Dishonest Advertising On Verbum 8
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I would not have used the term "Dishonest Advertising" I do feel it is fair to say misleading... Now when one looks carefully and pushes all the buttons there is absolutely no deception. However when someone scrolls through quickly I do not think it is beyond reason to expect that a 2 volume set (as listed in product description) would include both volumes when it clearly lists as you are scrolling more than one volume is there. It was FL choice to relabel the set as a 2 volume set since it is a bit misleading to call these the same books that are sold (those books contain the Bible text, FL has in the past excised Bible texts at other times keeping them in, but when they are excised they have arguably reduced this work to its 1 volume equivalent. Indeed I assumed they may had redid it into the it's one old testament volume. I do realize the failure was mine but I also will not deny I felt mislead. The clarity was less than ideal but I did make assumptions. I do see that if you were on the Verbum site it more clearly indicates that it is an incomplete set.
-dan
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Misleading...dishonest.... Tomato ... tomato. I stand by my original choice of words. More than one person has posted that this type of "value" marketing has been done for a LONG time by FL. Even a FL representative on this post has said it has been a long standing source of "confusion." Careful thought goes into a website design and they in more than one place tout "value if purchased separately" so I have a hard time swallowing this "misleading" layout as just an honest mistake when they clearly are trying to impress upon a customer that spending the money with FL is a phenomenal value. And this pushed that value argument envelope too far. But it was to their advantage to leave it that way for as long as they have.
I made what to me was a significant investment in Verbum 7 and a good many additional books over the last 10 months or so. I'm happy with the product. I don't wish to see them fail, so "click baiting" to destroy them is not what this was about as another accused me of. I have a long wishlist saved on Logos.com (because for some odd reason that feature is a "thing" on Logos.com but it isn't a "thing" on Verbum.com.) and I have every intention of getting quite a few more books. I will support version 8 (because you can't stay put on 7 forever - eventually you're going to want a new Mac/PC and a required operating system will eventually not support 7) but I will pay the $76 for the Verbum 8 Base Feature Upgrade only and skip the $3 cheaper Verbum 8 Starter will all the IDENTICAL features to avoid these "value" books.
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[:D]
Dan, I had the same experience as you.
I was going through and checking what it would cost me to upgrade from starter to bronze and my price was 13.00 and some change.
I thought that for that price that I would be getting the entire two volume commentary.
Had I purchased the next level to only learn that it is what you’re speaking of, I would have been upset also.
I have been scraping together every dollar that I can trying to purchase as much as I can while “the sales” are going on because the advertised “limited time “ savings.
Dan, your post kept me from that headache.
Dan, your post have always been helpful to me. FWIW- Dont leave Logos or stop postin. As the last few days have unfolded it has become apparent that there are more than a few things that Logos needs to work on in order to bring the program up to par.
The nice thing is that we know that they will and I’m truly loo forward to what’s coming next.
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I'd like to bring this thread to a conclusion and recap:
1) Displaying the collection value instead of the actual resource that is included in the library is a website error. It is not and was not a marketing tactic intending to deceive our users. The recent shift to the new website platform for verbum.com resulted in this element of the base package comparison chart to be display incorrectly. As Glen mentioned, Logos.com is working as intended and is indicated in the screenshot below. Please note that we are striving to communicate as clearly as possible that the resource that is contained in the library is a part of a larger collection and to emphasize the resource in question's actual value (as opposed to the higher collection value).
Below too is the other example Patrick cited. Again below, the Logos.com site is displaying this collection and the individual resources the way we intend, with only the values of individual resources that are included in a library being displayed.
2) Patrick's example of the New Collegeville Bible Commentary 2 volume designation also points out a processing conundrum that we encountered back in 2015 when we licensed this series of texts. Deacon Steve gets much of this right in his post above and is correct in his assessment that we licensed this from Liturgical Press when they offered a single New Testament paperback volume and multiple Old Testament hardbound volumes. After we moved forward on production, Liturgical Press began to offer the Old Testament volumes as a single paperback volume. Also afterward, Lit Press offered a two-volume set of both Old and New Testament for $64.99. This put us in an awkward spot for a number of years. I am currently working to bring the price of our collection down to be on par with what Lit Press is selling the collection for. I will post a separate thread in the Catholic forum about this once I have everything in place to be able to officially make the change.
Again, my sincere apologies for this oversight in the Verbum 8 launch and the new verbum.com site roll-out. There were a lot of moving pieces in both launches and this simply didn't get accounted for the way it should have. We are in the process of aligning verbum.com with how logos.com is currently functioning. I will do a separate post here in the Catholic forum in the coming days once we know more about when the website fix will be in place.
Craig St. Clair | Verbum Product Manager |
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So why did I step in, when Faithlife is "on top of the issue"? Because you are a valued member of the forum community ... I enjoy reading your posts.
Get in line, Patrick. [A]
ASUS ProArt x570s Creator, AMD R9 5950x, HyperX 64gb 3600 RAM, ASUS Strix RTX 2080 ti
"The Unbelievable Work...believe it or not." Little children...Biblical prophecy is not Christianity's friend.
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I am currently working to bring the price of our collection down to be on par with what Lit Press is selling the collection for. I will post a separate thread in the Catholic forum about this once I have everything in place to be able to officially make the change.
Thank you, as I said for me a big part was not so much that FL had tried to deceive but after trying to rectify the omission in the collection getting a sense of bate and switch. Complete the collection and it is only going to cost 700% more than the Ebook edition. Compared to your NT volume which is 20% more than Ebook which is more than acceptable in my mind for the value of integration and enhancement. I still think it was easy to make the wrong assumption about the OT volume being part of what was being offered but it was not a deliberate act or even one that a carefully examine look would have left me with that idea. I was excited to get new resources and I did not pay as close of attention to this set as I did to the other 2 I chose. I think changing the product description before it was actually consolidated into 2 volumes was also less than wise considering the confusion it has caused but I am very happy to know that actual changes are coming.
-dan
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This morning, I selected Logos sales, much of which the 'sale' and the impressive percent off, was nothing more than I already owned it (dynamic pricing). I'm used to these Logos 'discounts'; no complaints.
i myself really really hate this behavior. To me, it is no sale at all. I complain internally. [:D] I just don't bother to take the time to complain to Logos.
I like Apples. Especially Honeycrisp.
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I will support version 8 (because you can't stay put on 7 forever - eventually you're going to want a new Mac/PC and a required operating system will eventually not support 7) but I will pay the $76 for the Verbum 8 Base Feature Upgrade only and skip the $3 cheaper Verbum 8 Starter will all the IDENTICAL features to avoid these "value" books.
The reason the books+features version is cheaper is that price reflects a first upgrade purchase of 25% off. That offer is not available on the features only packages.
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