7DayShop security - lack of transparency, or understanding?

[Short link to this post if you need it - http://goo.gl/6o5zL - or retweet me]

Recently a number of people received password reset notifications from the 7dayshop website - a site that many people I know use that supplies batteries, camera accessories and the like, and I've used them for a few years now. The email came through as the sort of email you get when you go to a site and request a password reset. The notification included the text

  There was recently a request to change the password for your account.

  If you requested this password change, please click on the following link to reset your password: [Link removed]

  If clicking the link does not work, please copy and paste the URL into your browser instead.

  If you did not make this request, you can ignore this message and your password will remain the same.

So there is no indication in there that it was intentionally sent out by the company, and the last line explicitly seems to suggest otherwise. Now this, understandably, made a few people panic and go around change many other passwords in case the site had been somehow compromised. So what had happened to make so many people receive password reset notifications - was it a real attempt to break into people's accounts? Here's a perfectly reasonable train of thought by anyone who takes security seriously.

1. Maybe someone's trying to break into my account
2. If such an attacker is doing a reset in this way, maybe it's because they've already broken into my email account and can get the notification
3. Maybe they've already reset a number of other accounts this way, and already comporomised my other online accounts
4. I might not know if they've done this, as they could delete the evidence if they have access to my mailbox!
5. I'd better change all my passwords on all my systems.

The above thought process is entirely reasonable, and obviously generates a bit of work for the person receiving 7dayshop's mail.  So what really happened?

I found some more information when later in the day they made this post on their facebook page suggesting that as a result of changing their website they had "improved security". The also acknowledged "I agree that the wording could have been better but we will learn from our mistakes" OK, both those points are superficially good things, but it also included the following:

"all customers who had passwords less than 5 characters or passwords with special characters, which were not transferred over to the new site, were sent a new computer generated password."

OK, so that might explain the reset requests - although "sent a new computer generated password" isn't quite the same as "We've forced the reset process on you and suggested you'd initiated it yourself" More worryingly is that they appeared to know which passwords were <=5 characters. Surely any site that hashes passwords properly would have no idea how long the passwords were? They have confirmed that passwords were encrypted before and after the update - I suppose it's possible they're stored with an encryption key somewhere rather than a 1-way hash algorithm, although that would mean if that key is stored on their servers it's potentially subject to compromise if someone gets into their systems, so is less than ideal. Another comment they made to me was this:

A number of customer records did not migrate correctly onto our new system. We issued an email to these customers informing them to change their password. We received great feedback from our customers that implied the majority of issues were due to short passwords

I have to wonder who was providing this "great feedback" - I wouldn't normally think to tell the company I had a short password when I get a random reset notification, so I wonder what the nature of this feedback is. I emailed "Mandy" mentioned in the facebook thread, but that did not elicit a response. In order to try and get some concrete information I chose to email their customer support directly, instead of the general customer service people on Facebook. This is how it went:

---

Hi, I've tried to get this question answered via your facebook page, but the person on the end doesn't appear to answer the issues directly, merely skirting around the issue. I also tried emailing the address they gave me in that thread, but did not receieve a reply. All I'm getting is "We take security very seriously" and "we store encrypted passwords". Can you get someone with a clue about online security to please answer these two questions:

1) Were the passwords encrypted PREVIOUSLY i.e. prior to the site makeover.

2) If the answer to the first question is no, how do you know which passwords had the problem. You refer to vague "migration issues" but what were the issues that lead you to believe that the 5 character etc. ones were the ones that caused problems. If encrypted/hashed, you wouldn't be able to tell, and it shouldn't have mattered. Vague "feedback from our customers that implied the majority of issues were due to short passwords" is dancing around the question.

Please back up your statement about taking security seriously by providing answers to the questions. since if you haven't got someone who is technically capable of understanding the questions, then you cannot claim to take security seriously.

I'm just looking for a straight answer

---

And here is the response I got:

Hi Stewart

1. yes
2. Some records did not load. We dont know the exact reason. But customers mentioned about short passwords. Seems a logical link.

Is that straight enough?

---

So there you go - they have no technical explanation, and merely anecdotal evidence that the "migration failures" were caused by short passwords. I find it very strange that they would not be able to know for sure based on the sorts of failures they were seeing what caused the issues. Based on the evidence the most likely explanation seemed that they were previously unencrypted, and the insertion process into the new system had stricter rules, which many people's passwords were violating. But we have to believe them when they say that wasn't the case and that they've always been encrypted. But if a developer of a site for my company came to me and said they couldn't provide an explanation for password migration failures other than anecdotally from the end users, I'd be very concerned as to their competence. On the basis of them now knowing why they're system had problems, I do not see myself dealing with 7dayshop in the future.

Three - doubling the cost of my (3Pay) tariff so I've moved network

[Short link to this article if you need it: http://goo.gl/bSY0x - or retweet me]

For the past two years I've been on UK mobile network Three's "3Pay" tariff. And I won't be paying any more money to them. This tariff was the whole reason that I bought a SIM free handset at full price instead of going for a contract. Overall, it worked out more cost effective for me with the usage I have. The details of the 3Pay tariff are here, and the change was made so that the 'bonuses' (i.e. inclusive stuff) now expire after 45 days instead of 90. Unfortunately I can't provide a link to the change announcement because inexplicably this link only works of you're connecting via 3's network. So here's a cut & paste of the text from it:

You’re currently on 3Pay, one of our older Pay As You Go Tariffs, which we are updating. 

On the 3Pay tariff, you get a bundle of free texts, internet and Three-to-Three calls which last for 90 days, every time you top-up. From the 13th of March, you’ll still get all your free allowances, but they’ll last for 45 days instead of 90 days. 

Even with the change, our 3Pay tariff is one of the most competitive in the market, and it’s no longer available to new customers. 

We hope you continue to enjoy being on Pay As You Go with Three, and don’t forget, you can double the free texts you get on some top-ups if you top-up using your My3 account. 

For more information on your 3Pay tariff click here. 

Any Top-ups made before midnight on the 12th of March will still get their free allowances for 90 days, any made after, will have their free allowances for 45 days. 

For full terms and conditions, visitthree.co.uk/terms on your PC. 


So there you have it. In effect they've used 4.1b in their T&C:



4.1  We may vary any of the terms of your agreement, including our Packages, on the following basis:
(b) we will let you know at least one month in advance if we decide to: 
(i) discontinue your Package; or
(ii) make any variations to your agreement which are likely to be of material detriment to you; or
(iii) increase the fixed periodic charges for your Package (if applicable) by an amount which is more 
than the percentage increase in the Retail Prices Index Figure (or any future equivalent) in any twelve month period. You can end the agreement for such variations as explained in Section 10

Now bearing in mind that I joined Three on the basis of the cost of their deal over the expected life of the handset, this is somewhat disappointing. I have NEVER known any other network to withdraw a deal in this way (I also have a PAYG Vodafone "Stop The Clock" SIM that hasn't been available for years, but it's never been withdrawn or had it's essence taken away for existing users of it). I have no problem with such clauses in the T&C existing for changing minor things (for example the introduction of a 1p delivery confirmation charge last year) but to double the tariff (my usage was very close to exactly what 3Pay provided) is something I consider unacceptable, and means I find it hard to trust the network for any future purchasing decisions. My handset developed a fault in December 2011 (I got it, and the 3Pay SIM in January 2009) and fortunately it was repaired under warranty, but at the time I was considering replacing it with a £399 SIM free Nokia Lumia 800. If I'd done that, then 3 months later lost the deal I was on, then it would have been a financial loss to have chosen that over a contract. And it amazes me that Three consider it acceptable to treat it's current customers in that way.

