Note that the second result is the letter. Sign... I wonder how many potential customers they have lost in the past 5 years because of this, and how many potential customers they are still going to lose in the future because of this.
First I believe what Ayende presented in the post were the facts for two reasons. Firstly after 5 years this post is still there while the links of the responses letter from XHEO are unavailable as the time of this post. Secondly if that post was not true or simple exaggerated I think Ayende can be easily sued by XHEO and the post has to be removed, which did not happen in the past 5 years.
It is not usual to be treated like this when dealing with technical people without any proper training or guidance. What surprises me is when dealing with a person such as Ayende with so much influence in the industry how come the business owner did not take over it and put it into damage control when there were so many chances. Seems like the owner himself is from technical background without proper customer service training. Just for a couple of thousand dollars, how much have they lost?!
The key point in that case is not the product itself. It is the service. Ayende bought a service. It is not a too bad situation if the product does not work. And it sometime can be even a good thing, because it means you have the chance to provide a good customer service that can impress the customer and others.
But XHEO chose the worst option and got the worst result. They refunded the money. They lost reputation. And the post is still in the second record on the first page in the Google search result, which is huge damage to the business.
It is another thing beyond my understanding is that it seems they did not care to remove it from the Google search result.
