Shit CS #2: Sky

Today’s lesson in Shit CS covers Sky, which is trolling whole new depths of Shit CS. I had to send this via the addresses on the investor relations site, until I get an actual person I can hit with it. You can send that info to adam AT beecher DOT net.

Sir,

I’m unable to post meaningful feedback on the Sky website, as your feedback forms only allow 500-512 characters. How stupid is that? If you’re unwilling or unable to deal with an angry customer, please pass my email on to someone who is willing or able.

I just tried to upgrade to Sky+ on your phone line. I’m unable to upgrade on your website, as Sky seems to believe Irish subscribers are second class citizens, despite the fact that we pay more than our British cousins. How stupid is that?

The call was answered by someone in India or wherever it is you’ve outsourced your call center to. No more lovely Scottish accents, now I’m faced with someone whose english is average at best. I had difficulty understanding him, and he me. He asked me many questions, many of them with no bearing on the topic in hand.

After an interminable authentication procedure that in the end didn’t actually authenticate anything, he transferred me to another gentleman, who again didn’t have english as his first language. He asked me more questions, although most of them duplicated the questions I had already answered. I believe he was as frustrated as I was.

He asked me if I knew about Sky+, despite the fact that I was calling to order it. He started explaining it to me, despite the fact that I told him I was familiar with it. He asked if I was interested in Multiroom, despite the fact that I had told the previous gentleman I wasn’t interested. And he quoted me a price in pounds, despite the fact that I had explained to the previous gentleman that I’m in Ireland. Twice.

Then he told me that installation is €75, despite the fact that it says FREE – in caps, hence my emphasis – on your website. Of course I notice afterwards that despite the caps, there’s tiny print below that mentions Multiroom is required. So it’s not actually FREE, now is it? And, as I explained to the gentleman, I already have a quad LNB, and I’m not paying €75 for a guy to plug in my Sky+ box.

And this is your sales line. I can only imagine what your support line is like. Do you route those calls to tribesmen in darkest Africa, where you can pay people with chickens?

Unfortunately I can’t drop Sky completely, as our cable operators are even worse than what Sky has become, but I won’t be upgrading to Sky+ now. Or adding Multiroom later, as was my intention.

And do you know what? If someone that understood me actually came on the phone and treated me like a human being rather than a Sky card number, I might just have gone with the deal you’re trying to push anyway.

Get your house in order, for god’s sake. You won’t have that market share forever, eventually your decreasing levels of customer service will come back and bite you in the ass.

My Sky card number is XXX XXX XXX. I’m tempted to shred it.

Regards,
Adam Beecher

More Shit CS posts to come, featuring the ESB, BOI Card Services, and Church Road Motors in Tullamore. No doubt there’ll be more about BT too.

BT Ireland: Officially Retarded

After all I’ve been through with them, they just sent me a bill. I cancelled my account with them at the end of December. The line is dead. Try it yourself: 021 429 1443.

The number you have dialled is not in service.

Here’s my email to them. I kept short, so they don’t get confused:

I closed my account in December. See attached. Are you people retarded?

I swear to god, it’s only a matter of time before I go postal on these morons. Maybe that’s what they want? Or maybe they’re just suffering from institutional retardation.

Cisco acquires Tribe.net

A very odd purchase. Cisco should stick to the old hardware, imho.

News.com: Cisco Systems announced on Monday one of its most unusual deals: it has purchased the technology assets of Tribe.net, a mostly forgotten social-networking site.

It is a curious pairing. Cisco, with 55,000 employees, makes networking equipment for telecommunications providers and other big companies. Tribe.net, run by an eight-employee company called Utah Street Networks, has been trampled by newer social sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.

But along with the recent purchase of a social network design firm, Five Across, the deal will give Cisco the technology to help large corporate clients create services resembling MySpace or YouTube to bring their customers together online. And that ambition highlights a significant shift in the way companies and entrepreneurs are thinking about social networks.

VMware jobs boost in Cork

I didn’t even know VMWare had an office in Cork tbh! Ballincollig apparently. I wonder was that because of the EMC acquisition, or were they here already?

siliconrepublic.com: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin TD has confirmed 369 jobs for Cork as part of an expansion by EMC’s virtualisation software subsidiary VMWare of a major operation in the area.

Storage giant EMC already employs 1,600 at its plant in Ovens and the news is a welcome turn of events for the beleagured county of Cork, which saw up to 1,000 jobs lost in the past few weeks.

I hate to sound like a bitch with an axe to grind, but I hope this isn’t along the lines of the “800” jobs that Martin announced shortly – very shortly – after Motorola in Cork went bang. That was a little convenient to my mind.

Need to update your website?

As of April 1, you need to state the following details on your website:

1. The name of the company and the company’s legal form;
2. the place of registration of the company, the number with which it is registered and the address of its registered office;
3. in the case of a company exempt from the obligation to use the word “limited” or “teoranta” as part of its name, the fact that it is a limited company;
4. in the case of a company which is being wound up, the fact that it is being wound up; and that:
5. if there is reference to the share capital of the company on any letters or order forms, the reference shall be to the paid-up share capital.

You may need to state this information in your emails too, but as is typical with Irish legislation, I’m not entirely sure if that’s the case. The ODCE doesn’t seem to either, or surely they would have been clearer than “company letters and order forms” in their information notice?

It’s definitely a good idea to require companies to put this information on their websites, but ffs ODCE, piss or get off the pot: what, if any, emails does this info need to go into?

Well done Cork City Council!

John McCormac spotted an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) won by Cork City Council for the domain name CORK.EU. Cork City Council should be applauded for having the gumption to take an ADR against the cybersquatter scum that registered the domain name in bad faith.

Quinn Direct to take on BUPA customers

They say they’re a new entrant and thus shouldn’t pay risk equalisation, and the Quinn rep on 6.1 news was talking about an even playing fields. Which begs the questions:

1. Are they a new entrant? They’re certainly not a new entrant to the insurance market.
2. Did Gov.ie approve the takeover and thus approve Quinn’s assertions on the aforementioned?
3. What happens in three years, when the exemption expires?

Watching the Quinn rep on 6.1 was a hoot. He can’t maintain eye contact with a tv camera, never mind a human being.