In my opinion their balance screen is also highly misleading. If I top up my account before I've used my existing balance, then they are listed as being "queued", whereas the parts of the account actively being used at the moment are listed with the remaining number of minutes/texts/data and an expiry date:

Now to me "queued" gives the impression that the 90 45 days will take effect from when it comes out of queued state, but it appears this is not the case. In reality it's still subject to the original 90 days from when the top up was made, the queuing just refers to the fact that texts come out of your earlier allocation first. My most recent top up (made 90 days priort to the expiry date of 05/05/12 which you can see) was made purely because my credit card had expired and to register a new one I was forced to make a top up. I expected that to queue up an extra 90 days of use after my current allocation expired (the one made 90 days prior to the 28/04/12 date shown), but apparently not. If the expiry date is fixed, then it should list the date next to "in queue" otherwise it is misleading (and I've effectively wasted a £10 topup).

I made these points to their support channels, and received a reply saying that in order to log the complaint they needed the following:

• Your Three mobile number/account number
• The best number for us to contact you on
• The full name on your account
• Your postcode
• Your date of birth

I'm not quite sure why they need all of that - surely my mobile/account number is all they require, and they didn't ever try to contact me by phone. I also raised the question of why the tariff change terms were only accessible via their network and was told

"There was a temporary glitch with the link we sent you by SMS.  If you still have the SMS can you please try and access it now?  This will need to be accessed from your Three phone to be viewed properly."

Thus failing completely to understand and answer the question. I had no problem with the link they sent on their network, i just wanted a reference link I could include in this blog entry...

They also offered this "If you want to move on to one of our new tariffs we can offer other exciting benefits such as all-you-can-eat data and a higher text message allowance." - do they really expect that I'd choose to pay several times more than I have been (£15/month is the price for all-you-can-eat) for things I won't use?

My last email on the subject was not replied to, I won't reproduce it here because he content of this blog covers what was in it, and pointed out that I was looking for a more usable 3Pay change document link to include in this blog.

Goodbye Three, it was fun. Your data coverage and speed was good (except where I work, but that's another reason I'm happy to move) but I simply can't trust you again.

Barclaycard: 3 issues, 2 months to get (some) answers. Lies about FSA guidelines. Goodbye

[Short URL to this article if you need it: http://goo.gl/UnyZi or retweet me]

I raised three issues with Barclaycard in the last few months of 2011:

1. My contactless (PayPass) card stopped working for payments where it had been ok before
2. I wanted to understand a £1 transaction that was on my account (October 13)
3. A circular URL on the web site (an error message telling me I was using the wrong login URL directed me to a log in page that showed the same message again) (December 6)

The first (most problematic) of these is still unresolved, the second was something that should have been fairly easily answered (both were things I initially raised on the phone to their foreign call center and failed to get an acceptable response with). The third issue received no response

To clarify point 1, my contactless card had been working fine, then stopped. I suspected some sort of security check, and since I only use that card for contactless payments, I didn't have a PIN to try using the card in a non-contactless way. When I called them an hour later, they just told me to try again as they did not even have a record of a transaction failure  on my account in their system.

For the second point, the answer was (as I had started to suspect, but expected customer service to know for sure) that the £1 showing on my account online as a pending transaction was from an automated petrol pump doing a test transaction before refueling to verify the card. This is normal, and the transaction gets subsequently cancelled. Again customer service failed to provide an explanation, and merely suggested I check again later once the transaction was finalised. I always thought it was a good thing to alert the company to something that might count as potential fraud ... but apparently that's futile.

Because of the failings I'd had obtaining useful answers from their customer service advisors, I chose to contact them via their "secure message" system on the web site, which may well be secure when you send the message, but any online reply you get comes via email, and doesn't include your original text. So you have to remember what you said to them, and remember that everything else isn't as secure as was initially suggested. Now Barclaycard have what I consider to be the extremely annoying habit of trying to call you back even when you contact them online - and worse it's from a number that doesn't have caller ID so you have no idea who is calling you asking you to confirm your security information. It's hard to say if that's due to the aforementioned low security of their secure message system, or some other reason.

Either way I had hoped to get it resolved online, giving them time to fully consider a response, given the problems I'd had with their call centers. They initiallly tried to call me via phone (I have no reception on my personal mobile phone at work) and so left me several voicemail messages, all from an Indian-sounding call centre. I replied to them via email indicating that I wanted a resolution that didn't involve their call centers, both because of the apparent lack of expertise, the accents often being problematic especially via a mobile phone network, and the amount of time I seem to spend on hold with them. I'm looking for efficiency in resolution.

On emailing them regarding the £1 transaction I receieved a couple of responses from their email team such as confirming that it was from an automated pump and that:

• "I understand your concern regarding this extra amount will be added to the real price of the fuel once the correct transaction amount reflects. I can confirm that this is the only one transaction appearing in Outstanding Authorisation related to the merchant and appears to be real amount"
• "an account can only legally be debited once the credit card company is in receipt of the sales voucher receipt. We are expecting to receive the sale voucher by 14/10/2011, may I request you to check your statement after Monday"

Now ignoring the fact that the first bullet point is grammatically poor and therefore not as clear as it should be, the assertion that it is the "real amount" appears to only confuse the matter. It is not "real" in any useful sense regarding how much I will be charged, which backs up my comment about there being problems with non-native English speaking customer service staff, whose job is communicating with their customers.
I would also have expected the full transaction to be in the system by that point - why does the initial authorisation show up as pending immediately, but the full amount took days? I'm sure this isn't specific to Barclaycard but it is worth mentioning. It would have been good if the credit card company could explain whether the same transaction could be modified while pending if that's what's really happening here. After all, I couldn't have filled up with just £1 of fuel since most pumps have a 5 litre limit or so common sense dictated that the "real amount" is unlikely to be true ... Despite the fact that I had enough of an idea about where the £1 transaction had originated from at this point that I was no longer concerned about it, but the issue fell into the complaints process. I do wonder how true this is - they'll get a link to this blog:


On these issues raised via email I subsequently received the following letters through the post from Barclaycard:

• 9 November I received a letter apologising for the delay after their October 17 complaint acknowledgement letter and that "we will contact you again by 07 December 2011".
• A second letter also arrived daed 9 November 2011 saying that I had been put into their complaints process, one saying they would "aim to resolve matters by the 02 December 2011" (I presume this was for a different issue from the first one, but neither letter mentioned which issue it was in relation to)
• 2 December 2011: Referencing the letter on the 09 November, they said they would contact me again by 04 January 2012
• 7 December 2011: I received a letter headed as a "Final Reponse" addressing the issues (For the record, my complaint reference numbers are 1000DC4Y AND 1000HX2T if anyone important is reading this) and telling me it had been closed.

