Anyone else out there on SmartCAT who is unable to get tech support for it?

[Teresa McKinney]

Hi Everyone,

I'm Teresa.  I'm a new member to CSRNation.

I'm hoping to hear from others who have SmartCAT (I think it's now called Apeiron maybe?).  I have the version 4.2.0 SmartCAT Professional.   License Status:  Permanent.  So I legally own my version.  But this past Labor Day weekend when we had that heatwave on the West Coast (I'm in Nor Cal), I accidentally left my HP laptop on sleep mode, and got a text from PG&E imploring us all to shut off appliances that weren't needed or we could experience a blackout.  So I forgot about my laptop left in sleep mode and just shut the computer down via the power strip toggle button.   After 9 pm I turned it back on and my 234 pg transcript I was working on said 0 pages.  I went to my backups, but they weren't there for that job.  Not sure why.   So thought I'd call Kim at The Neutrino Group since they had bought out Cheetah International way back when, but they wouldn't call me back.  I kept calling on different days and left messages for Kim, but still no response.  Emailed them, but still no response.   Went to their website to get on the chat in the middle of a weekday, and it's off line -- tried on different days.  I was finally able to figure it out on my own and found the backup for that job and continue working on it.

But I'm at a loss as to why I'm being treated this way.  What if in the future I get locked out due to a Windows forced update or I buy a new laptop and need to transfer my SmartCAT to my new laptop?  For some reason they are ignoring me, and I don't know why.  I've Always paid for my tech support, Always.

We were given two options:  Either pay the $595 each year for tech support OR pay with your credit card $60/15 minutes.  Being that I've been using SmartCAT for 29+ years now, I really haven't had a need to be paying $595 every year, so I opted for option 2 several years ago where I'd pay for 15 minutes of tech support for $60 mainly just to have Kim unlock my SmartCAT software that would lock up whenever there was a major Windows update to be done to the laptop.  She was Always happy to help and gladly took my credit card number for payment.  Anytime there was a major Windows update, it would cause my SmartCAT to lockup with the error "Wrong Mechanic Code" or something like that..  Or if I bought a new laptop where I'd have to transfer my legally owned SmartCAT Professional Version 4.2.0 from my old laptop to my now newly purchased one, I would call Neutrino and give Kim my credit card number, pay $60/15 minutes and in less than 10 minutes she would have me do the exchanging over the phone of 10 digit number code (or 20 digits, whatever it is) and voila, my new laptop would now have the SmartCAT running on it.  Kim had always told me don't hesitate to call if I ever got locked out or needed to transfer my SmartCAT to a newly purchased laptop.

Is anyone else out there on SmartCAT (Apeiron) having the same issue of being ignored by tech support?  At this point, not sure who to turn to anymore.  I currently can use my legally owned version, but if it should lock up, I'm out of luck.  Help?