"very terrible merchants. Item backordered for 30 days. Call to cancel, pretend to issued refund. They sent me notice of cancellation and refund notice. The refund was pending for a few days, then refund was removed without any notice. That is lucky I checked the status. Otherwise, I lost money."
"Academic Superstore
In August I purchased three programs from Academic Superstore. One of the programs arrived as expected in early September. The other two never arrived so I called the company. They said there was nothing they could do about it and to contact the shipper. I contacted the shipped who said they already delivered it. I’m not sure if it was stolen off the porch but it never came. We live in a pretty typical suburban area and have never had problems with theft. Academic Superstore still said there was nothing they could do. This poor customer service surprised me in this day and age compared with other similar companies.
To my surprise, yesterday the package with the missing programs arrived. I don’t know if it was lost on a truck, or what, but lo and behold, it was on our porch. Obviously, I had had to repurchase the programs as they are needed for our work so I called Academic c Superstore to return them. They said they could no longer accept them due to a 30 day return policy. I understand there must be policies etc but this I felt was a different situation. The packages are all unopened. Despite sharing my story and asking to speak to others, they said they could do nothing.
I will certainly never be shopping at this retailer again.
"
"WOW! I thought I was all alone in this dilemma, but I see that this is a pattern that keeps repeating over and over again. Like many others, this store never sent me a serial number for Photoshop CS5 which I bought for my daughter in October 4th of 2011. They keep bouncing me over to identit-e.com who does the same thing and keeps sending me back to them. I have not received a serial number on this product yet, and on top of that they sent me the wrong version. I ordered a Mac version and they sent me a Windows version. I'm sure it's all part of the scheme. The back and forth has taken me over 30 days, which I also think is part of their operation to avoid having to return any purchased items. I will never buy from this store again. What angers me even more is that ADOBE has this merchants as their vendors and they don't want to deal with any of these issues either.
I so much wish that someone else would create a better program that PHOTOSHOP, or an alternative to it, so this people can have a competitor that will take business away from them. I will switch so fast...I think the reason why they have undesirable customer service is that there's no competition for them. I hate this large corporations who sit on their monopolies and offer low standards of customer service. Well, I'll lost this money to a bad experience. "
"Like others have said, this company is horrible. I bought Acrobat X Pro from them. They never said I wouldn't receive a serial number. However I didn't. They keep writing me saying it's up to identi-me to verify my credentials. Well...my credentials were verified and I still haven't received my serial number. I've paid over $100 for a trial piece of software. I've dealt with them in the past and I've never had problems but I will NEVER use them again and will tell every living soul that they suck."
"I always check out the seller ratings for all my online purchase except this time. I was too excited to order the software for my daughter and I forgot to do my normal checking. Now, I know why almost everyone else has the same problem. From the un-functional web site "upload" for the eligibility verification to the non-exist customer service. If I don't have the elibility verification in another day, I will cancel the order and stop payment. It is such a waste of time and cause frustration."
"Was longstanding customer & college prof. - purchased Adobe CS5 Design Premium for home 5/13/2010. Registered it with Adobe & account recorded my serial number on Adobe site. PC crashed 10/2011-purchased updated machine- CDs don't let me do this & Adobe does not honor d/l to reinstall from their site since I purchased from AS. Multiple calls and e-mails to AS--they told me yesterday that they sold me a "one-time" installation and it was my tough luck that computer crashed 15 months later. No support. I repurchased same software from Adobe site direct as download and learned a painful and costly lesson. NEVER will order from AS again--will buy software direct from Microsoft or Adobe and get the same educational discount with them. It was cheaper w/ Adobe last night-- in 2010 AS charged $27 shipping for my original purchase."
"After 3 frustrating business days of trying to get my order validated and numerous emails and phone calls where their responses all repeating the same script to be patient as it takes them one business day to conduct the verification I asked for a supervisor. I was left on hold the first time for 40 minutes and I called back and was left on hold for another 30 minutes. I was told that the wait time was due to the fact that there was only 1 supervisor and they were on call. So after the second wait I hung up and called back to cancel my order. It seems as if this is the only thing the customer service staff is capable of doing. I don't get it. You pay all that money to have an online store, hire a staff in the Philippines to take the calls and the only thing they can do is cancel orders. How does this business model work? Save yourself the aggravation and shop somewhere else."
"Academic Superstore is actually owned by Journey Education Marketing also in Austin, TX. Journey Education is in turn owned by Digital River in Minnetonka, MN. They seem to strive to keep customers from actually calling them. The business web sites list several variations of phone numbers that all lead back to India. The phone number for Digital River corporate is ***-***-****. The director of customer relations is Merry Kirk. Skip the Indian runaround and call Merry via Digital River. She has to be hiding somewhere.........."