It's somewhat amusing that they they seem to perpetually say "We'll be in touch in a months time" rather than getting down and dealing with the issues, especially when it includes a customer unable to use their card.
Part of the response included this sentence:

• "unfortunately if we are unable to respond to your within 48 hours or you do not respond to one of our emails within the same time frames, we have to raise the complaint to a higher level under the guidelines set out by the FSA"

This, to me is shocking. Apparently their complaints process allows them to take months to reply ... once they've broken the apparent FSA 48 hour limit. But wait a minute, their automated email response included this:

• "Barclaycard staff are always available and ready to respond during regular business hours, excluding holidays, and will normally answer you within 3 working days."

So their own automated responses give expectations that break those claimed FSA guidelines that they are telling me they are adhering to in order to justify not responding for months.
So there we go, confirmation that the information supplied by Barclaycard was false. I will continue with analysing the original response I received from Barclaycard

• "Although we aim to resolve all queries within 24 hours, we are experiencing a high volume of messages at the moment so please allow 3 working days for a response. There is no need to resend your message as we will deal with all messages in the order in which they are received."

So their targets are three working days, but you get sent into a complaints process at the request of the FSA if they don't reply in 48 hours. Something's not right there.

I emailed the FSA on 3rd February about the 48 hour limit and got this automated reply: "please be aware that we work to a service level of 12 working days, and it is likely that it will take this long to respond to you." Oh the irony, although I still waited for them since if they do have a 48 hour limit it probably won't apply to themselves as they aren't a bank... As it happens they missed the 12 day limit anyway so I sent a follow up on 26th February. I got a reply on Wednesday 29th February apologising for missing their targets "due to a high level of correspondence" and including a lengthy reply (mostly talking about the process which my bank had already given me) including these two pieces of information:

• "If the firm cannot send you a final response within eight weeks, then they must inform you that you can ask the Ombudsman to consider your case."
• "With regard to the 48 hour limit on responses that your bank has set, I can advise that this is not a rule set by the FSA and therefore could be an internal rule for your bank. The FSA do have rules that state that a firm should respond to consumer complaints within a reasonable time but we do not set what that time should be. Its is for the banks themselves to set."

Which says, fairly clearly, that the information that Barclaycard have supplied to me was incorrect.
Going back to Barclaycard's letter it also states that "All of our front line Customer Staff are trained to the same high standards". I appear to have a different expectations of "high standards", given that they were unable to resolve my problems when I called. In terms of the other problems their letter responded on my specific points as follows:

I was told they have been unable to determine the paypass problem, and that they have no notes from their technical team, or fraud department to show a security check being requested from me. At the very least I'd have hoped they'd logged my call about it. Apparently not.

The £1 charge was explained in the letter as a 'test' transaction which was normal for automated petrol pumps and that it would "drop off" the account, which sounds to me like it gets removed, and the real transaction added, as opposed to being "added to the real price of the fuel" as suggested via email. Frankly, since these messages have had an air of inconsistency about them, and so it's hard for me to trust the company with any of my finances.

The letter also stated that

• "For the purposes of the Financial Ombudsman Service please consider this to be our final response. If you are unhappy with the outcome, you may ask the financial Ombudsman Service to review your complaint and you have six months from the date of this letter to do so".

Which I will happily do ... It's also worth pointing out that this was the FIRST response they'd provided to my electronic contact on the paypass issue which is the most problematic one as it stops me using my card. In fact since this "Final Response" doesn't fix my ability to use my Barclaycard for contactless payments I've moved my contactless banking to a Virgin Money charity card (1% including Gift Aid of all my transactions is given to a charity of my choice) which I can heartily recommend, and my second Barclaycard (which was used exclusively for online transactions - I feel safer having a separate card for those) has had most of it's use transferred to a card issued by Creation.

I've happily used Barclaycard for many years (in fact since I was at university), but their customer service incompetence recently has lost me as a previously loyal customer. Such a shame, and all down to issues that a genuinely "trained to high standards customer service team should have been easily able to avoid. Clearly they have staff who know some answers, but they're not the ones you get through to when you call them. And multi-month escalation delays to get answers to such questions is unacceptable.

In summary, here are the problems I encountered:

1. Nobody has been able to explain why my contactless card no longer works or apparently made any effort to resolve it
2. The "high standard" customer service staff who I initially called on the phone didn't to have a clue how petrol pump authorisation works (although after all this, I feel like an expert)
3. When you contact them online you often receive a callback from an unidentifiable source asking for your security information
4. The "secure message" system results in online replies and subsequent follow ups are all via not so secure email and their replies don't include the original request. Plus replies all come through with changed subject lines which makes threading conversations very hard. They need a proper, secure, ticketing system.
5. The 48 hour limit that Barclaycard claim is required by the FSA is false.
6. Barclaycard on the 2nd December said they'd contact me again by 4th January 2012. I assume at this point they panicked and realised they'd break the 8 week FSA deadline if it took that long, which is why I got a reply just one week days later well before the 4th January date they said to me.

(As an aside I might as well mention another problem I've had - if you catch their online system at the wrong time you can get anomalies suggesting that you're statement balance gets duplicated in the "new transactions" section making it look like you've spent more than you have - see this screen capture You'd think banks would have mastered transaction atomicity by now)

The letter came with the feedback leaflet which I've shown a photo of in the middle of this article. I shall fill it in and send the address of this blog entry to them. If anyone from Barclaycard wishes to convince me to stay (frankly, it's almost certain to be too late, but maybe if they let me try their PayTag system - after all they should have a record of me asking about their plans in this area) or someone high up wants me to test their customer services some more, then feel free to get in touch. With a dislike of banks at an all time low, they need to do better to retain our custom, and not let long time customers down like this.

O2 - Trying but not serious on customer service?

[Short link to this blog entry if you need it: http://goo.gl/oMbyw or retweet me]

In the middle of last year I had an issue withe reception in a particular area going from full signal to zero where I work. The SIM was on GiffGaff, which uses the O2 network. I initially tried contacting GiffGaff on twitter and received an answer suggesting I use their "community" model to get an answer. This is the thread which is best described as "no useful response". I had also raised two tickets with GiffGaff - 110725-000194 and 110902-000256 - both of which got marked as SOLVED without any full response - the most recent message was "someone will get back to you on Monday once the tech team are working again"

I wrote a letter to O2 about the local mast - which had in fact been removed from service. I'd previously spoken on the phone to O2 support and it was clear that the assistant had less information available than I did as a customer, and so I was simply told that there was no problem in the area, despite the fact I'd dropped to zero signal, and everyone else at the location had the same problem - many of which I know had reported it to customer services too. O2 don't seem particularly willing to accept problem reports - in fact I get the impression that their first line service team are there to prevent problem reports being raised ...

To progress this I sent them a letter via the post (included in full later in this blog) to which I got no response. After mentioning this on twitter, the @O2 account asked me to email them with the details. I sent them a soft copy of the same letter, which again got ignored, despite me chasing it up a few weeks later and being told they'd chase up the complaints department for me. I tried again another month later and was told to send them all the current details since the letter was written. At which point, since I had to collate it all, I'm blogging it here and sending them a link instead. Here's the original letter in full, other than personal details having been removed.


sxa555: @O2 Hi, Ref your DM on Nov21, I emailed complaint letter to you after not getting a response via post - did you forward it appropriately?
O2: @sxa555 Hi Stewart, yep we did. We've also chased it up today again for you. Keep checking the site for updates


Now I'm not entirely sure what updates I was supposed to be checking for, but unsurprisingly given my previous communications with them, I received nothing further from O2...

