We Warned You This Would Happen
We had a customer try to get me fired because I wouldn’t provide him an installer and a software key for a software version we no longer supported (all he had was an old box), because I knew for a fact it wouldn’t work in his situation anyway.
It wouldn’t work with either his OS or his hardware. It was so old that the whole software line had been discontinued for years, and this wasn’t even the version we had discontinued then, it was one we discontinued and replaced with a major update years before that.
I explained repeatedly that we didn’t even have a way to generate keys for that anymore and it simply would not do what he was wanting.
It wasn’t a policy, we could do whatever to make customers happy, but it was completely pointless – it wouldn’t work with what he had, and there was no way to make it work.
I knew the software had essentially no utility in any modern scenario. We had ended support because the software basically had no modern use at all.
Keep in mind this product was less than $30 new, and that was a long time ago, before dollar apps and tons of inexpensive software anywhere.
He also said that he had bought the product second-hand and never even had a key to begin with. He just had an old box.
Not even a disc.
He screamed at me, called back and got someone else, and lied about what I’d said, said I’d sworn at him and abused him, called me every bad name in the book, and basically demanded that I be fired, he gets the software, etc. or he’d sue us and defame us online. It finally got to the company owner (whose office is in earshot of mine, so he knows damn well I don’t abuse customers).
The company owner is also head developer so he agreed to go back and generate a serial number for the guy and send him an old installer.
As he was doing this, he repeatedly explained that it wouldn’t work on his system, but we were doing this to appease him. The whole time, the guy is going, “It’s about the principle, I paid for it, I want it! I demand I have it!” et cetera.
The guy held him on the line without explanation, then started to freak out because — as we had promised — it didn’t work. The owner said, “That’s what I told you would happen.” The guy demanded to know how the company compensate him for this huge injustice and waste of his personal time, et cetera, demanded that we MAKE it work no matter the cost, just for him, and the owner said “You got exactly what you asked for, a product that we told you from the first time you spoke to <my name> wouldn’t work for you anymore.
It is too old to work on your new system, but we spent our time getting it to you anyway, because you insisted you have it.
Now you do. That’s all we are doing. Goodbye.”