"HORRIBLE customer service! If you need any support by phone you can expect to be transferred out of country by people that clearly do not understand the software they are selling.
On top of that they advertise LOW prices only to later tell you that those prices are for select participating schools. (The way they do this is borderline FALSE ADVERTISING!)"
"Terribly frustrating experience. Have purchased from them in the past. With a fully certified student account, ordered and paid for a download version of a software upgrade. After a week of answering questions and submitting more current documentation, still receiving a run around. Can't talk to anyone except talking heads in Manila, Phillipines. Asked to speak to a supervisor and they left me waiting on the phone for... well.. I'm still waiting! Don't do business with them. They are the worst"
"I bought for my grandaughter 2 programs. I bought the wrong ones, so without opening them I had to return them and buy the right ones. I have tried to get my money back (over $700.00) to no avail. Don't buy from this store, the biggest rip-off. You can't talk to anyone from America. "
"Horrible--issues at every step of the process--no download link sent after purchase completed and verified--had to send two emails to get the link, then download wouldn't start--then website states no account with email address when I try to log on, no support page on their website, I am still trying to download Visio 2010 after buying it 4 days ago--will never use them again."
"I purchased Adobe CS5.5 Design Premium and Office for Mac through here because the CS5.5 was way cheaper here than anywhere else. I have purchased several things in the past and knew what to expect as far as education validation.
I figured it would take a day to verify and checked the next day. I sent an email after 3 days asking what was taking so long. After 6 days, I called and the guy said it was good to go. After 9 days I called and asked to speak with a supervisor. I told the gal she has two options...either verify my paperwork right now or I am canceling the order. I was on hold for about 25 minutes while she called the verification department. She came back on the line and said my order was approved. It shows up as processing on the site now so fingers crossed.
Word of advice to people ordering educational software. If you need Adobe or Microsoft stuff right away, just download the 30 day trial. When your package arrives, enter the serial number on the box. It's that simple. No need to spend extra on overnight shipping. It never comes overnight from these buffoons anyway.
Really, nine days is pretty excessive to verify paperwork I both emailed and uploaded within 5 minutes of placing the order.
Update: The products actually shipped on the 17th after I complained. I guess the squeaky wheel got the grease.
Will I order from them again? Probably not. They had CS5.5 for way less than the others because of my school. That was the only reason I ordered from them in the first place."
"Like other reviewers, I have ordered from Academic Superstore in the past with great results. Almost a month ago I ordered Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 and Fireworks CS5. While ordering I was told that the product may not ship until early May so I was patient. We’re now at May 18th and the order is still on eligibility hold. After repeated emails with customer support yielded nothing, I called and was told that my eligibility had expired in June 2010. Not True. The very first eligibility doc I ever uploaded did expire in June 2010, but there was a new one uploaded, approved and orders had been processed against it. My eligibility is good until June 2011. Customer support cannot see this and their order processing people cannot see this. I even responded to one customer support email with a screen shot of my account showing valid eligibility but they cannot receive an email over 95K. In frustration I uploaded a fresh doc through their web site. That was a week ago and this doc still hasn’t been processed or the order released. Well, today I had my third call in a week with customer support and asked for a supervisor when I started getting the same old song and dance. The supervisor gave me the same run around. I asked if they had internet access so I could show them my screen. I have an account with GoToMeeting and I was going to just show it to them… Nope, no internet access and they cannot see two of the three eligibility docs uploaded over the life of my account with them. I was told that I needed to send it via email to the eligibility team and they’d approve by tonight and send the products tomorrow. Good luck with that.
If the products ship by the end of the week, I’ll accept them. If not everything gets canceled. In either case I will never use this vendor again. I will remove all eligibility docs and shut down my account. I told them this but they didn’t seem concerned. This used to be a good company, but not anymore. My advice is to shop someplace else.
One other note, their customer support people also rude and lack basic support skills. I actually had to yell at two of them to stop interrupting me. I have a serious pet peeve about being interrupted and was already irritated, but I’ve had it with bad customer service."
"I ordered CorelDraw and uploaded a scan of my daughter's High School ID. Five days later, after 4 overnight E-Mail exchanges, the order was still in verification hold. I have instructed them to cancel the order (no cancel button on the order status page) and will be refusing any attempt to bill my credit card. MicroCenter has a Student/Home suite for about $20 more than their price.. what I should have done to start with."