A month later, after someone else in the area made a comment about reception, to which @O2 responded (it's interesting that they try to be 'social' and respond to people talking about O2, but go quiet when you try to get a real problem fixed) I joined in the conversation since it was someone in the same area affected by the mast remobal. They asked me if I'd raised it with their customer service, to which I replied:

sxa555: @O2 Your CS gave incorrect information. My letter was ignored. i emailed letter to you. You then said you'd chase it up. Still nothing
O2: @sxa555 What information did they give? They should at least be able to log the area as having poor coverage.
sxa555: @O2 read the letter I emailed to you weeks ago. i was told no change in coverage despite going fromall full bars to zero due to mast removal
O2: @sxa555 ok sorry about this Stewart. This letter was posted via an address CS gave you? Have you chased it up with them since?
sxa555: @O2 Yes, address given by CS. I confirmed address with u then also emailed it to webteam address you DMd me on Nov21. Chased with you in Dec
O2: @sxa555 Hi Stewart. I apologise for this. Can you send you DM us again so we can get you to email us with the latest details? Thanks

I really hope someone high up in O2 reads this and realises how useless their customer service has been in this case. And telling me in more than one tweet that "customer service should be able to log a problem in that area" seems reasonable, but I've logged a problem via GiffGaff, I know others that had reported a problem, yet their support staff told me on the phone there was no issue, so the problems are NOT being logged correctly. Repeatedly apologising and using the word sorry doesn't help in itself - it becomes just a word, and is meaningless in the absence of the actions necessary to move towards a resolution of the dissatisfaction that their customer has experienced. O2 have already lost me as a customer - my main phone is now on Three although I still have the GiffGaff account. The experience so far means I would almost certainly reject them in the future on the basis of their inability to respond honestly to customer service queries. Also as I'm sure you can imagine it has taken me some time to collate all the communication for this report, and for that reason I'm choosing to post it here so that if they manage to lose my details again, I can just resend them the link, while letting everyone know that they have failed to give a useful response after several months.

So this is a second failed customer service attempts with O2, and both have been complete disasters (see the end of this article, below the letter, for my attempt to get handset firmware from them after finding an apparently incorrect link). It's 2012, you can't do this and get away with it. The reception issue has lost O2 a lot of customers - mainly to Vodafone. The lack of reception is one thing, but the way they are treating their customers is unacceptable.

To give the full story, after initially contacting them on twitter regarding not getting a response from my reception letter, they first gave me an email address of customer services. When I went back a few days later to email them that tweet seemed to have disappeared. I queried this and they told me to email the web team who would forward it on for me. Here is the letter I had sent via post, and subsequently sent to their web team as requested, and I've referenced them while tweeting this blog entry:

---

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to you to complain about the level of support I received after a problem with your service recently. I am a customer of GiffGaff (which is of course, part of O2’s parent company) and in July I initially used O2’s online support talking to someone calling themselves “Jenny” who told me “the network seems to be working fine in your area” and asked if I’d spoken to the Network Support Team, so I then called to report an issue with reception. The person on the end of the line appeared to refuse to acknowledge that there was a problem, saying the service was showing fine and that no-one else had reported any problems with the cell tower in the location. There were two problems with this response:

Firstly there was an issue because the reception went from maximum 2G signal down to zero. There was a clear change in service, that was not being acknowledged
Secondly, the statement that no-one else had reported a problem in that location was incorrect. It is a site with several thousand people, many of whom selected O2 as their service provider and were tied into contracts because of the excellent reception, and they had been disappointed. Several of them I’d spoken to HAD already reported the issue.
Thirdly, your own status checker showed this:






which confirmed what the problem is (so why coverage is listed as ‘good’ is a mystery), so that contained information that your support line didn’t not appear to be aware of. I was reporting the fact that the ‘normal coverage’ simply wasn’t present, where it had been 100% - full bars - previously. The above screen shot was how it displayed for a few weeks then disappeared.

Your assistant (who I was talking to on a chargeable 0844 number) after refusing to acknowledge a problem, said he’d let me speak to the supervisor and put me on hold for a while before coming back to tell me he’d raised an issue with the network team and that they’d get back to me via GiffGaff. I didn’t get to speak to a supervisor, and the call back did not happen. I received no response, plus trying to respond to me on a number that didn’t give reception while I was at work wasn’t very smart anyway (although no texts/voicemails/emails were received so clearly no action was taken. Given that your assistant had told me that there was no existing reports of problems I can only assume that was a lie, as had been the assurances given to some of my colleagues on the phone that “engineers were working on the issue” when they called.

I think it’s shocking that you would treat customers like this. There have been a large number of people inconvenienced at my place of work, and you have lost custom and respect due to this issue with several people subsequently being able to secure release from their contracts as a result of this sudden change in reception, which I know was known about in advance.

I also raised the issue through GiffGaff a few days after calling you (reference number 110725-000194) and was told again that O2 had no reported faults (as previously mentioned I knew this was untrue) and that the mast “has been locked and is down at the moment“ After telling them I knew that to be untrue I got a message a few days later saying “The cell closest to **** *** has been decommissioned a new cell has been built 3/4 of a mile away to cover the decommissioned cell.”.

Now what I would like to know is why that wasn’t acknowledged in the first place (The mast was decomissioned in the first week of July) and what O2 had hoped to achieve by lieing about the existance of any change of service in that area - contrary to your own web site - and the fact that you had explicitly deactivated the mast and therefore no repair was going to take effect. You have alienated your customers over this, and I can’t imagine how it would make any business sense to do that. I was very close to reporting your deception directly to OFCOM but I felt it was appropriate to make my feelings clear in this letter. For reference if you need to check your records, my GiffGaff number is 07*********.

---

On another topic, I had also asked them about a firmware link for one of their phones - the XDA Ignito - which had the wrong link on the O2 site (It points to the Serra).

sxa555: @O2 The link to the XDA Ignito firmware points to the Serra one instead. trunc.it/iruma Can you give correct link and fix web page

At which point they said they'd look into it, and to their credit, they did reply a few days later with:

O2: @sxa555 Hi Stewart, can you check the link and let us know if you can access it now? Thanks.

At the time of writing the Ignito link to "Download Software" on the page still points to the Serra firmware. Now it's not impossible that the same firmware is valid for both handsets (they are similar other than the keyboard - rebadged HTC Touch Diamond/Touch Pro) but I'd expect to be told if that was the case, not just ask me to try again when nothing's been done.

Sony Music - how to drive people away from buying

[Short link to this article if you need it - http://goo.gl/qOouV or retweet me]

[Note: there has been a successful outcome to this story - if you've heard the background before then check the first comment for how the issue was resolved. Ultimately the failure of communication was down to a new depot in the UK being used for shipping, and the customer service staff had apparently not been aware that this was what was used for my order. I am delighted by the response that Sont were ultimately able to give to me]

I pre-ordered an album from a Sony Music artist from the artist's official web site. What I didn't realise was that I couldn't expect it to arrive within 1½ weeks of the release date. The terms say that:

"Whenever feasible we aim to deliver your items on the day they are available in

stores, provided you ordered early enough to allow for processing and delivery."

