OT: MYOB threaten to delete my records

[VK3DRB]

Dave forgetting to tell MYOB of the expired card is a corner case. It appears this corner case is poorly engineered at MYOB.

With Altium, I own a full license with subscription. But if I need another license for someone to help me out with workload just for a week on a different machine, it will cost me another $12K. Altium does not rent software so cannot cater for corner cases like this. Their excuse is "it is too hard to manage". I don't agree. I worked on a PGP encrypted licensing system 20 years ago for renting software features in a telecommunications system.... one month, three months, six months, one year. Never had a problem with it and it was quite popular.

Some corner cases have really bad consequences if they are not handled. Consider the woman in Melbourne, who left Australia for Indonesia for a very short business trip of a day or two. She parked at the short term parking. She got a sick as a dog in Indonesia, was hospitalised and could not return for two weeks. Her parking fee reached $2000 and the private enterprise company who own Melbourne's Airport would not let her car out unless she paid it.

[Halcyon]

Some corner cases have really bad consequences if they are not handled. Consider the woman in Melbourne, who left Australia for Indonesia for a very short business trip of a day or two. She parked at the short term parking. She got a sick as a dog in Indonesia, was hospitalised and could not return for two weeks. Her parking fee reached $2000 and the private enterprise company who own Melbourne's Airport would not let her car out unless she paid it.

But this is where people need to know their rights as well as their responsibilities. A private car park operator cannot hold your assets to settle a debt like that. Unforeseen circumstances and mistakes happen but companies can't just take matters into their own hands. She would have been rightfully entitled to call the police and driven her vehicle away whilst leaving her details with the car park operator for settlement of the debt later. It pisses me off when the people running and working for companies believe they are above the law or act in a manner which is unconscionable.

[EEVblog]

With Altium, I own a full license with subscription. But if I need another license for someone to help me out with workload just for a week on a different machine, it will cost me another $12K. Altium does not rent software so cannot cater for corner cases like this. Their excuse is "it is too hard to manage".

I can assure you it's not, they already had this in place and working at one point but dropped it.

[EEVblog]

Some corner cases have really bad consequences if they are not handled. Consider the woman in Melbourne, who left Australia for Indonesia for a very short business trip of a day or two. She parked at the short term parking. She got a sick as a dog in Indonesia, was hospitalised and could not return for two weeks. Her parking fee reached $2000 and the private enterprise company who own Melbourne's Airport would not let her car out unless she paid it.

Ride in through the swipe gate on a bike, get a ticket, drive out with your car using the same ticket having paid the 1hr rate 

[SilverSolder]

For those who don't know, MYOB is an online small business accounting system in Australia, the defacto standard here.
I just got notice that my account is shut down, presumably at my request, which of course I didn't.
I can't login to access any of my accounting/tax data except for invoices, two of which were unpaid because they failed to inform me my credit card had expired. So presumably that's the reason the account was shut down. Ok, fair enough. But I can't pay for those outstanding invoices, it doesn't let me!

And the attached email informs me that they don't hold backups of my data, and that they may take steps to "delete your file permanently from our servers after a short period. "
And of course I can't backup my data because I don't have access to it any more 

 

How is a company like this still in business in this market?

AND they deleted my Facebook post on their page complaining about this!

Cloud computing can be a loser's game in some cases.  The benefits that it brings are too often canceled out (and then some) by the downside risk of the provider changing their minds about the business model, or going out of business, or getting hacked and spreading personal data everywhere, etc. etc.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Cloud computing can be a loser's game in some cases.  The benefits that it brings are too often canceled out (and then some) by the downside risk of the provider changing their minds about the business model, or going out of business, or getting hacked and spreading personal data everywhere, etc. etc.

What many don't realise is that quite an astonishingly high number of these businesses with this shoehorn approach are built with the exit strategy as the primary goal. There is good money to be made in doing some hard work creating a new paradigm. Something which larger companies are unable to do. But the larger company can indeed afford to buy a mechanism that is already pre-built. At the end of the day, the customer is the product.

[VK3DRB]

Some corner cases have really bad consequences if they are not handled. Consider the woman in Melbourne, who left Australia for Indonesia for a very short business trip of a day or two. She parked at the short term parking. She got a sick as a dog in Indonesia, was hospitalised and could not return for two weeks. Her parking fee reached $2000 and the private enterprise company who own Melbourne's Airport would not let her car out unless she paid it.

Ride in through the swipe gate on a bike, get a ticket, drive out with your car using the same ticket having paid the 1hr rate 

They now have electronics number plate detection mechanisms. They also make the walk to the car park the long way around so they make a lot more profit after the timed thresholds expire. They start charging motorists from the time you enter, not parked, so if their electronic system for showing spare spaces is not working properly and you spend 15 minutes looking for a parking space, you get charged for that time. Melbourne Airport pocketed $1.1 BILLION in profit from parking in the past 10 years. The Italian 'Ndrangheta would be better off getting out of drugs, meths, prostitution, bootlegging and murder, and go into airport parking where extortion is legal, more profitable and you don't go to jail for it.

