Hilton - That's Not Hot

OK, I admit I'm still a bit rattled by the fraud thing (and I'm going to post about the responses of the various companies in a day or two). So when I got a phone call yesterday afternoon that ended up in dead air, it bothered me. The caller ID showed "Hilton, 407-xxx-xxxx". That's an Orlando area code, but beyond that I couldn't tell much. The phone rang again last night, showing the same CID display. This time after I said "hello," there was the familiar pause of an ACD connecting me to an agent, who then exclaimed "Hi, Larry!" as if I was supposed to know her. Ugh. You're not my friend, honey, you're a cold-calling time-share-selling phone rep.

I once again said "hello" in the deadest tone I could muster. She started in on her sales pitch, indicating that since I was a valued member of the Hilton Honors program, blah blah blah. When she paused I said "I am not interested at all, place me on your DO NOT CALL list."

Today, I've logged onto the Hilton webpage and find that there is no place where I can opt out of phone calls. I can opt out of email, no problem. And there is no way to not have a phone number on the profile. I tried to change it to one of my favorites, (888)555-1212, which might or might not get you to toll-free directory assistance (I don't really care). They wouldn't take that, so I poked around the site a bit and found one of their fax numbers. So on the off chance that they decide to call me again, they won't get very far.

I realize that it's my choice whether to belong to this (or any) customer loyalty program. I don't think that means I have to be subject to unwanted sales calls, especially when I'm already listed on the national DO NOT CALL registry. Yes, there is a loophole in the registry allowing calls from companies with whom I have an "existing relationship." I think it's a stretch to go from hotel customer to potential time-share sucker buyer, but I'm sure they don't.

Well, I've emailed them and rather tersely said "don't do that, ever again." I'll post the response if it's of any interest.

More Fun With Fraud Fallout

"Experience Life At SprintSpeed" says the new slogan.  SprintSpeed apparently makes a glacier look like the Roadrunner . . .

I have several recurring bills that I've chosen to pay automatically via the credit card that was compromised over the weekend.  Of course now that that card has been cancelled, I have to make sure that each of these places has updated information.  One of these bills is for my Sprint mobile phone.  Now I am 99 44/100 percent sure that I initially set up the automatic billing via their website, but as I clicked around their twisty maze of web pages, all different,  I could not find a place to change the card information.  I didn't really want to do so online anyway, being a little gun-shy on the web transaction front at this point.  I clicked around some more until I found the list of phone numbers and called them.  After punching in my information, I got to a menu asking me to say what I was calling about.  "Change credit card" says I.  "OK!  I can help you with that!" says the overly perky recording.  But she doesn't help me, after all, she just transfers my call to a live agent.  Well, to a hold queue, where I am informed that my wait will be five to ten minutes.  When I am finally connected, the agent proceeds to ask me for the same information I've already entered into the phone system  (way to leverage the CTI there, guys!), and when she decides I might be who I say I am, asks me what I want.  I tell her I need to change the credit card used for automatic billing.  Alas, she can not help me with that.  She's going to transfer me to the finance department, but first she gives me the direct number in case I get disconnected.  (Lord knows this is actually a good precaution; my first call to Sprint this afternoon actually did result in a disconnect.  You'd think a PHONE company could get the whole concept of call transfers figured out, right?  But I digress...)

The transfer is actually successful, and I am once again asked to prove that I am me.  Once that's out of the way, the agent tells me my current balance and asks how I would like to pay that today.  I explain that I am not calling to make a payment, I am calling to update my credit card info.  She can't help me - this seems to be a common occurrence at Sprint - so she dumps me off to her supervisor.  Again with the verification.  She too wants me to pay my bill.  Jebus, Sprint, you get my money automatically every month, and it's not the due date yet.  Chill on the paying you thing.  My voice is getting hoarse from repeating my simple request.  And guess what?  (all together now) ... She can't help me.

She can send me a form, would that be OK?  OK, whatever, just please end this nightmare.  She asks for my email address.  That would be the email address that they have in their records somewhere.  Nonetheless, I just spell it out for her, and she wants me to stay on the line to verify I've gotten the form she's sending.  It comes through with no subject line and no text in the body of the email, just an attachment in Microsoft Word format.  Good thing I'm at work, so I can actually open it.  And when I do, I see that it's a Nextel form.  OK, granted Sprint merged with Nextel . . .   IN AUGUST OF 2005!!! For crying out loud, they've even dropped "Nextel" from most of their advertising at this point.  I'm not going to fill out a Nextel branded form and send it to what is more than likely the wrong address.

Supposedly, she's going to contact somebody and have another form sent to me.  It's been over an hour and that hasn't happened.

Yeah, we're moving at SprintSpeed!

x-posted from bent! Blog

More About Fraud and Blockbuster Online

Ballbuster Online is more like it.  After three or four go-rounds on email (at least two of which were virtually identical), they finally coughed up a toll-free number for me to call.  Right before that, though, they actually were stupid enough to send me a separate email requesting that I update my billing information, because they'd been unable to charge the credit card they'd been given.  No shit, Sherlock.  What a bunch of effing morons.