Clearly this "whenever feasible" clause was added in order to allow them to just ignore that part of the web site. The CD was ordered a week before the release date, and early in the morning on that date I received notification that it had just been dispatched. On Wednesday it still hadn't been delivered, so I contacted them to query what might have happened. Now for many reasons I'll publish elsewhere at some point I've never been a great Sony fan, but how this conversation went defies belief in terms of trying to get customers to use legal services. Here's the transcript - enjoy :-)

[It's worth pointing out here that the site is hosted on MyPlayDirect.com. And as stated on that site "SonyMusicDigital.com is operated by MyPlay Direct, Inc., a division of Sony Music Entertainment"]

---

SXA> Hi,
SXA> I pre-ordered Sticks & Stones on the (reasonable) assertion that I'd get it somewhere vaguely

SXA> near the release date. I got a dispatch email on Monday morning, yet
SXA> there's still no sign of the delivery.
SXA>
SXA> Can you let me know which shipping method you use, since frankly anything that takes more than 3
SXA> days is somewhat laughable and if the official store is the worst place to order a CD from then
SXA> something is very wrong, and you're pretty much encouraging, and driving people towards piracy, or
SXA> other methods of obtaining music and penalising genuine customers who want to do the right thing
SXA> and contribute to the artist and Sony's profits.
SXA>
SXA> I am somewhat disappointed by the service I have received.

SONY> Hi Stewart Addison,
SONY>
SONY> I'm happy to inform you that you order has been already shipped on Nov 07, 2011.
SONY> It may take 8-18 business to deliver the shipment to you.
SONY>
SONY> Sincerely,
SONY>
SONY> Sony Music Digital
SONY> C6LR
SONY> Harry

As expected that ignored the point about encouraging piracy, but disappointingly also didn't answer the question about what the shipping method was. So I thought I'd continue:

SXA> Dear Harry,

SXA>
SXA> Any other supplier I would have used would have had it in my hands
SXA> before Thursday on the week of release. I am absolutely horrified that
SXA> you consider 8-18 days even vaguely acceptable for a major company,
SXA> and on that basis I will be more sensitive to which labels I buy from
SXA> and be far less likely to purchase music on any Sony label in the
SXA> future.
SXA>
SXA> There is NO WAY I would have ordered from your site if I knew it was
SXA> likely to take more than 2-3 days from the release date at the very
SXA> latest.
SXA>
SXA> Given all the problems major labels are claiming with piracy this
SXA> seems like an excellent way to shoot yourselves in the foot.
SXA> Congratulations.

At this point I checked the terms on the website and added the comment about the vague expectation of pre-orders being shipped before the release date:

SXA> Dear Harry,
SXA>
SXA> In addition to the previous email I think it's worth pointing out that
SXA> the order was placed on the 30th October and your terms say the
SXA> following:
SXA>
SXA> "Whenever feasible we aim to deliver your items on the day they are
SXA> available in stores, provided you ordered early enough to allow for
SXA> processing and delivery. Please refer to the delivery date estimates
SXA> during the checkout process."
SXA>
SXA> Clearly this is just incorrect, as there is no practical way an item
SXA> shipped on Monday could have arrived on Monday. I would love to hear
SXA> your explanation for these issues, since with a potential 8-18 day
SXA> lead time I'd expect it to have shipped immediately on order in my
SXA> case..

SONY> Hi Stewart,
SONY>
SONY> I'm sorry for any inconvenience with the order. However, when you placed the order,
SONY> it was mentioned on our website, on the checkout page and on your order status page
SONY> that the order will be shipped "on or before" the release date and not "delivered on"
SONY> the release date of November 7. Your order was shipped on November 7, which means
SONY> that the order was shipped on the release date. If you do not receive the product
SONY> within the said period, please get back to us so that we can send  you a replacement
SONY> or provide you a refund.
SONY>
SONY> Sincerely,
SONY>
SONY> Sony Music Digital
SONY> C1E4
SONY> Cody

So thereby proving the "wherever feasible" was effectively meaningless and they didn't offer an explanation as to why it wasn't feasible in this case. At this point I wanted to ask what "8-18 business days" actually meant - surely it doesn't mean that it's acceptable for my pre-ordered CD to arrive 3½ weeks after release when ordered from the artist's own web site?

SXA> Given that it still hasn't arrived 5 days after release and it will
SXA> now be at least Monday (a week after release) before I get it, can you
SXA> explain what this phrase in your initial reply to me:
SXA>
SXA>    "may take 8-18 business"
SXA>
SXA> (I assume "days" was missing) actually means since that wording is
SXA> incredibly vague. Does it mean it's sent out via a courier that takes
SXA> 8-18 days (if so please tell me who are they because they shouldn't be
SXA> in business) because the only other meaning is "up to 8-18 days" which
SXA> is meaningless gibberish. Surely "may take up to 18 business days"
SXA> (which I guess is 3.5 weeks?) would be the correct wording
SXA>
SXA> If that really is the case I would be interested to hear from Sony's
SXA> head office as to whether they consider a pre-order to be delivered
SXA> 3.5 weeks to be an acceptable way to treat legitimate customers.
SXA>
SXA> P.S. Of course if the item does not end up being delivered and I have
SXA> to cancel then I will have lost the alternative opportunity to
SXA> download the album at Amazon's one-week only price.

SONY> Hi Stewart,
SONY>
SONY> I'm sorry for the delay in the delivery of the order. Your order was shipped on
SONY> November 7 via UPS Mail Innovations. Unfortunately tracking is not available
SONY> for this shipping method, but the estimated transit time is 8-18 business days
SONY> from the ship date. So you should receive your order between November 17 and
SONY> December 1.
SONY>
SONY> If you your order doesn't arrive by December 1 you may want to check with your
SONY> local post office, your parcel may be held there if customs fees or taxes are due.
SONY>
SONY> Please note that your local post office will deliver your parcel, not UPS.
SONY> That's because with UPS Mail Innovations, UPS  processes and delivers your
SONY> parcel to your country's postal service who will deliver the parcel to you.
SONY> However, if your item hasn't arrived within December 1, please contact your
SONY> local post office to check if they have received the order or not.

This actually astounded me. So a UK artist's CD is being shipped from somewhere abroad using an incredibly slow service that takes at least 1½ weeks to deliver. Honestly, what is the point in pre-ordering, and why would anyone knowing this information choose to order from them? Other distributers manage to do this properly, I would expect the label to be able to provide the best service to their customers, especially given that they're saving costs by selling direct.

Do Sony's head offices realise this is happening? There seems to have been no answer to my question on why this is a reasonable way to treat your customers, so I think I'll have to give up with this email address and find someone responsible for allowing this. Which is what I've told them:

SXA> I guess I'll just have to accept that 1.5-3.5 weeks is your standard
SXA> delivery time.
SXA>
SXA> I am disappointed that you haven't shown any interest in responding to
SXA> whether it's actually reasonable to do this in an era where major
SXA> labels are constantly mentioning concerns about piracy. I would expect
SXA> you to do everything to can to improves people's desire to do things
SXA> legally instead of leaving me 1-3 weeks behind everyone else in
SXA> listening to the album. You haven't seemed to provide any suggestion
SXA> as to why you choose to use such a slow delivery method when every
SXA> other supplier would have had it with me several days ago, and more
SXA> importantly there's no communication as to why it wasn't "feasible" to
SXA> ship it prior to the release date as your terms suggest you will try
SXA> to do. You have now confirmed that the earliest I can expect to
SXA> receive this CD is 10 elapsed days after the release date.
SXA>
SXA> Since whoever is running this email address clearly is not someone who
SXA> either cares, or is capable of explaining these decisions I shall
SXA> endeavour to send a letter of complaint to someone higher up in Sony
SXA> that might give a damn about the service being provided to legitimate
SXA> paying customers, because the service being provided is inadequate for
SXA> the music industry in 2011.

