We had a disturbing conversation with a client this past week. He called us because he was suspicious after speaking with Sage Support about a potential data corruption issue in his Sage 50 database.
The support technician remoted into his database, poked around a bit, and then reported that his database was “42% corrupted.” The technician offered to order a repair, IF:
- The client would renew his Sage 50 subscription for a 3-year term,
- And would pay in advance for the renewal, via ACH payment only.
This aroused our client’s suspicion, since Sage has always honored payments via credit card in the past. So the client phoned us to ask if we could verify this offer as legitimate. We agreed that this sounded suspicious, for the following reasons:
- Sage has always accepted credit cards in payment, and has an explicit system set up for processing these;
- Sage does not offer subscription renewals longer than 2 years;
- And most interestingly, it is extremely unlikely that a technician would assign a percentage of corruption to a database, since this has no bearing on the problem at all
We alerted our Sage Account Manager of this situation, who then reported the issue to Sage’s Legal Department for further investigation and possible action. He acknowledged that there have been some known issues regarding hijacked phone numbers. I did a quick check by dialing an older support number that we had stored, and was connected to a VERY suspicious recording asking for my information.
One key takeaway from this unfortunate situation: only call Sage Support at their published support number – 866-747-3888 for Sage 50 support, or 800-285-0999 for Timeslips.
Even better, contact Crosspointe FIRST to discuss the issue, and let us follow up with a Sage Level 2 support technician on your behalf.
‘Tis the season of holiday cheer, and also – unfortunately – of many holiday scams. Don’t be victimized by the unscrupulous behavior of scammers. Check with us first if you are in need of Sage support.
Crosspointe stands ready to help our clients, or any other Sage customer who finds themselves with a technical support issue in this busy time of year. Give us a call at 877-375-2810 or email us at [email protected] if you find yourself needing help with a Sage issue.
Jack Schaller has been active in the field of law office technology since 1989, and has worked with a variety of commercial accounting, legal billing, practice management, and document management software products during his twenty plus years in the software consulting field. During his tenure as a software consultant he has garnered many sales and service awards for his work with legal software products. Jack is a frequent presenter at legal conferences and seminars, and is a regular contributor to TechnoLawyer and other technology publications.