Hello Rees,
I'm sorry you had such a bad time with this that you needed to post here, but thank you for your purchase and now let me explain all this a little:
Let's be clear first of all that the activation procedure you have documented is a special one-off for the MacZOT $15 discount offer that was available the other day - normal purchases of Yummy FTP are completely straightforward, as I'm sure you can testify since you are an existing customer.
The main problem with the MacZOT offer, and similar promotions, is that Yummy FTP is registered with the user's Name as well as a Serial Number (in fact the name is also encoded into the serial number), so it is impossible to generate registrations in advance that can be distributed at purchase time by the promotion administrator (MacZOT in this case).
The only way to get a valid Name and Serial Number pair is to purchase Yummy FTP through the eSellerate online purchase system. So, for the first Yummy FTP MacZOT a few years ago I handled this manually - for each order notification that I received from MacZOT I had to make a fake purchase of Yummy FTP to get a Name and Serial Number that I could then send along to the customer. Let me be clear on this - it was a nightmare! MacZOT generates hundreds of sales and I was up until the early hours of the morning just making those fake purchases so I could send along the registration details, and of course this led to mistakes... I missed out some orders, misspelled some names, didn't copy & paste registrations properly, etc. all the usual human error stuff. Although the sales were nice, it wasn't good for my health and plenty of customers weren't happy with the way it was handled as a result.
When the second MacZOT day came up, I knew there had to be a better way. I spoke with eSellerate, a very big name in online purchasing that is owned by Digital River and used by plenty of other Mac software vendors (for example Fetch :
www.fetchsoftworks.com), and that's how the Coupon concept came about. A coupon is a code which you can enter while placing an order to get a discount, even a 100% discount. The idea was that I could pre-generate as many 100% discount coupons as I wanted and send them to the promotion administrator, who could automate their purchase system to distribute a coupon for each purchase - the end user could then use the 100% discount coupon in the purchase system to get a personalized registration (Name and Serial Number) without having to pay or enter credit card details and the best thing of all.... not a single typo, missed order or any other human error. The second MacZOT used this exact technique and was a resounding success.
So, the third MacZOT came along and I used the exact same technique, expecting all to go well ...
Unfortunately, I think the main root of confusion is that the MacZOT correspondence referred to the coupons as Serial Numbers, which of course they weren't. I did provide the comprehensive step by step 'how to use the coupon' text for MacZOT to include in the email to customers, however it seems that the text from the second MacZOT was used by mistake so it was referring to the old coupons. All the coupons from the third MacZOT started with MACZOT08. I didn't think the step by step was cryptic though - I tried to make it as clear and simple as possible - but certainly, if it was delivered to you in one big lump of text like that then I can understand being fazed... Below are the instructions again as I provided them. I hope with the background I have explained above that it is all clear now.
Registration Instructions:
Thank you for purchasing Yummy FTP through MacZOT!
In order to get your Yummy FTP registration you must use the Yummy Software online store to register. You have therefore been given a Coupon Code which provides a 100% discount on the purchase of a single user license, which you must redeem to get your personalized registration.
Please follow the steps below:
1. Start Yummy FTP
2. Select 'Purchase Online' from the Yummy FTP menu
3. When the online store is displayed, click the 'buy' button
4. Enter your Coupon Code into the box labeled Coupon: (your coupon code starts with MACZOT08- followed by several letters and numbers)
5. Click the 'Checkout' button
6. Enter your registration details then click the 'Next' button
7. Click the 'Submit Order' button - note that the Grand Total is $0.00
Your registered Name and Serial Number will now be displayed with an option to Print if you require. When you close the window, Yummy FTP will read the registration details automatically and be come a fully registered copy.
