Studio MX 2004. I had a plugin I had used before called SWISH powerFx for adding FLASH text effects very quickly and they look awesome!

The MXstudio install went smooth as always, the product support and documentation is excellent and the Macromedia website is awesome and very responsive.

SWISH on the other hand was downloaded separately and had to be registered through SWISH's website.

The activation key is there and the site requests the product number (product number?) I did get confirmation, order and serial numbers all of which I tried and the page just times out with ODBC driver errors.

So I figure the site's bungled up and decide to send an email to supoprt, all the link pretty much end up at the support request page.

I filled it out in detail, adde all the customer info etc. as requested and THAT timed out due to ODBC errors. I tried a few more times, thinking web problems were causing the server to return errors (the errors even had a typo in the word invalid being spelled 'invaid' (in true OM style) but not very professional for a company website.

I decided to copy and paste my issue to save time and effort, on the 11th try, it went through.

Being VERY pissed off by now, VERY!!!!, I decided to call tehse guys and get the issue resolved, well SWISH is in Australia, they have the address printed out but no phone number? There is a disclaimer stating that they don't provide a phone number because they are in Australia and in a different time zone! What a ridiculous and pathetic excuse for keeping your business number secret.
I'm sure they make voice mail and automated attendants that operate in Australia.

So I dug and dug for conatct info, finally found the CEO's contact address and clicked it, THE DAMN 'SUBMIT A SUPPORT REQUEST' PAGE CAME YP AGAIN!!!! AAAAAAAAARGH!

So I did and I let him have it in true OM form, except not censored for the TR audience.

I haev also notified Macromedia of the lack of support SWISH offers, they are a great company that could get a bad rap by promoting such businesses.

So now I sit and wait, no SWICH, no work to keep me going, I couldn't even get tehtrial version to activate, when it asks for a temporary registration number (that is provided online) you enter it and get the error "passowrd in 'INVAID'"

WHAT FREAKIN PASSWORD!?!?!?!? Who's invaid?

Inline order was the only option for this plugin and has turned out to be yet again, another reasno why I don't purchase anything online. Seeing as I had used SWISH before and liked it, I figured it couldn't hurt to order online especially if it is available from Macromedia's store, they really are a good company.

Sorry to Colin and Jules, I know I have formed a personal attack on Australia and that you will probably say I am wrongfully slamming the country, now by mentioning YOUR names I have also attacked you I suppose. Damn skippy bastards! ;-)