So I called the number I'd been given (BTW, since they seem to guard it so tightly, I'll freely publish it here:  Blockbuster Online Customer Service Toll-Free Number: 866--692-2789).  I spoke to Chad, who, despite his charming Texas accent, had clearly been drinking the Kool-Aid; he more-or-less parroted what his email copy/paste buddies had already said.

I'd responded to the request to update my billing information with a rather heated email telling them in no uncertain terms what morons I thought them all to be.  The reply to that contained another response, presumably copied and pasted from the Big Book of Blockbuster Online Useless Customer Service Responses, telling me "The credit card companies have given us explicit instructions not to modify customers' accounts in any shape, form or matter without their authorization through our legal department."

WTF-ever, dudes.  I've called four other companies about this issue, and emailed a handful more.  EVERY one of them immediately cancelled the fraudulently set up accounts.

Since BBO seems to have a ready supply of instantly copyable responses for this issue, one has to wonder just how often they get fraudulently set up accounts.  And again, does keeping said accounts on the books as long as possible help the numbers they report to Wall Street and their shareholders?


x-posted from bent! Blog

Blockbuster Supports Fraud?

Without going into all the gory details, I seem to have been the victim of a (so far) minor bit of identity theft over the weekend.

Somebody signed me up for various services, or even made some purchases billed to one of my credit cards. In some cases, it was rather painless to cancel these transactions - the "confirmation" emails I received included toll-free contact numbers, and calling those numbers got me through to somebody quickly, who then would listen to my tail of woe and resolve the issue.

And then we have Blockbuster Online. No contact number in the email. No contact number on the website. No easy way to contact them at all. So I hit "reply" on the email welcoming me to their service and said "this was set up with stolen information, the credit card has been cancelled, so please cancel this registration."

Their response was priceless -- "Sorry you have to deal with this, but we are not authorized to cancel this account due to this claim of fraudulent activity or identity theft." (italics, mine).

Thus, my recently sent message to Blockbuster Investor Relations:

You know what's interesting? That a large company like Blockbuster will accept a fraudulently generated account for Blockbuster Online, but when the defrauded consumer attempts to get this resolved, he is told "we are not authorized to cancel this account due to this claim of fraudulent activity or identity theft."

I'm sure my local media outlets and the whole rest of the internet will be interested to know that Blockbuster worries more about inflating its "subscriber" numbers than resolving issues with fraud.

I had no problem at all contacting some of the seemingly sketchy companies that also were involved in this incident, and having them quickly and easily cancel the orders and verify that no attempt would be made to charge my credit card. They even published toll-free numbers so that I could contact them.

I'll never be a blockbuster customer, and I will make sure EVERYBODY knows how you all operate.

So there you go. If you're reading this, you are part of "the whole rest of the internet" and/or "EVERYBODY."

Please think twice about patronizing a company that seems to value "the numbers" more than security.

xposted to Bent! Blog

Not quite as promised

I opened up my freezer the other night to choose a side dish to go with the steak I was about to grill. Right there in front of me was a box of Kroger brand "Rice and Broccoli (with low fat cheese sauce)." Seemed like a decent choice, and it would be pretty easy to prepare.

Look at this tasty looking product, filled to the brim with pretty green broccoli heads and rice, covered in cheesy goodness:




And now look at the sad reality of what as in the package, after cooking:




I went to the Kroger website this morning and filled out a "customer contact form" telling them what a ripoff this product was. I've gotten the "automated acknowledgement" but no actual reply yet.

As an interesting sidenote, the automated email I received had my own email address as the sender. They also had a bit in the body of the email saying

You have received this email notification as a result of submitting a
Customer Comment to Kroger. If you did not submit a Customer Comment, please
contact a Customer Service Representative at 866-221-4141 and report the
following sender's IP Address: 6x.xx.xxx.xxx [my IP obscured]

So they're concerned about security (although sending rogue email comments to Kroger seems pretty low on the list of risky activities), but they have no problem with spoofing an email "from" address? Weird.

So anyway, my personal recommendation is to avoid the Kroger brand frozen vegetables. They're not what they appear to be.

AOL's New Webmail

I've been being a bit of a gadfly on AOL's "mail blog" and support forums for their new webmail "service." I wonder if they're going to take away my screen name?

I've had a netscape.net email address for years, probably since before Netscape was purchased by AOL. I use that email for most of the commercial websites I deal with, such as airline frequent flyer programs, NetFlix, Papa John's Pizza, etc. I added an aim.com address simply because I had an AIM ID for use in chatting to some friends. I use that address very seldom, primarily for job search related emails. A while back, AOL combined the Netscape and AIM mailboxes, so that everything ends up in the same inbox. This wasn't all that much of a problem, although it's confused me a few times when writing emails since the "from" address defaults to the AIM name. No major problem though. A month or so ago, suddenly they unveiled this new "service". It's some kind of AJAX-y application that is a giant mess of usability miscues.