[SilverSolder]

Some corner cases have really bad consequences if they are not handled. Consider the woman in Melbourne, who left Australia for Indonesia for a very short business trip of a day or two. She parked at the short term parking. She got a sick as a dog in Indonesia, was hospitalised and could not return for two weeks. Her parking fee reached $2000 and the private enterprise company who own Melbourne's Airport would not let her car out unless she paid it.

Ride in through the swipe gate on a bike, get a ticket, drive out with your car using the same ticket having paid the 1hr rate 

They now have electronics number plate detection mechanisms. They also make the walk to the car park the long way around so they make a lot more profit after the timed thresholds expire. They start charging motorists from the time you enter, not parked, so if their electronic system for showing spare spaces is not working properly and you spend 15 minutes looking for a parking space, you get charged for that time. Melbourne Airport pocketed $1.1 BILLION in profit from parking in the past 10 years. The Italian 'Ndrangheta would be better off getting out of drugs, meths, prostitution, bootlegging and murder, and go into airport parking where extortion is legal, more profitable and you don't go to jail for it.

Yet another reason why I'm so glad Covid put an end to non-essential air travel!

[Halcyon]

Some corner cases have really bad consequences if they are not handled. Consider the woman in Melbourne, who left Australia for Indonesia for a very short business trip of a day or two. She parked at the short term parking. She got a sick as a dog in Indonesia, was hospitalised and could not return for two weeks. Her parking fee reached $2000 and the private enterprise company who own Melbourne's Airport would not let her car out unless she paid it.

Ride in through the swipe gate on a bike, get a ticket, drive out with your car using the same ticket having paid the 1hr rate 

They now have electronics number plate detection mechanisms. They also make the walk to the car park the long way around so they make a lot more profit after the timed thresholds expire. They start charging motorists from the time you enter, not parked, so if their electronic system for showing spare spaces is not working properly and you spend 15 minutes looking for a parking space, you get charged for that time. Melbourne Airport pocketed $1.1 BILLION in profit from parking in the past 10 years. The Italian 'Ndrangheta would be better off getting out of drugs, meths, prostitution, bootlegging and murder, and go into airport parking where extortion is legal, more profitable and you don't go to jail for it.

I argued this point once at Sydney International Airport. They wanted to charge me for simply entering and leaving 20 minutes later, despite never actually parking (I was driving around looking for a casual parking spot whilst waiting for an arrival). I was nice about it rather than being an asshole. They let me out for free (and so they should have). They can have all the systems they like, sometimes it just takes a human to exercise a little common sense.

[Zero999]

Some corner cases have really bad consequences if they are not handled. Consider the woman in Melbourne, who left Australia for Indonesia for a very short business trip of a day or two. She parked at the short term parking. She got a sick as a dog in Indonesia, was hospitalised and could not return for two weeks. Her parking fee reached $2000 and the private enterprise company who own Melbourne's Airport would not let her car out unless she paid it.

Ride in through the swipe gate on a bike, get a ticket, drive out with your car using the same ticket having paid the 1hr rate 

They now have electronics number plate detection mechanisms. They also make the walk to the car park the long way around so they make a lot more profit after the timed thresholds expire. They start charging motorists from the time you enter, not parked, so if their electronic system for showing spare spaces is not working properly and you spend 15 minutes looking for a parking space, you get charged for that time. Melbourne Airport pocketed $1.1 BILLION in profit from parking in the past 10 years. The Italian 'Ndrangheta would be better off getting out of drugs, meths, prostitution, bootlegging and murder, and go into airport parking where extortion is legal, more profitable and you don't go to jail for it.

Well they can't stop her from leaving, which would be false imprisonment.

If she had insurance, then it should have been covered.

There are ways round electronic number plate recognition, such as obscuring the number plate, which is not illegal, if done on private property.

[Syntax Error]

Delete your records!? I hope this is already resolved amicably.

In the UK this would be an issue over business data retention. I'm not sure where MYOB exists, but trading in the state of NSW means it has to abide by business tax laws in NSW? It cannot do an ebay and dictate the T&Cs have global jurisprudence. The implication with MYOB is a business can just 'vanish', along with it's legally required records; usefull eh?

Some interesting points made here: https://business.gov.au/Finance/Accounting/Record-keeping

[EEVblog]

Delete your records!? I hope this is already resolved amicably.
In the UK this would be an issue over business data retention. I'm not sure where MYOB exists, but trading in the state of NSW means it has to abide by business tax laws in NSW? It cannot do an ebay and dictate the T&Cs have global jurisprudence. The implication with MYOB is a business can just 'vanish', along with it's legally required records; usefull eh?
Some interesting points made here: https://business.gov.au/Finance/Accounting/Record-keeping

As I understand it the legal onus always falls back onto the tax payer. If you chose to use MYOB services then it's ultimately your responsibility to keep those records yourself.