After a 50-minute phone call to Optus technical support yesterday, my enquiry was answered in 140 characters or less by the Optus Social Media team.

This is the sad tale of an Optus support call. I’m kicking myself I didn’t record it, because you just can’t invent this stuff. It’s so absolutely absurd that no-one, except those who’ve had the misfortune of ringing Optus for technical support, will believe you.

The problem was quite simple: a customer couldn’t send email. Outlook had just “stopped working”. Receiving email was fine, but sending email was not. The customer is connected to the internet with an Optus cable modem, and uses the Optus mail server and DNS server. This was the error being displayed in Microsoft Outlook when he tried to send a message:

All other internet services were working fine. I stopped and started Outlook, checked the account settings and checked the internet connection. All looked OK.

I could ping the Optus mail server, so I tried to telnet into port 25. (‘Ping’ and ‘telnet’ are basic network diagnostic and management tools.) The response I got from the Optus mail server was: ESMTP not accepting messages. To the technically-minded, and even the not-so-technically-minded, this means there’s a problem with the mail server. It’s “not accepting messages”. Pretty simple. Not much room for negotiation there, and not much more fault-finding to be done at this end.

I Googled “optus outage information” and found this site which told me there were no current issues with Optus email.

I thought (naively, in hindsight) I should ring Optus and at least alert them to the issue, and find out if I could use a different mail server in the interim. I was actually hoping to hear a canned message, like, “If you’re calling in relation to email difficulties, please be aware we are experiencing problems at the moment with… blah blah blah.” That’s all I wanted: a quick explanation, an expected outage time and a possible remedy.

My call to 1800 780 219 was answered promptly and it was pretty good quality to Mumbai. I provided the customer’s account details, and I explained to the helpdesk operator I was a technical support person, that we had a mutual customer, and it appeared the Optus SMTP server was down. I told him the error I was getting in Outlook, and the error I was getting by connecting via telnet. I asked if maybe there was an alternative mail server I could use, until the problem had been fixed?

At that point the call derailed rather badly. The next fifty minutes consisted of questions and suggestions (and my responses in italics) like the following. These were all interspersed with BEING PUT ON HOLD for up to 5 minutes at a time:

“We’ll try deleting all your mail in Outlook, and restarting Outlook.” “We won’t be deleting any mail today. It’s not a problem with Outlook, or the customer’s email. It’s a problem with your SMTP server.”

“Let’s create a new mail account in Outlook, that should fix the problem.” “It won’t, but I’ll do it anyway if helps to escalate the problem at your end.” Surprisingly, a new mail account with the same settings didn’t fix the problem.

“I will change the password on the customer’s account, let’s try that.” “But SMTP doesn’t need a password, we’re not using SMTP authentication.” (Password changed anyway.)

“You need to delete all your cookies and browser history, that should fix it.” “Ummm no it won’t. But I’ll do it anyway if it progresses your script.” (Done anyway FWIW. No difference.)

He asked if I could try the same test from another mail client, or on another machine on the customer’s network. I didn’t think that would achieve anything either, other than to check DNS resolution on an independent machine, but did it anyway. There was (predictably) no change in the response from Optus’s SMTP server.

I asked if the mail server name I was using was correct. He assured me it was.

I asked if I could email the help desk operator a screen-grab of the error messages. ”No, we don’t have email here.” (“Where are you, are you in Melbourne?” “No, I’m in Mumbai.” “Hmmm we have email in Melbourne, are you sure you don’t have email in Mumbai?”)

I asked if he could ping the mail server from his end. “No, we can’t do that from here.”

I asked if he could telnet into the mail server. “No, we don’t have telnet here.” I asked if he was familiar with telnet, and if he understood the tests I was performing here. He assured me he was, and that he understood. Then he asked me to check settings in Outlook again.

I was pinging the mail server name, and read out the IP address of the mail server. I asked him if the mail server name was resolving to the correct IP address? He said it was.

I asked him if the mail server name resolved to a different IP address on *his* network. He said he didn’t know, and suggested making more changes to Microsoft Outlook.

And then, my favourite, about 40 minutes into the call: “Actually, can I just check that you have access to the internet please?”

After this last question I forced myself to take a deep breath, and appealed (in a calm, steady voice) for the operator to think before the next time he spoke. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “After all the tests we’ve done, I guess you do have internet access.” Yep. Good guess.

The help desk operator steadfastly refused to concede there may have been a network problem. I honestly don’t know how I could have explained the issue any clearer. He seemed to understand what I was saying – there was no language barrier – but he kept repeating he had checked with “the engineers” and there was no issue with the Optus mail server.

I asked if there was a better network outage page I could monitor, in case an issue was discovered and later resolved. He said there was nowhere I could go on the World Wide Web to monitor service disruptions or outages on Optus Internet. I asked him if he was serious, and he laughed.

Eventually I said I’d just have to wait to see if the server came back. I said I’d like to wait on the line to answer a few questions in the automated customer survey at the end of the call. He said, “Okay, thankyou for calling Optus.” Click. Beep beep beep.

Now for the kicker: just as I was explaining the situation to my customer, Optus Social Media replied to a tweet they had seen. (I was tweeting vehemently about this sad and sorry tale whilst on hold). Here is the response from Optus Social Media:

I was speechless, dumbfounded, flabbergasted and a little bit pissed off.

