Caveat Emptor

Last Friday I purchased some software online that I've been coveting for several years. SwishMax2 is a flash authoring program touted as the next best thing to Adobe Flash, but far less expensive. Swishzone also sells dozens of reasonably priced, very cool, Flash website templates, but they can only be customized in SwishMax. Basically, I bought the program just so I could use the templates. I was ready to purchase at least a half dozen templates along with SwishMax2, but decided to try them out first and wound up only buying two. This proved a most prudent move, as both templates are full of bugs and unusable.

Evidently, the templates were all created in earlier versions of SwishMax and just don't seem to work right in the new build of SwishMax2. The program itself has been highly praised in tech circles, but the templates malfunction and are, in my humble opinion, worthless. After spending almost five hours trying to figure out why the templates weren't working, blaming myself for not being fully versed in the software, and tearing out no less than a dozen hairs, I located other folks on the Swishzone Forum who were experiencing identical problems. At that point I emailed Tech Support and demanded a fix. It took 3 days to get an answer from "MikeC," who suggested a fix for template #41 ("GlassFX"). It seemed a reasonable tweak, but unfortunately caused a second page to malfunction. This morning, yet another page crashed my computer repeatedly and I lost my work. The page will not save. I have yet to hear back with a solution for the new problems.

The second template (#101, "Moonglow") just doesn't work at all, and there are evidently no tweaks. I was told they're working on it and will reopen my support request when they've figured it out. (Translation: "Relax and breathe, throw another shrimp on the barby, and have a nice frosty lager. We'll let you know in a year or two when we get this thing working...")

I asked, but they refuse to give or sell me the (discontinued) earlier version of the program so I can at least use the templates, nor will they refund my money for the useless templates. As they're based in Sydney, there isn't much I can do, other than publicize their unethical (and probably illegal) business of selling templates that don't work in the newest version of their software. Nowhere is there a disclaimer on their website stating that the templates don't work in SwishMax2. This is not just a sin of omission. Swishzone's deception is intentional. The company offers a half-price discount if the templates are purchased along with SwishMax2. What's wrong with this picture?

The pen is mightier than the sword, so I post this tale of woe for anyone considering SwishMax2 and the very seductive templates that are offered for sale. Buyer beware! They look pretty, but my advice is, "STEP AWAY FROM THE TEMPLATES...."