• They show the contacts list in a panel on the right side of the screen. You can't not see this panel, although it can be closed. But closing it creates a tiny vertical strip on the right side of the screen, outside of the scroll bar. So if you slam your pointer to the side of the screen to click and skip down a page, you are just as likely to re-open the contacts list. In addition, the contacts list was fully populated with the return address of every SPAM sender that I'd ever received, including those that AOL itself had automatically filtered into the SPAM folder. As if I'd really need access to those addresses again. Supposedly this last thing has been fixed, but let's revisit that whole fixed thing later.
  
  
• On startup, they also show a "Today on AIM" screen that covers more than half of the inbox. You can "hide" this window (or "curtain" as they call it), but there is no way to make it not appear at all. One of the developers who posts to the mail blog says it's because it helps to pay for this free service and that "all webmail has something like this." I would imagine that the ten other doubleclick.net ads on the page might also help pay the bills. In any case, I most extensively use gmail for my webmail. I don't see any "curtains" blocking my view. There are no ads at all on the main inbox page. Yes, there are ads when I read individual messages, but they are unobtrusive, they don't block half my screen. I also have a Yahoo email, which I mostly access via that My Yahoo page, but just for kicks, I checked the mail.yahoo.com page. Ads yes, obstructing curtains, no. So I'm at a loss to know what "all webmail" this guy is talking about.
  
  
• This "service" often automatically updates itself, leaving one with a screen that says "your webmail has just been updated!" Well, whoopee. Why is a web page acting like an application? Why does AOL still want to get its sticky tendrils all over my computer? Isn't it bad enough that the AOL client was like an evergrowing fungus that became impossible to remove? Now a simple web page has to try to take over? I have also seen reports that this automatic update feature will happen even if one is in the midst of composing an email, and when it's done, your partially composed email is gone. Nice!
  
  

The initial question I asked on the mail blog was "did anybody do ANY usability testing on this?" It seems like a bunch of developers are sitting around, adding features that are "cool" with absolutely no regard to how this will affect users. I posted several instances of poor usability (including the above items). To his credit, the developer who runs the blog did respond, but then again, he said that I should move my "tech support questions" to the support forum. Of course they're not "tech support questions", but I did anyway. And then I blasted them for having a VERY poor design and not having tested it. Somebody on the blog said "why can't the 'send' button be easier to find?" That's a design and usability issue. The thing about the contacts list adding spammers? That's a design and usability issue.

When I was first blessed with this new application, I tried to find ways to not see the contacts list or today curtain. There was nothing in the configuration settings. I also wanted to be able to sort the contact list. Again, nothing. Now supposedly the sort thing has been added to the config. But How would I know that? Am I supposed to re-check the config screen every single time there's an update? That's a design, documentation and communication problem.

Bottom line, AOL has released a very early BETA product onto their whole user base. It's not labelled as such, but the frequency of updates makes it very clear that this thing was NOT ready for prime time. They've also announced that they will be releasing a "lite" version for "people with older computers or browsers." Way to know your user base there, guys! Again, one of the principle of usability/design is to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

Maybe I Should Get It At Gimbel's

As many people know, last year, Macy's rebranded all of the various chains it had subsumed via the May and Federated mergers. It's hard to was nostalgic about the loss of Rich's and Hecht's and Strawbridge's, because frankly those chains were just vestigial remains of the grand old department stores that preceded them.

But that's not really what this post is about. I'd had a Hecht's credit card for some time, one that I barely used, but it occasionally would come in handy, particularly at Christmas time. One would have assumed that this card would have been replaced with a Macy's card after the rebranding. When I used the card for Christmas shopping, I was assured that a new one should be on its way.

Well, now it's June and I happened to see that old Hecht's card as I was doing some housework, so I thought it was time to follow-up on this missing replacement. I went to their website and found my way to the "contact us" page for credit card customer service. They have four options

• EMail Us
  "We ask you to log-in for your security and to expedite the handling of your questions"
  Ummm, WTF? "Log in"? I don't want to "log in" I want to send you an email.
  
  
• Text Chat
  OK, I tried that. Evidently that area of customer service was closed, so I received a pop-up asking me to enter the "skill" and "identifier". Again, WTF? Those are not fields that the customer should be seeing.
  
  
• Talk Live
  At first I couldn't figure out what was different about this in comparison to Text Chat, but then I noticed that it requires a microphone and speakers, so essentially it's a VOIP application. Good enough. I clicked on the link and got a security warning from my browser. The certificate they want me to accept expired in 2002. I hate to repeat myself, but WTF? A five year old security certificate does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. I guess I should be impressed that the system has not balked at my using Firefox.
  
  
• Call Us
  I have to admit, I did try to call them on this topic once before. It was after I received the bill for my purchases last December. I'd got patched through to India, and while I have no general problem with outsourced call centers, I do require that the person on the phone speak relatively clear English. So I'd hung up. This time I went ahead and called. I got a bunch of recordings, then a bunch of clicks, and then hung up on. Nice. So I tried again, and finally got through to "Basil". He listened only about half the time, ignored some of my questions completely, and generally was not very helpful.
  

I think I might be getting a new Macy's card though. Which I probably should cut up into tiny pieces and send back to them.

Macy's Credit "Services" - you hereby receive the WORST CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE of the month award.