Neat Receipts Has Forgotten (or never knew) How to Earn Customer Loyalty

I’ve been a happy user of Neat Receipts for years, having purchased one of their portable scanners. It has worked pretty much  trouble free on PCs and Macs since I purchased it. But that was all about to change.

I upgraded my Mac to El Capitan a couple of months ago, and today needed to scan some diagrams that I’ll be using in an upcoming book. The Neat software did not recognize the scanner, so I went through the usual troubleshooting, including special steps on the Neat website for El Capitan users. Still, no luck.

I went to Neat’s customer support page, and found that their chat function was working (today is Saturday). I discussed the matter with the support rep, who asked me for the model of my scanner (it’s NR-030108). The rep told me that this model was no longer supported and would not work any longer. Oh great.  I asked whether there was any kind of a trade-in allowance, and he answered that there was not.

So, Neat has obsoleted my scanner.  I can get over it – it’s a part of the regular improvements in information technology. I get that. But, Neat is offering nothing in order to keep me as a customer.  There is nothing keeping me from considering other good products such as Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100i, for instance. In fact the Fujitsu is a little less expensive, it works with Mac, does everything I need, and has a slew of good online reviews.

Apparently Neat is going to just let me walk.