Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

[Michael J.]

I just wanted to remind anyone thinking of using this service that just because it accepts your VIN, it doesn't mean there are any award documents to send you. So, unless someone is claiming an award and you want to check it out, just fishing for some long lost award that your new car may have had is expensive. This really should be clarified on the service page before you buy it.

[Dave S.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

I just wanted to remind anyone thinking of using this service that just because it accepts your VIN, it doesn't mean there are any award documents to send you. So, unless someone is claiming an award and you want to check it out, just fishing for some long lost award that your new car may have had is expensive. This really should be clarified on the service page before you buy it.

Our region reps need to assist us in clarifying this service and in my opinion the membership should have some ability to get information from these NCRS records without paying large amounts to get it.
Just my $0.02

[Page C.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

Hi Dave,
I could not agree more. All this infomation was gather by the volunteer judges. To turn around and charge the members $300 bucks is pretty steep. I would think zero to $25 would be more in line.
JMO
Page Campbell

[Ian G.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

Especially since it should just be in a database somewhere:

SELECT FLIGHT_AWARD FROM AWARD_TABLE WHERE VIN='xxxxx'

If it isn't in a database then pay a VOLUNTEER data entry person to put it in one. Gimme access to the database. I'll do it for free.

[Erik S.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

maybe the NCRS wants to recharge some of the costs spent on building this database.

[Michael W.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

They can take it out of the money every judge pays for the honour of judging. Charging NCRS members full price is bad enough, but paying full price to simply hear 'nope sorry, nothing found' is too much.

[James W.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

They can take it out of the money every judge pays for the honour of judging. Charging NCRS members full price is bad enough, but paying full price to simply hear 'nope sorry, nothing found' is too much.

It takes time and money to set up and maintain a database. The judging results are gathered by volunteers, but after that there's a cost associated with every time the information is touched. When only small numbers of people utilize a service the cost tends to be high to recover those costs. My understanding is that the service was set up to help verify cars bought at auction or through private individuals, where recourse is marginal.

Just my $0.02

Jim

[Ian G.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

I doubt its in a full blown oracle or SQL Server database, and if it is you have to ask why? MS Access would be adequate. It's part of MS Office Pro - $350 on Amazon, like Word or Excel. Open Office would do it nearly as well for free. Once the data is in (by volunteers for volunteers) it would be a very simple and cheap matter to get it out. Everyone in this organization aside from the three paid executive employees volunteers their time for free. I don't buy why it needs to be $300 dollars, aside from NCRS has a monopoly on the data.

[Dick W.]

Re: Award Confirmation Document Service Caveat Emptor

It is/has been converted to a SQL database. The amount of data contained severely taxed Access. It is a HUGH database, containing a trememdous amount of data on cars judged by NCRS