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Shit CS #2: Sky

13/05/2007

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

12/05/2007

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.

Resting In My Account!

10/05/2007

First posted on September the 26th, 2006. I thought it was time for a bump. :)

Useless Info #1: Tesco’s Name

08/05/2007

I’m renowned for my vast stocks of useless information, so thus begins the first in a series of useless fact posts. Probably the last too, given my proclivity for “first in a series” posts. Maybe this could be the first in a series of posts about my first in a series posts… hmm….

Aaaanyway, I was gazing into space in a traffic jam at Mahon Point the other day, as I’m sure we all do regularly, and it occurred to me that I had no idea what the name on the sign my gaze happened to fall on actually means. TESCO. This happens quite regularly, but this time I actually looked it up, and if Wikipedia is to be believed on this occasion, here’s the explanation:

The Tesco brand first appeared in 1924. The name came about after Jack Cohen bought a large shipment of tea from T.E. Stockwell. He made new labels by using the first three letters of the supplier’s name (TES) and the first two letters of his surname (CO) forming the word “TESCO”.

So there you have it. Boring, but you’ll still tell people in the pub the next time the name comes up. And your bonus fact today, which I have to confess prompts a confused WTF moment for me, is:

Group profit before tax was Â£2.653 billion for the 52 week period and Â£2.648 billion after tax.

Â£5m tax on Â£2.6b? I know my grasp of high finance is shite, but again: WTF?

Keywords: a Growing Cost for News Sites

03/05/2007

The concept didn’t really make any sense to me until I read this bit:

“Way back in the old days … there used to be people standing on corners yelling, ‘Extra! Extra! Read all about it!’,” says Murray Gaylord, vice president of marketing for NYTimes.com. “The way people get that content now is going to that search engine,” he says. “It is the same model; it is just the way the world has changed.”

Of course!

Hot Heel And Toe Action

02/05/2007

Filthy.

Ubuntu on Dell

01/05/2007

As Gerry points out, it’s looking very likely that Dell will shortly start selling PC’s with Ubuntu instead of Windows. I’m delighted but suprised, as although Ubuntu is without a shadow of a doubt the most usable Linux distro available today, it’s also the least “connected”. Connected, of course, but not to the level as Red Hat or SuSE, one would have thought.

Whether or which, I look forward to the day when I can take on my first employee and sit them down in front of a fully-supported rig running Ubuntu!

Dealing With Canvassers #1: Be Prepared

01/05/2007

Damien has posted a list of resources for when politicians call, here’s my more general contribution. I’ve had this in draft for months as three basic lessons in one post, but this is the only section that’s complete. I’ll try and tie up the other two later today.

All this is basic stuff, but if you’re anything like me you probably either clam up or get angry when the doorbell rings, and you shouldn’t. They want something from you, but they shouldn’t get it for free. Make them sing for their suppers.

You’ll be needing a notebook and a pen for this. Yes, actual paper. Go on, I’ll wait here.

Lesson One: Be Prepared

First, jot down the things that are important to you. Health, tech, sports, money, the lot.
Number them in order of importance, then scratch out or delete all but the top five or six.
Think about how they can be improved. More money or less money? More freedom or more restriction?
Reformat your thoughts in politician mode: think “nothing is free”; think “compromise”, “deal”, “negotiate”.
Reformat them again, in Jeopardy mode: “Your answer must be in the form of a question.”
On a fresh page, write down the final set of questions; still in order of importance.
Tear off the pages with scratch work on them, and put the notebook and pen by your door.
Now get yourself a beverage and a biscuit, that’s half the battle done.

Geek table quiz anyone?

30/04/2007

I think this may have been done before, but what the hell. Anyone up for it? I’m thinking questions like “do you know who CmdrTaco is” and “what’s his real name so, brainbox”? In Cork for preference, but I’d travel if the majority were in some other god-forsaken town that thinks it’s the capital of Ireland.

Gimme some feedback first, and if all goes well I can take questions and answers by email, what with me being a lazy bastard an’ everthing. If you have a blog pass it on please, nobody reads mine and I have a tshirt to prove it.

UK War drivers arrested

18/04/2007

This kind of bollocks drives me demented. In separate incidents, a man and a woman “received a caution for dishonestly obtaining electronic communication services with intent to avoid payment”. How are they avoiding payment when they’re simply using a publicly-available connection? It’s the clueless dickwad that left his or her connection open that should be locked up. Their rig is probably spewing out all sorts of shite anyway, we should at least do them for littering.