Apparently nowadays buying music is as complex as mortgages and choosing a utility supplier. You have to pick between a multitude of special editions released to cash in and screw over people who bought first time round, pick a supplier while finding the details of how long it will take to deliver which is deep in the T&Cs somewhere when the utterly pointless and misleading headline of "dispatched in 1-2 days" is what's shown on the order form.

I've said this before in my blog on the DEBill, but you can't run a business where you have a legitimate opportunity to compete against illegal alternatives by providing a quality service for paying customers, and just choose to do ridiculous things like this. If you want people to want to use the legitimate services, then honestly - make it the best option. I don't know what the point is of the "wherever possible we aim to ship to arrive the day of release" clause since there's no indication that was attempted, despite being ordered well before the release date. I would love to talk to someone at Sony face to face about this issue since there must be someone at the company that would like to take action to correct the damage to their reputation that they've got in my eyes, and hopefully by publishing these transcripts everyone else will choose to avoid dealing with Sony Music in the future. I did get a further reply

SXA> Hi Stewart,
SXA>
SXA> I am sorry for the inconvenience. Please see the list below for information on
SXA> how we ship:
SXA>
SXA>  - CDs sold for delivery in the U.S. are shipped via the U.S. Postal Service.
SXA>
SXA>  - Artist Box-Sets and other non-CD products (Blu-rays, DVDs, Prints, Clothing,
SXA> etc.) are shipped either by UPS Ground or UPS Mail Innovations.
SXA>
SXA> Some artist sites offer an International shipment option. Orders shipped outside
SXA> of the U.S. are shipped either via UPS Worldwide Express Saver or UPS Mail
SXA> Innovations depending on the total weight of your purchase and delivery location.
SXA>
SXA> Please see the "SHIPPING METHODS, AND TRANSIT TIMES" from the help page below:
SXA>
SXA>   http://www.myplaydirect.com/cher-lloyd/help
SXA>
SXA> Sincerely,
SXA>
SXA> Sony Music Digital
SXA> C36G
SXA> Dennis

So I guess they're all shipped from the US, despite it being a UK release from a UK artist. Something that should be made vastly more clear on the site than a 'dispatched in 1-2 days' on the checkout page would lead people to believe. I strongly believe that a normal user purchasing that product would not even consider that it was being shipped from somewhere with such a long lead time.

As mentioned near the start, since SonyMusicDigital is a division of Sony Music entertainment, it's always possible they don't know they are treating their customers so badly... I emailed them, but it apparently went back to the subsidiary who again apologised, pointed me at the T&C for delivery times" and said:

SONY> Further, as per the recent update we've received, we are making all the
SONY> necessary arrangements to reduce the shipping duration. In future, you can
SONY> expect the items to be delivered more quickly. Also, it is appreciated you've taken
SONY> the time to share your comments with us. It is important to receive feedback so 
SONY> that we can introduce more customer features as we roll out further.

SONY> Once again, we apologize for the delay and inconvenience.

While this is clearly a step in the right direction (if currently a vague wooly promise worth about as much as "we will try to ship before the release date" they still chose not to respond on the issue of customer satisfaction and the piracy concerns. It is therefore hard to take the labels seriously any more on those issues, and I would therefore recommend that everyone gets a Spotify/We7 subscription, because if this is the attitude of the labels towards real paying customers when there are complaints about payment amounts, they don't deserve to get the higher royalties from them.

>[Update 01-Dec-2011: This is the 18th working day since dispatch, and it still hasn't arrived...]

Customer Service fail: Scottish Power Case Study

This article was originally posted Wednesday, 26 October 2011 then migrated to this blog.

[ Short link to this article if you need it: http://goo.gl/Vk0ZP or retweet me]

I've been looking at alternative energy suppliers recently (as everyone should) and so I was looking for the details of supplier's different tariffs. Bearing in mind the number of comparison sites out there who have access to this information, such as uSwitch, MoneySupermarket, FuelSwitch or any number of others that are on the UK Government's web site you'd think it would be easy to find that information on a supplier's own page.

Some of them are better than others. e-On's list was pretty good. A PDF file is available from Southern Electric filtered by your postcode. Scottish Power give a PDF list but you have to filter it to your region yourself. Which is harder for getting the information, but interesting to compare if you're in a cheaper or more expensive area.

Staying with Scottish Power, here is a screen shot of their currently available options list. It looks more like a mortgage selection screen with options for fixed, capped, discounted, and with or without a standing charge (ultimately the standing charge doesn't make a lot of difference unless your use is below the standing amount - if you're not on a standing daily charge your first few units are at a higher cost that covers the standing charge). One issue I had with this, however, was the fact that it mentioned capped rates, but it didn't tell you what they were capped at. I am currently using Scottish Power as an electricity company, and on their web site when I log in I have the option to change to capped/discounted etc., but again the capped numbers weren't listed. Annoyingly, their website lists options to "manage my payments", but only lets you select the date and update the bank details, not the amounts. It does, however, let you view their "forecast" of your payments to explain the amounts. I wouldn't necessarily expect to be able to immediately change it, but it would be good if it was possible to request a review with a desired amount more easily than sending a full support message. So because of all these things, I had an email exchange:

SXA> Hi - how on earth do I find information to make a choice between tariffs? If I go
SXA> online select the option on the right to change, I get generic descriptions  like
SXA> "Online Energy - Capped Rate (No Standing Charge)" and a paragraph of waffle about
SXA> the dates, but NOTHING about what the caps are. I need all that information on one
SXA> page when I log in. How do I get that page. If you are unable to provide such a
SXA> page, I'll look at moving away from you as a supplier because at the moment it looks
SXA> like you're making it very hard work to make a decision.

Three days later here was the reply:

SPWR> Thank you for your email.
SPWR> 
SPWR> You will be able to see the various packages on offer on the link provided below:
SPWR> http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/your-home/existing-customer/energy-products.aspx
SPWR> 
SPWR> The Capped packages are:
SPWR> 
SPWR> 1. Capped Price Energy October 2014
SPWR> 2. Unifi Capped Energy January 2014
SPWR> 
SPWR> The Fixed packages are:
SPWR> 
SPWR> 1. Platinum Fixed Energy October 2013 (v5)
SPWR> 2. Fixed Price Energy January 2015
SPWR> 3. Fixed Saver April 2013
SPWR> 4. Online Fixed Price Energy January 2013
SPWR> 
SPWR> Other packages are:
SPWR> 
SPWR> 1. Discounted Energy October 2013
SPWR> 2. Online Energy Saver 16
SPWR> 
SPWR> Please confirm the service package of your choice and contact us with your current
SPWR> meter readings and we will be happy to assist you.
SPWR> 
SPWR> I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.
SPWR> 
SPWR> We look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Now there are a couple of things wrong with that reply. Firstly, they've once again told me about capped rates (which obviously I knew about, hence the original question) but appear to have failed to read or understand the question as there is still no information about the rates involved. The link they provide gives no further information, so that was a waste of time them including it and me reading it. Further discussion required:

