UKC

I've been trying to contact RockFax via their website contact form, but both messages remain unanswered, so I can only hope I get some response here on UKC. I very recently bought North Wales Climbs and Slate Quarries, at £20+ each. It seems that North Wales Climbs also included the Slate Quarries routes anyway, and that's all I wanted to check with RockFax, to see that I haven't spent £20 on a slate guide that duplicates information. I have now missed the 14 day deadline to get a refund from Apple Store, so am very frustrated that RockFax didn't reply to my webcontact messages. I'd be really grateful to get some answers to my query here.  In light of the planned move to subscription based guides, this may be academic, but I'd still like to know if I've wasted £20 on a superfluous guide please? 

Hi there, I'm sorry about the communication failure - your webforms should be coming to me, but they haven't. I've asked our web developer to look into it.

Unfortunately you have indeed paid for information twice. This is one of the problems we have with using Apple's hosting.

If you'd bought North Wales Climbs first, you would have been warned you were about to pay for something unnecessarily when you tried to buy Slate Quarries by some custom code I've added, but buying a subsection, then deciding to buy the whole thing is something people do on purpose, so there is no warning. Ideally the price of North Wales Climbs would have been reduced by the amount you'd already paid, à la iTunes "complete my album", but this functionality is not exposed to third parties by Apple.

The other confusing thing about this particular situation is the price of the slate package is similar to (or the same as?!) the whole NWC package. That is something to do with the recent release of the Slate guidebook, so the slate package is now vastly bigger than it was originally.

You may still be able to get a refund from Apple - I see my list at reportaproblem.apple.com includes an in app purchase from more than 14 days ago. Failing that, I suggest you try and get in touch with a human at Apple to get a refund. It may be worth telling them to speak to me if they want confirmation of the chain of events that led to you not getting the refund in time: stephen@rockfax.com

Thanks Stephen, I really appreciate your response. I will try Apple in the first instance, and as you say, mention you in communications. 

There is supposed to be a Slate Quarry guidebook out this month, and on UKC it says it will be a free App update for existing Slate Quarry app customers - so will that slate update apply to the North Wales Climbs package or just the standalone package, Slate Quarries? 

Thanks in advance. This does make some sense about why a subscription deal might make sense, less hassle for many various crags. However, would the synchronised log entries between the RockFax app, and UKC Climbing logs continue, even if we lapse the subscription at some point i.e. we may no longer use RF but the logs we made vis RF app, won't be deleted from UKC Log books ?

Hi Stephen, I've just done what you said and it 'appears' to have immediately actioned a refund, thank you. So I just need to know if the new Slate Guide entries will automatically update within the North Wales Climbs package I still now own?

I hope you get the website contact form fixed if you weren't seeing messages submitted. Thanks again for your assistance.

Kind regards
Glyn

While you're at it, I don't think the Contact Us option works from UKH either, I've submitted a few over the years and never had a reply to any of them. Whereas the UKC option usually gets a same day response.

Hi Glyn,

I'm pleased you got a refund so quick. I've just tried the contact form on rockfax.com and the message came straight through. I've checked my SPAM folder for your email but couldn't find anything so not sure what happened before.

Anyway, glad it's sorted.

Cheers, Paul.

Just tried it and the message came through from UKH. If you've still got a copy you can forward it to paul at ukclimbing.com please.

Cheers, Paul.

No, it’s not automatic- you will need to re-download the entire NWC package to get the updated slate section, which is a bit annoying. 

Sorry, I missed your question about the slate quarries. I’m pretty sure (but not 100%), that the slate stuff will end up in NWC. The person who could confirm that is away right now. 

I don't have any of the previous messages, not even sure I got the expected confirmation or not. So I've just sent a new one to see what happens.

Hmm, pretty weird. Tried again as me and it came through. Switched to a test profile (that's not an admin) and it didn't. I'll sort this out.

Cheers. I guess my test earlier never showed up?

Nope.