Dear All,
Please distinguish between a lost ViennaKey and a broken ViennaKey.
Here's a summary of how we handle the unfortunate case a ViennaKey is reported as lost or broken:
- If a ViennaKey breaks within the warranty period (two years) without extraneous cause, the user gets a new ViennaKey and the new license free of charge. That's why we recommend to purchase a new key every two years. The two year warranty starts with the date of purchase of the ViennaKey, so please store your invoice at a safe place.
- In case the warranty period has expired, or if the user damages a ViennaKey, he will of course have to pay for the new ViennaKey and a handling fee for the new licenses (EUR 20 per contained license). This fee is necessary as we ourselves also have to pay fees to eLicenser for every replacement license we issue.
- In case of a lost license, we meet our users halfway in this situation by replacing the license for 50% of the full price in case they're not insured.
- If a lot of licenses are on a broken or lost key, we'll find a solution on an individual basis with the user.
While we totally understand that both scenarios are a cause for concern, we do our best to help customers that find themselves in this unfortunate situation in every way we can, while at the same time protecting our (and your!) investment in our products. We HAVE to make sure that there are no possibilities for fraud when users report to have lost or damaged their key.
Many ideas have been discussed in previous threads, and we are considering all technically and legally possible improvements together with the provider of this protection system, eLicenser (owned by Steinberg). The description above explains our current position.
Please also understand that we cannot give any further information in our forum on how we handle lost or broken keys, since we don't want to provide instructions on how to best outwit our protection system.
Best,
Stefan