Actions of The Hubb Organisation

[mhubert]

I have an interesting situation with this company & would like to hear of similar events.

I have a 1997 version of the "Smarter Starter Pack from Safety in the Market, well before software, bought before David Bowden (who was anti-software) sold his company to The Hubb Organisation.

As I have no use for the pack - totally unused - I thought, well I'll just sell it on eBay. Twice I've advertised it, & twice eBay have pulled my ad because the Hubb people said to them that my licence didn't allow me to sell it.

The Hubb person concerned, a rakdagcik@hubb.com, didn't bother to write to me to tell there is "an issue", they just took action, without me knowing, to stop me selling it. Now, I have my copy of my purchase agreement , & there's nothing in that saying I can't sell a second hand item. It has no software so no code to be copied - just good old paper. I'm busy reading my copy of the Trade Practices Act & have asked them to produce the legal agreement, which if it's true, will of course comply with. Or if they're so concerned they could buy it back from me.

Has anyone else had similar issues with this company? I'd be interested to hear directly - mark@regenmci.com

Till now I had thought about doing their CFD & other courses....

thanks

 

[RichKid]

Hi Mhuber,

This is an interesting issue about SITM preventing second hand copies of their material being sold on ebay, especially if their contract of sale doesn't prohibit it. (I assume it is not a licence of some sort).

I have seen many old and recent editions of the SITM CD's/Videos/tutes and accompanying material sold on ebay, one even had a statement claiming that the winner of the auction would be entitled to ongoing telephone support for the course from SITM (ie lifetime questions and answers about the material and trading- apparently SITM had ok'd this for the seller and winner prior to the auction ending and it was stated in the listing description) and that the original customer number/code would be valid. I'm not sure if that claim was legitimate but I have seen many SITM items sold on ebay, but I haven't looked for them since last year.

Maybe SITM cottoned on to the fact that they wouldn't be able to sell the course for many $kkk's when people could hold out and get it all for a couple of hundred bucks or less.

I suggest you contact your local Fair Trading office or the ACCC or maybe even Choice magazine, or best get some legal advice if it's worth the money to you.

You can always find a market for these things, the question seems to be to me: are allowed to on-sell SITM material under the law? Can't see how it's any different to other second hand trading courses sold on ebay. Where's Lionel Hutz when you need him???

 

[sails]

Hi Mhubert,

Haven't been a happy Hubb customer either... different software though. Here's the story...

At the end of an Optionetics 2 day seminar they had special deals for software/ courses, etc and we purchased Advanced Get together with Hubb OptionLink which was an add-on for the discounted price of $500. (Didn't know about the Hoadley option evaluator at that time ) If I remember correctly, 12 months of upgrades was included in the package for OptionLink.

So, about 4 months later, we re-attended another 2 day and found that the instructors were excitedly presenting Option Gear which was a huge improvement on OptionLink. At the end of the two days, the same deal was offered that the much improved Option Gear could be purchased as a package with Advanced Get for an extra $500.

However, those that had already purchased Option Link were offered the new product for an additional $1500. They said it wasn't an upgrade, technically it was a new version, so that was it.

So those who purchased Option Link about 4 months earlier now had to pay the extra $1500 for the same deal the new customers were getting. We weren't the only unhappy customers at that seminar -except the new ones who realised they had struck it lucky they didn't buy or hadn't attended the earlier seminar. I understand OptionLink was subsequently discontinued and there were no upgrades to my knowledge after we purchased it.

Anyway, a few months later, I got a phone call from Hubb trying to sell me Option Gear - again at the extra price of $1500. Told the guy what happened, but he wasn't interested. I told him Hubb had lost a customer....

That's my story - and I have read a few other unhappy stories on the Optionetics discussion boards before they were deleted!

Good luck with it!

Margaret.

 

[eddievanhalen]

Can't comment on the guts of the Ebay situation but I too had shocking dealings with Hubb years ago.

Bought Sherpa software at the time (this would be 2002) because I knew Roger Montgomery was behind it and thought that counted for something.........wrong! Not only did the software lock you into paying for data from Hubb (wouldn't use any other format) but the data was rarely adjusted properly for consolidations etc.......

