Category: Customer Service

We all experience it, whether good or bad. I write mine up, particularly if some shaming or congratulating is required!

  • APC and the faulty UPS

    APC and the faulty UPS

    Back in May I ordered a UPS for my home office. You don’t get power cuts in the UK very often and, in fact, I think power is out at my house more of a result of work being done inside my house, than anything, but as it’s a single point of failure than can be easily rectified, it seemed the sensible thing to do.

    Last month, I went to plug an extra device in and found that it won’t push into the socket. In fact, as I attempted to push this plug in, the plug next to it also raised up out of its socket. Something wasn’t right and a quick inspection showed the issue – the socket safety shutters had dropped away inside the device.

    I’d registered the UPS with APC at the time of purchase and although I’d had an email to say they’d received my registration request I’d heard nothing more. I rang them and, via a very quiet phone line, they arranged to have my UPS swapped out. Indeed, just a few days later a new one appeared.

    But arranging to have the old device picked up turned out to be a lot trickier…

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  • Why Argos has a terrible attitude to website security

    Why Argos has a terrible attitude to website security

    Don’t get me wrong, some websites get their security really, really wrong but the difference with Argos is their attitude towards the customers that take issue with it.

    I raised problems with Argos back in January, when I found their site doesn’t allow you to use the paste function of your computer when creating a new password – this rules out using password managers and, therefore, long, secure password.

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  • Email conversation with Neff

    Email conversation with Neff

    Me: I have a Neff account on your site but I need to update the email address for it, which I don’t appear to be able to do. Can you change this for me?

    Neff: Unfortunately we are unable to amend those details due to not having access to your account. This is something that only you can do yourself.

    Me: Erm…

  • Why can’t I transfer my domain from 1&1?

    Why can’t I transfer my domain from 1&1?

    I’ve had an account with 1&1 for, oh, many years. Never for hosting but simply for domain handling – specifically artiss.co.uk.

    However, needing to install SSL on this domain, my host (Tsohost) can only do it if the domain is hosted with them and 1&1, well, they won’t give me SSL because I don’t have the domain hosted with them. So, the easiest solution was to move the domain to Tsohost.

    Sadly, 1&1 have made sure this process isn’t easy.

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  • Whatever you do, don’t trust Doros Kiriakoulis

    Whatever you do, don’t trust Doros Kiriakoulis

    Last year I wrote about how a single product, the GoKey, had made me give up on crowd funding websites. Badly delayed, something always seemed to come up when the deadline was imminent. However, it all appeared to be moving on and only a couple of weeks ago all the backers received an email so we could provide final confirmation details of our product requirements (for example, my phone connection has changed, twice,
    since originally backing the product, so I needed a different connector on the GoKey).

    This morning I had an email.

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