# $65 for Funtime Lost or broken dongle



## lmcclain6 (Jun 30, 2011)

I purchased Funtime 2014 Rhinestone software last week. My niece lost my dongle (2 year old). I contacted the company sign max and was told that I would need to pay $65 for a replacement. Is this stick up robbery or what.  How much does a usb key cost and how much does it take to copy something to it? They force you to use the stupid thing and then stick you up if it breaks or is lost after 30 days. I don't have a problem paying for a list dongle-but $65 plus shipping is crazy. Users beware. 

Is there a way around this dongle thing guys?


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Remember anyone with a dongle can run the program. the company has no way to verify you lost the dongle. One of my programs will charge over $400 to replace the dongle. I don't know any way around this except don't buy programs that require a dongle


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

Ok your mad cause you lost the dongle. $65 is more the fair. A lot of software companies consider the loss of a dongle the end of their obligation for the software. A damaged dongle would need to be sent back. 

This is not a buyer beware issue at all. I think they are being very fair in offering a replacement without a full software purchase.


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## garagegirl (Sep 19, 2010)

I had court reporting software that required a key. Software was $3500. When I lost the dongle, they made me repurchase the entire software set. Consider yourself blessed


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## BrianHahn (Dec 29, 2013)

Flexi was like this before they moved to the Cloud licenses. SignCut lifetime licenses are dongle. Neither really had a program for replacing lost dongles although they would replace broken dongles free of charge.


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## lmcclain6 (Jun 30, 2011)

charles95405 said:


> Remember anyone with a dongle can run the program. the company has no way to verify you lost the dongle. One of my programs will charge over $400 to replace the dongle. I don't know any way around this except don't buy programs that require a dongle


 They don't need to verify that I lost the dongle, they need to lower the price for a new one. I am not asking for a hand out-I am asking for a fair price for a new one and $65 is not fair. Just because others have stuck you guys up for replacements does not mean it is FAIR and that the cost can not be lowered to replace one. When I think about what a dongle is and how much it costs to buy one and copy data to it-it makes me cringe that they charge that much. Just saying.

No more dongle based software for me. Buyer beware(if dongle is lost/stolen or broken after 30 days) is that if you don't have a lot of money to invest and did not know this prior to purchase you might not want to purchase this particular software.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

lmcclain6 said:


> They don't need to verify that I lost the dongle, they need to lower the price for a new one. I am not asking for a hand out-I am asking for a fair price for a new one and $65 is not fair. Just because others have stuck you guys up for replacements does not mean it is FAIR and that the cost can not be lowered to replace one. When I think about what a dongle is and how much it costs to buy one and copy data to it-it makes me cringe that they charge that much. Just saying.
> 
> No more dongle based software for me. Buyer beware(if dongle is lost/stolen or broken after 30 days) is that if you don't have a lot of money to invest and did not know this prior to purchase you might not want to purchase this particular software.


The cost and copy of data to the dongle isn't the problem,, the problem is with all do respect to you is that the manufacturer has no idea who you are.. as far as they are concerned you could claim ( not that you would) you lost the dongle and sent you a new one for say $10.00 and then turned around copied the cd and packaged the $10.00 dongle with the copied cd and sell it on ebay for $65.00 or what ever.. so you see its not your fault but all of those scammers out there.. I do understand your plight but to state " buyer be ware" is a little harsh...


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

It looks like a post of mine was removed. 

Most software companies don't produce their own security. They purchase in large lots from a company that specializes in dongle security. They put out a large amount of money for a number of security keys. If they need a duplicate they still get charged. 

Man up and take responsibility for yourself. Instead of a buyer beware should be beware of buyer.


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

I had the same problem with sierra hotfx. Although I think it's the best rhinestone software available, its dongle totally sucks! It's very cheap and plastic. They break and fall apart very easily. Since I purchased my software from Mesa Distributors, they replaced it a couple time at no charge, but told me I would have to pay the $150 if it broke again, which over time it did. I took it apart and realized what was happening. I took it to a computer place and had the little prong that came apart soldered back together and it works fine. He reinforced the sides to keep it from bending before placing the little cheap plastic cover back on.
You would think after all the money we pay for this software, they would give us a decent sturdy dongle. I've had usb drives for YEARS with no problem, carrying them in my purse, pocket, key ring, etc. This think only stays in my laptop and still manages to break. It's ridiculous.


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## shayne0307 (May 18, 2011)

jasmynn said:


> I had the same problem with sierra hotfx. Although I think it's the best rhinestone software available, its dongle totally sucks! It's very cheap and plastic. They break and fall apart very easily. Since I purchased my software from Mesa Distributors, they replaced it a couple time at no charge, but told me I would have to pay the $150 if it broke again, which over time it did. I took it apart and realized what was happening. I took it to a computer place and had the little prong that came apart soldered back together and it works fine. He reinforced the sides to keep it from bending before placing the little cheap plastic cover back on.
> You would think after all the money we pay for this software, they would give us a decent sturdy dongle. I've had usb drives for YEARS with no problem, carrying them in my purse, pocket, key ring, etc. This think only stays in my laptop and still manages to break. It's ridiculous.


 I am with you on this one @jasmynn. I had mine replaced for $150. They can do a better job at making it more sturdy. But, on the other hand, I do understand that they are scammers out there and the software is very expensive and worth it....so the $150 replacement is understandable. Thank you for putting it out there that it can be repaired. when mine is broken again, I will deffinitely try to get it fixed first before replacing.


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## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

Two thoughts - and neither are of any help at all.

1) Scammers and thieves ruin things for honest people.

2) I hate dongles.


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## joeshaul (Mar 1, 2008)

My main problem with dongles is that most of the companies that implement them don't even invest the time of what they charge for one dongle in securing their application. They take some code snippet, toss it in the application's init, and think they're golden

Most of my youth was spent programming, and a big portion of that was spent in reverse engineering various protection schemes. Dongles can be a very secure method, but most protections could be cracked within 5-10 minutes with a proper breakpoint and change of an opcode. One of the more complex ones I spent 7 hours on basically creating a fake dongle responder (used DLL injection to divert all the Dongle's queries to my code and respond back with appropriate answers). 

I remember reading through the HASP4 programmers manuals to learn everything about it. You could actually store some memory on the dongle, that means you could store either an encryption key, or a segment of code, and prevent your application from running in its entirety unless that dongle was there, requiring at least one cracker to have bought the product to reverse engineer it. I never got to see this implemented myself though, only programmers just doing stupid checks. 

I believe SAI/Flexi's got the right mentality about moving to cloud/web based verification. While nothing is ever bulletproof, it at least makes one not so furious at a protection scheme that you just want to see it defeated


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