When I decided to give them the flick and change to metastock I tried to replicate the indicators/scans from Sherpa into my Metastock software. For some reason I couldn't get it to work - that is until I figured out that Sherpa was programmed incorrectly and was not calculating its moving averages and a couple of indicators correctly. No wonder Metastock looked different - it actually works And here I am telling this mob how to calculate a weighted moving average properly

In the end I got in touch with Montgomery and told him what I thought etc........and he informed me that he could do nothing as he was no longer associated with the software (he was the reason most people bought it as he developed it with Hubb) and had sold his share to Hubb. Thanks a million.

Dealing with the people at Hubb was a bloody nightmare too.

Good luck is all I can say if they haven't improved.

Ed

 

[bunyip]

Hubb are one of the most incompetent organisations I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with.
I once bought futures data from them. It had a three week money back guarantee.....you could return all materials for a full refund any time within the first three weeks if you weren't happy with it.
I quickly noticed that my Hubb data was quoting very different prices to those being quoted by the Chicago Board of Trade on the net, for some of the agriculatural commodity futures like wheat and corn.
Rang Hubb and was told that the character who handles data enquires was on a speaking tour and would phone me when he got back in three days.
Three days later and no phone call. By this time it was the weekend so I had to wait until Monday to call them. He was adamant that their data was perfect, indeed their website was proudly proclaiming the accuracy of their data.
After a few more days he rang and admitted their data was faulty, said he'd have the problem fixed, and would call me in a couple of days. No phone call within two days so I rang them. He wasn't available, was away on another sales tour selling their starter pack, but support would call me back. Four days later no call from support. So I rang and tore into them over the phone, only to be told by the receptionist that support was snowed under and it could be up to two weeks before they could get back to me.
The data was still faulty so I sent their stuff back to them and demanded a refund under the terms of the contract.
I had to write to them three times over the next few weeks before I finally received my refund.
They were hopeless - that was three or so years ago, don't know if they've improved.

Bunyip

 

[KELBOY]

Can't comment on the guts of the Ebay situation but I too had shocking dealings with Hubb years ago.

Bought Sherpa software at the time (this would be 2002) because I knew Roger Montgomery was behind it and thought that counted for something.........wrong! Not only did the software lock you into paying for data from Hubb (wouldn't use any other format) but the data was rarely adjusted properly for consolidations etc.......

When I decided to give them the flick and change to metastock I tried to replicate the indicators/scans from Sherpa into my Metastock software. For some reason I couldn't get it to work - that is until I figured out that Sherpa was programmed incorrectly and was not calculating its moving averages and a couple of indicators correctly. No wonder Metastock looked different - it actually works And here I am telling this mob how to calculate a weighted moving average properly

In the end I got in touch with Montgomery and told him what I thought etc........and he informed me that he could do nothing as he was no longer associated with the software (he was the reason most people bought it as he developed it with Hubb) and had sold his share to Hubb. Thanks a million.

Dealing with the people at Hubb was a bloody nightmare too.

Good luck is all I can say if they haven't improved.

Ed

Hello Eddievanhalen,

No, here we are, years after your original post, and they have NOT,repeat NOT improved, only gotten greedier. I Cannot recommend HUBB as a reliable supplier of data in any shape or form; they cut off my data feed when I wouldn't upgrade to a newer trading program for a cost of $1990.00. Once you enter into an agreement with these people they can change/upgrade their trading platform with little warning, and if you don't pay the extra fee, no more program or data feed to your existing program. Spiteful people, vindictive in their actions. I didn't want their new program, so they sent an "update" which removed the FREE program from my PC and prior to this they even cut me off from logging in to a website called Safety In the Market (started by David Bowden in 1997, but later sold to HUBB) and I had been using it since 2000, a helpful site in itself. I can however highly recommend Incredible Charts. Very good quality, with an excellent informative weekly newsletter from Colin Twiggs, included. You will find either of them with a basic search engine. Cheers, Kelboy