It's also worth pointing out here that each message I send results in an automatic confirmation from them that it has been received and logged and they will "We will endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible." Oddly however, ONE MINUTE BEFORE the above resopnse reply I got this:

SPWR> Thank you for sending your email to the ScottishPower Online Energy customer service
SPWR> centre. A copy of what you have sent to us is included at the bottom of this email.
SPWR> 
SPWR> We aim to respond to all enquiries within the next 2 working days.
SPWR> 
SPWR> Please be aware that this message is generated from an unmanned mailbox. We cannot
SPWR> respond to any mail to this address.
SPWR> 
SPWR> Thanks and regards,
SPWR>
SPWR> Online Energy Customer Service Team, ScottishPower

Strange, don't know why that was needed after the original auto-acknowledgement, or why it was sent just before the response. I didn't get one of those for any subsequent communication. Oh well ... onwards:

SXA> Hi,
SXA> 
SXA> You have spectacularly failed to answer the question I asked completely.
SXA> Neither the information in your email, nor the link you provided (from
SXA> what I can see) gives me what I asked for. Telling me "there is a fixed
SXA> rate option" and "There is a capped rate option" is COMPLETELY useless
SXA> unless you tell me what the rates are fixed/capped at, along with the
SXA> standard rate. I want those details, preferable on a single page. Surely
SXA> that isn't asking too much? Are you intentionally hiding this informatio,
SXA> or have I mmissed something here?
SXA> 
SXA> Also, I don't see any information on what the standing charge options are,
SXA> and how the tariffs for those may be different, and they appear to have
SXA> been missed from your reply.

This was send shortly after the previous reply, and didn't receive a response, so I tried again four days later, forwarding that last message and adding:

SXA> Hi,
SXA> 
SXA> I've just logged into my account an the status of this issue appears to
SXA> have been listed as 'closed' on the 18th when I sent you this reply.
SXA> Please reopen it and reply to me.
SXA> 
SXA> As another query, how do I get my direct debit reduced? in my direct debit
SXA> forecast the calculation comes out as being £92 (which is what it's
SXA> currently set at) yet that's based on a £291.09 credit balance, which
SXA> seems like an odd calculation - surely the balance should be targetted as
SXA> close to zero as possible instead of targetting nearly £300 of positive
SXA> balance?

At this point it appeared to have got turned into a complaint as the email subject was changed:

SPWR> Complaint Number: 3493949
SPWR> 
SPWR> Thank you for your email.
SPWR> 
SPWR> I can confirm that your direct debit has been reduced to £63.00 per month, this
SPWR> will start from 10 November 2011.
SPWR> 
SPWR> As advised previously all our new products are on our website, however, there is
SPWR> only two available to you as an Electric only user.
SPWR> 
SPWR> 1st is our Capped Rate product which caps your prices until 31 December 2013.
SPWR> 
SPWR> 2nd is our Discounted Energy October 2013, this is not capped but is guaranteed
SPWR> to stay 6% lower than Scottishpower standard direct debit package.
SPWR> 
SPWR> If you would wish me to change you to any of the above please reply to this email.
SPWR> 
SPWR> Kind regards
SPWR> 

Again, no information on the capped rate, only how long it lasts for, which appears to have gone back from October 2014 in the initial reply, to December 2013. Great. Also they've listed two options as being available, when their capped rate listed on their web page should also be valid. If I was doing this on the phone I wouldn't have been able to verify what I'd been told, so I'll consider this a success for online asynchronous communication. Let's try again ...

SXA> Hi,
SXA> 
SXA> Thanks for changing the direct debit amount. I seem to end up with more
SXA> question each time I contact you though, so here are the three questions
SXA> I'd like you to respond to:
SXA> 
SXA> First, regarding the automatic calculation, can you confirm WHY my direct
SXA> debit was set at £92 based on a target credit of £291.09? I don't
SXA> understand why you would do that, since it obviously allows you, rather
SXA> than me, to accrue interest on the credit amount.
SXA> 
SXA> Second, for the capped option you STILL haven't told me what it's capped
SXA> at? Is it capped at the rate it is today (i.e. it'll go down if your
SXA> standard prices drop) or some other rate. I don't understand why that's
SXA> not listed anywhere.
SXA> 
SXA> Third, your last message said the capped and discounted rates are
SXA> available to me but your web site lists "Fixed Saver Energy" as an option
SXA> for electricity-only customers, so why is that one not available to me?
SXA> 
SXA> I will hold off on a decision on any change for now (in fact since you've
SXA> changed the DD amount the account appears to be locked). The discounted
SXA> rate is tempting, although the confusion over your tariffs and direct
SXA> debit charging, and the fact that I couldn't change the amount on your web
SXA> site (so how you won the "best online service" uSwitch award is a mystery)
SXA> is making me less inclined to stay with you at the moment.

SPWR> Complaint Number: 3493949
SPWR> 
SPWR> Thank you for your email.
SPWR> 
SPWR> Looking back on your account your direct debit was £70.00 per month until you were
SPWR> billed in December 2010 for £245.11 arrears, your direct debit was then increased to
SPWR> £92.00 per month to clear these arrears. Now you are showing £45.62 credit your
SPWR> direct debit can be reduced to £63.00 per month.
SPWR> 
SPWR> The capped rate until 2013 prices are as follows:
SPWR> Service charge 37.16p per day and 10.89p per unit.
SPWR> 
SPWR> Fixed Saver - which does Electric solus I apologise - prices are capped until 31
SPWR> December 2014, prices as follows:
SPWR> Service Charge 32.15 per day and 10.89p per unit.
SPWR> 
SPWR> Your prices as present are: 29.02p daily service charge and 10.89p per unit.
SPWR> 
SPWR> I trust that the above meets with your satisfaction, if I can offer any further
SPWR> assistance in the future please do not hesitate to contact myself or one of my
SPWR> colleagues at the above email address.

Finally an (almost) straight answer (Still didn't explain why the 'target' balance was so high, only why the direct debit was higher than it needed to be - which was perfectly reasonable. And after the change their direct debit forecast "calculation" has been modified so that it results in a final direct debit figure of £63 - what I requested). Very disappointed that it took so long to get to this stage though, and that the rates aren't listed on their web site to allow me to make a valid comparison (despite presumably being made available to the comparison sites somehow). Now I have to consider whether to use them (their tariffs are pretty good once you figure our what they are, although for me, nPower have a better option, and seem to be active on twitter unlike Scottish Power's account), or switch to a company that's open and honest about their options, know what their special deal periods are (the website now has the capped rate as expiring January 2014, I guess a "month" has rolled over since that exchange) and might have better people on their helpdesk.

I suppose it comes down to one thing: How much is customer service worth? If it was 5%/year extra for a supplier you know had good customer service would you take it? In principle, I possibly would ... the problem is that you can't be sure if the alternatives are really better until you've switched.

