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Update: Hoover’s DB gave me a full refund.

Update: Customer support at Hoover’s DB contacted me and promised a full refund for this matter.

We are sorry that you were unhappy with the report you purchased from Hoover’s Inc. While we strive to maintain up to date and complete records, we occasionally find a company with fewer data points than others. Please know that I will be sending this for a full refund to our accounting office. Once they notify me, I will let you know via email. If any questions, please let me know.

Original post as below.

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Just don’t buy anything from Hoover’s DB.

I needed to know about IDEO’s financial information and found Hoover’s website and they provide paid financial report service. So I paid US$29 for it. After downloading the report, I found out it has all the necessary chapters and titles for the general financial report that we expect, but not *the data*. All the fields are blanks. I couldn’t believe my eyes. But it is true and see it for yourself.

Duh?

There is no new information on this page. I will explain why. Those revenues (2003~2005) are already on their web page. You can find it here. So you can easily calculate - if you really want to call this *calculate*-, the 1-year-sales-growth 18.8% by (82-69)/69.

I thought those blanks are filled in the paid report, since Hoover’s DB says the following:

The IDEO financial reports offered by Hoover’s provide more detail about IDEO’s financial performance than most information services. Financial reports are supplemented by business information that includes company executives, competitors, and operational insight into a potential customer, investment or competitor. Get access to business information for over 19 million companies, including research similar to IDEO financial reports.

Where is *more detail* about IDEO’s financial performance?

“than most information services”? << What does this mean?

Am I blind?

Agian, all the fields are blanks.

Here we go again.

The last page in the report, that I can’t reveal here, has two new numbers which I couldn’t find in 2 web pages for IDEO on Hoover’s DB. They are numbers of employee for 2003 and 2004. (the number for 2005 is on the main IDEO page, here) These two numbers may be worth US$29 for someone, but not for me and I don’t think it is for most of you.

So I decided to respond to their pretty-much-blank service.

Here’s the email that I sent to Hoover’s DB claiming a full refund.

I just downloaded the Hoover’s financial report on IDEO and found out that it has no financial information at all. All the field are just blanks.

 

I can’t understand how you charge me US$29 for this garbage? What is any new information provided on this paid report other than your web page for IDEO?

 

Unless you give me a full refund, I will write a blog about this to make other people realize the value of your report.

 

I hope this is just a mistake , where your quality assurance failed.

 

Please fix this to make your customer happy.

Buying digital contents should not be a gamble. Please someone at Hoover’s DB tells me what the value you provide for your custsomer and what I paid for.

The world is changing and everyone is saying that. So it’s nothing more than boring and you are getting deaf whatever they say, until something hits on your head. As far as we are in the IT industry and trying to invent new technologies and innovative services, it’s hard to ignore a new generation called Net Gen. They take new things without any fear. They don’t take precedent rules. PBS has a show called FRONTLINE and they’d done a special report, ‘The Merchants of Cool‘. This show gives us some insight about today’s teens. You can watch the full program online here.

Now let’s get back to our real life and watch people around you who are under 25. If you don’t have anyone around you, go out and find them and meet them and talk to them. You will find that they are a new human race absolutely. In the “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything“, authors claimed that this new generation would change not only market place but also our working environment. It’s our job to leverage their yet-unleashed power and to drive their passion for innovation.

“Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything”

For myself, I am trying to learn WIKI and to find best ways to collaborate with Net Gen. It won’t be easy to adopt open source concept and to find my position in the new world. To be honest with you, God, it’s a hassle until now. I only hope that no more new generation will come in the future. Not again, at least not in my life, plz.