I've been a customer of Simmarket's for almost 23 years. Save for an occasional challenge with available payment methods (their stand-off with PayPal a few years ago), I haven't had any issues with my purchases or gifts (I have bought and got 275 items from them over the 23 years). Until this week.

Back in July 2022, I got the P3D rendition of FSCGAA's FVRG model for free, in one order with a product I did pay for. I hadn't had issues with downloading and installing freebies I got from Simmarket before, so I was surprised when I got an error while trying to register my installation of FVRG this week, telling me to contact support. Checking my orders on Simmarket, I could not find the FVRG freebie anymore. I created a ticket and provided my proof of purchase (or gift, in the case of FVRG), the e-mail from Simmarket, clearly showing 2 items as part of the order. Their first response was that I was likely mistaken and the item I was inquiring about must have been purchased in some other way. I pointed to the e-mail again. Their second response was that they had no record of a license for this product (issued to me) and that it "may have been issued by mistake originally."

I guess I should be glad they admitted to their mistake, right? I initially was afraid that a similar fate may have befallen other products got from them from free, but fortunately the ones I was able to check were still listed in my order history.

I'm not going to fight them on this, that was a freebie after all, but it made me concerned that in the future their record of purchase and a license key issued to me for a product I did pay for may conveniently disappear from their records. I have my e-mails, both direct from Simmarket as well as PayPal, but apparently they're no match for Simmarket's record keeping.

This unpleasant experience aside, it brings a much bigger question about digital purchases and I'm curious about other folks' experiences in this area. How can you prove to a seller that you were issued a license for a digital product when all you got is e-mails and they claim to have no record of the purchase or gift on their end?

Edited March 27Mar 27 by otterspotter

I had a somewhat comparable experience recently when I tried upgrading a CYUL scenery I bought from ORBX for MSFS 2020 to MSFS 2024. My original purchase was not listed anymore, and after a lot of searching I found it tucked away in an obscure corner of the "my downloads" page.

In the end, I found on Google that the company that created my old scenery had committed a copyright violation with CYUL and some other airports. ORBX and other store had pulled their products from the stores and the company disappeared. It then re-emerged under a different name, and they remade CYUL. However, I decided to get the MK version for MSFS 2024 instead.

4 hours ago, otterspotter said:

Back in July 2022, I got the P3D rendition of FSCGAA's FVRG model for free, in one order with a product I did pay for. I hadn't had issues with downloading and installing freebies I got from Simmarket before, so I was surprised when I got an error while trying to register my installation of FVRG this week, telling me to contact support.

A few moments of research on the internet produces this:

The last reply being:

Quote

I have in the meantime received the following response from SimMarket...
Quote:
hello,
we are sorry but this was done because the free offer was none, it was the result of an error/bug in our software and the vendor has requested that we rectify the situation.
regards.
Unquote;
Herman

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48 minutes ago, qqwertz said:

I had a somewhat comparable experience recently when I tried upgrading a CYUL scenery I bought from ORBX for MSFS 2020 to MSFS 2024. My original purchase was not listed anymore, and after a lot of searching I found it tucked away in an obscure corner of the "my downloads" page.

In the end, I found on Google that the company that created my old scenery had committed a copyright violation with CYUL and some other airports. ORBX and other store had pulled their products from the stores and the company disappeared. It then re-emerged under a different name, and they remade CYUL. However, I decided to get the MK version for MSFS 2024 instead.

Your experience was hardly similar.
You still have access to the product that you paid for.
The OP has no access to the product that they were given,
albeit, by mistake.

Yours is in your account at Orbx Direct and in your copy of Orbx Central, available to install:

Not really "tucked away in an obscure corner of the "my downloads" page".

 

 

Edited March 27Mar 27 by Reader

Thank you, Reader, for the link. I searched this forum for posts involving Simmarket but failed to expand my search.

It's comforting to know there was nothing nefarious about the license being withdrawn. It would have been nice if they had notified customers about it, either via e-mail or a note on the order.