(A link to this blog entry has been sent to Scottish Power for their records, and will hopefully allow them to improve their service to others in the future)

Customer Service fail: BT Case Study

[ Short link to this article if you need it: http://goo.gl/fVqTx ]

A couple of months ago I got an "important" letter in from BT. It had got to the end of the 12 month contract I'd signed up to and the letter said "To continue, do nothing". That's not really something that should have red "IMPORTANT" letters on the outside. I suppose it's not quite as bad as the letter I got inviting me to "bring my calls back to BT" at one point (my calls had been billed direct from BT for a few years...)



At this point I logged into my account to see what I was paying for and if it was reasonable. It is absolutely horrendous trying to figure out how BT's charging system works. I have a plan (unlimited evening and weekends) that has a 'sticker' price of £16.90. You get a £3 discount if you sign up for a year as I had. Which means I'm paying £13.90/month right?

Wrong. There is also a paper-free discount of £3.75, but that's listed as applying every quarter. So what I was actually paying per month was (£16.90-£3-(£3.75/3)) = £12.65. Which actually didn't seem to bad, but honestly the fact that this "bottom line" figure isn't actually listed anywhere is absurd. What possible reason do BT have for making this so complex - why is there a need to list intermediate figures and then subtract a quarterly paperless discount instead of having it in a simple monthly calculation with £1.25/month paperless discount. Every few years I see letters from BT saying they're going to make things simpler, but they've clearly failed. Completely.

I looked at other options and decided that I would move over to my ISP for line rental, to get more logical bills paying a straightforward £11.90/month. I called up BT, told them I thought their system was too complex and ... they offered me a further discount. You have to wonder if the assistant had a strong sense of irony or something. Bear in mind that I don't really make landline calls - if it wasn't for my broadband FTTC connection I probably wouldn't have the line, so any discount is effectively directly discounting my internet connections. They offered a surprising further £3/month if I signed for a further 12 months. So I'd be paying (£16.90-£3-£3-(£3.75/3))=£9.65. Which is very cheap for line rental. At that point I let my principles down and agreed.

Now a couple of months later I thought it would be prudent to drop my direct debit to BT, which was set to £13.50/month (there is a currently a £17 credit on my account so ideally I needed the DD less than my monthly amount). I logged onto the web site and tried to set it to £10 (should really be less) but the site refused saying it couldn't be set that low. I mentioned this to @BTCare on twitter who suggested I fill in their web form, which I duly did (as an aside, it's interesting to note that BT don't use a client that gives the "in reply to" link on their tweets to dereference what they were responding to - I assume it's to make it harder to view the complaints)

The exchange went like this:

SXA> As mentioned on twitter I tried to drop my Direct Debit to
SXA> £10/month (I have a discounted deal which means that's not unreasonable). My account
SXA> has £17 of credit on it, and I suspect it'll take a few months before that's used
SXA> up, so can you please drop my DD from £13.50 to £10 for the foreseeable future.
SXA> Thanks.

BT> I called you today, sorry I missed you. I did leave a voicemail message.

BT> You can make changes to payments and your direct debit on your online billing
BT> account www.bt.com/mybt. I would suggest refunding you back the credit on your
BT> account and reducing your monthly amounts to £12 per month this is the lowest amount
BT> the payments can be reduce to. Let me know if you like me to arrange the refund I
BT> can do this for you. I have reduced the payment amount of £12. This will take effect
BT> from the next payment date on 08/11/2011.

BT> If you need anything else just let me know.

SXA> No, I want the payments reduced to £10. Do not just say "£12 is the lowest
SXA> I can set them to" without a sensible explanation. I mentioned this issue
SXA> on twitter because the web site told me they couldn't set it to that level
SXA> and was told @btcare twitter to raise it here. It doesn't look like I've
SXA> got any further.
SXA> Please find a way to reduce it to £10 or I will escalate until I find
SXA> someone who can, otherwise I consider you in violation of the contract I
SXA> signed up to.

BT> I called you today, sorry I missed you. I did leave a voicemail message.

BT> I am sorry I did not include an explanation of my original e-mail. The reason the
BT> payment amount can not be reduced to £10 a month is due to your line rental is
BT> £13.90 per month. Therefore if you only paid £10 you will incur a debt balance for
BT> your next invoice, which in turn will cause the payments to go up more to clear the
BT> debt balance and also cover the next invoice. If you wish I Can discuss this with
BT> you on the telephone to work out the best payment method to suit you. Let me know
BT> and I will give you a call.

SXA> You are incorrect, my line rental had an additional £3 discount applied
SXA> when I renewed a few weeks ago taking it well below £13.90. I'll ask you
SXA> once again since you appear to be accusing me of doing something that
SXA> isn't sensible. If you can't see this on my account then it's probably
SXA> because your billing system is so hideously complex:
SXA>
SXA> Please reduce the direct debit to £10/month. I do not wish to have to
SXA> request this yet again.
SXA>
SXA> My office number is 01xxx-xxxxxxx, or my mobile is 07xxx-xxxxxx.

So the only logical conclusion I can reasonably draw from this, as stated at the end of that last email, is that my initial assertion was correct and that BT's billing system is so hideously complex that even they can't figure out what I'm actually being charged.

I would also always prefer to have the contact via twitter or email in a written format rather than via phone calls, so I'm never quite sure why companies insist on doing things via phones, especially the ones that use non-UK call centres (which, I should point out, wasn't the case with BT). Maybe they just don't want to looks silly when their correspondence is pasted into a blog entry :-)

For reference, this is what my monthly price breakdown looks like on the web site, and for the record I genuinely haven't got a clue what the £6.19 credit at the top is for. But as you can see there isn't a lot in this calculation that would lead you to believe there is a £13.90 figure as mentioned in the email exchange (This screenshot excludes the paperfree discount, which is listed on another part of the bill, presumably to make it more obtuse, along with even more calculations)



Fortunately after the above email conversation they got in touch (via phone) and agreed to drop the direct debit to £10 as I'd originally requested, and they are also going to refund the current credit balance (which in all honesty I wasn't too bothered about at the moment). At least I'll have a small amount of credit building up each month if I do have to make the odd non-free phone call. It's just a shame they couldn't have done that in the first place. All customers want is a straight answer to "What's in going to cost me?"

[EDIT: For completeness, @btcare tweeted me an apology for it all after I mentioned this blog]

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Recently (November 2011) there has been an update. BT are increasing their line rental prices by 70p/month, and removing the £3.75 quarterly direct debit discount, leading to an effective increase price of £1.95 a month). I asked (via twitter, who asked me to email them) if I could get out of the contract because of this change and was told I could, but could also get Line Rental Saver if I paid £120 for 12 months up front. I checked and was told this would include evening & weekend calls at no extra charge, but I have to make 2 calls (can be free ones) per month). Didn't sound too bad - 35p more instead of £1.95. Then it went wrong again.

I called up to order yesterday and got told I'd have to pay extra for the calls. Not only that but I'd have to cancel my current contract, and re-sign for the saver on the following day - bizarre piece of extra pointless bureaucracy. Also since I'd have to pay extra for the inclusive calls, it means that staying OFF line saver would actually work out cheaper. Not what I was told via email.

So I emailed them back. They called me today, a (presumably) foreign call center put me through to a second assistant, who clearly had no info on the fact THEY'D called me, said his systems were broken, and put me through to a third assistant, who was finally able to confirm that I could get the L/R Saver without paying extra for the calls, and was able to sort it all in one over the phone.

So where was the joined up thinking that prevented me from doing this when I called them yesterday?