Why I feel Quicktime ripped me off - and how their CS made it worse

Question

Ok so this was about 6 months ago. I had been interested in learning more and more about QT, and finally to spend the money to upgrade to QT Pro. I think the standard at the time was version 6. I authorized a credit card payment for the $60 or whatever it was, and got the authorization code numbers in seconds to upgrade to QT Pro, and I was very happy.
Three days later they came out with QT version 7. It was loaded onto my Powerbook with the other standard downloads, I didnt really think anything sinister of it as I had JUST paid for the Pro upgrade, so I felt no problems, I will get a newer version and thats even more outstanding, a new Pro version.
NOPE, I was given the standard version. I typed in my authorization code that was 3 days old to upgrade the version 6 iteration to Pro, and it was rejected. This, I felt, was surely some sort of error, overlooked mistake, easily solved with a call to Customer Support.
First I got the ROYAL runaround. Apple Support told me that while yes, technically they did accept my money and provide my upgrade authorization, that "Apple doesnt really own QT, and they are just providing a service for their customers, by expediting this type of thing."
"The type of thing where I pay $60 and three days later it is declared no longer to apply to what was supposed to be a Pro Upgrade because the new release doesnt recognize the code? This is what you do as a courtesy for me? I want either my money back or an active code to upgrade V7 to Pro"
Apple would do neither. It was their position that they had to obligation here, and if they gave me special treatment *I loved that phrase* then everyone who ever bought QT would always want apple to give them free Pro upgrades.
To make matters worse, QT refused to assist me as well, and took the position that, since I installed the newer version on my Mac, that not only was I NOT entitled to a Pro upgrade of the version released 3 days after I decided to buy it, but they ALSO would not allow me to have a legal copy of the previous version to which my upgrade code would work to raise it to Pro status! Yes, they told me that they had revoked my upgrade code so that it would no longer work even if I wanted to downgrade to version 6, because by installing the "Improved" new version 7, I entered into a contractual obligation which voided any end-user permissions I may have had claim to if I had not allowed my Mac to run its usual weekly upgrades and patches downloads.
If I wanted to pay them another $60 or whatever, I was welcome to a functional copy of an upgrade code for the new version of QT.
I declined.
I was amazed that everything happened the way it did. I got screwed coming and going, by Apple and by Quicktime, and all I wanted to do was to enjoy what I felt was a nice program and which I had reached that moment - you have all felt it - like when shareware works so well you whip out the credit card and give them $20 for unzip or whatever? Well, I had decided this about Quicktime, and they turned around and reamed me. I can say I have never been so fouly treated by a software company, not even Microsoft.
The perfect icing on the cake of course was that my credit card would not stop payment because I told them the truth of the whole thing and they said that if that was the case then I had to right to dispute the charges, the software company may be rude and so forth, but they were clearly within their rights, said my credit card rep.
I paid the card in full and canceled it.
Thoughts on this?
Gileas

Answer 1

While the question was answered long before the excellent post in reply to mine (and following which the thread was locked... I do not see what the need for that was, I was not finished explaining my situation by answering the cogent and first rate questions posed by the reply poster.) There remains the questions that I felt were essential to the issue, not that the software company had a legal right to do what they did, but that by doing so with such disregard for my concerns and my sense of having been treated with total disregard, that what was essentially accomplished was an unresolved animosity toward the way this was handled. To anwer the poster's question 'why did I wait so long to post this?' is to overlook the essence of the whole episode - that being one where after a year of keeping busy, working, vacations, raising kids, etc etc I still feel so poorly treated by the way this was handled that I posted about it at all.
Of course I made a series of errors, of course I could have done a better job of researching what was going to happen, but I also expected the company that I had just paid to act in good faith, and that Apple, who had just collected roughly 3,000$ for my pbook G4 would have tried to resolve the issue in a way that did not alienate me.
I had hoped for a solution where both parties felt they made an effort to compromise and reached a conclusion they could both feel was adequate, rather than feeling alienated, upset and ripped off.