To ask the most obvious of obvious questions, why couldn’t the help desk operator have told me this 50 minutes previously, in the first 90 seconds of my phone call?

Here’s what have I learnt from this experience:

• Social Media and Lazywebs will now be my first port-of-call for any technical support enquiry with Optus;
• I will actively discourage people from becoming Optus internet customers; and
• I will actively encourage existing Optus customers to churn to an ISP that offers better technical support than this.

What the hell would have happened if the customer (not being technically minded) had called Optus Support and followed their instructions? He would have deleted all his email, probably his mail account settings, screwed-up Outlook, and never actually achieved anything. This was not a difficult support call to resolve, from the point-of-view of the customer. There should be mechanisms in place for outage information to be shared across call centres, help lines and web sites. Quite clearly, at Optus, there isn’t.

No-one really cares if ISPs have a service disruption. Unplanned outages are inevitable in the IT industry. But for goodness sake, Optus should be able to manage them a lot better than this. If this is characteristic of the help desk support afforded by the telco, it probably goes some way to explaining news headlines we’ve seen throughout the year, like this and this.

Credit where credit is due, and kudos to the Optus Social Media team for monitoring Twitter and responding appropriately and in a timely fashion.

Unfortunately, after 15 years of providing cable internet to Australian subscribers, the rest of the organisation still has a lot to learn.

awkward moments · customer support · email · fail · help desk · Internet · internet support · mail · mail.optusnet.com.au · Optus · outage · poor customer support · SMTP · social media

I was forced to get cranky last week, when a trip to Village Gold Class at Doncaster proved to be a disappointing and nauseating experience.

It was nauseating quite literally, as someone appeared to have propped-up the projector with an old washing machine stuck permanently on its unbalanced spin cycle.  From the moment we were shown to our seats when the infomercials, advertisements and trailers began, the picture on the big screen was blurry, unfocussed, and appeared to have some sort of “vertical hold” problem; it was jittery and altogether unwatchable.

Hoping it was just the trailers, we waited until the movie started: The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter. After ten minutes of flicker and flutter, I hit the call button and politely informed the attendant (or do you still call them ushers?) that the picture was jumping around. She said she’d “place a call to the bio box,” or words to that effect.  Other people complained too.

Unfortunately, for the remainder of the movie, the problem was neither fixed nor improved. It was blindingly obvious against titles, where clear white text against dark backgrounds should have looked crisp and clear. Instead, it looked fuzzy and just made me feel motion sick.

We waited around at the end of the movie to voice our discontent, as did several other patrons. A manager, feigning interest, refused to refund the cost of our tickets, as if it was our fault somehow, but offered to record our details and have someone “investigate the problem”.

The next day I received a phone call from someone purporting to be a projectionist at Village Cinemas. He was most apologetic, and said the problem was due to “poor film stock” and “a misaligned screw in the projector”. He offered to send us complimentary Gold Class tickets and thanked me for bringing the problem to his attention.

The complimentary tickets are yet to arrive.

Sadly though, I can’t re-live the experience of seeing a movie for the first time. There’s a reason why people pay the extra bucks to enjoy the experience at Gold Class, and contrary to the description on their website, they’re still a long way from providing the “ultimate in movie indulgence”.

awkward moments · gold class · village

It’s horrible.

In Episode 47, which went to air on Monday this week, we were testing some new audio equipment and linking software.  We’ll be using this equipment for the Outside Broadcast at Sofia Family Restaurant on the 6th of December.

There were two main issues.

(1) To-air: the quality of Graeme’s microphone audio.  Graeme was trialling a new headset-microphone, using a portable pre-amplifier.  The Panelists will be using a very similar model of headset at the OB.  It sounded a bit hissy, but we’re confident we can fix this with some diligent EQ’ing on the night.

(2) Recording / podcast version:  we always record two independent outputs from the studio’s mixing desk.  One is a recording of the programme that goes to-air (the “A” bus), while the other is a clean recording of panelists’ microphones (the “B” bus).  We use M-Audio MicroTrack II recorders, which write to compact flash cards, to record the show each week. Graeme then edits these recordings to make the podcast and syndication versions of the shows.

Unfortunately, because I was pre-occupied with setting up the new linking equipment, I made the cardinal error of not checking input levels to the recorders.  As a result the input settings for the “A” bus recorder were just completely wrong, and the “B” bus recorders were horribly clipped and over-driven.

Graeme did an excellent job of recovering what he could, but the audio quality is not up to our usual high standard.  This is extremely frustrating for all of us, because we pride ourselves on Tech Talk’s production quality.

Ironically, the actual linking equipment worked very well indeed.  This was the main reason that Graeme started the show from Sofia on Monday night: to test the new link hardware and software.

Next week’s Tech Talk will be back to our usual high standard; and the OB on the 6th of December will be even better!

audio · awkward moments · podcast · production · Tech Talk Radio · TTR

It would appear, prima facie, that we’ve all lost our minds.

Notwithstanding:-

We will attempt to broadcast the final Tech Talk Radio for 2010 LIVE from Sofia’s Family Restaurant, in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Burwood East.

Everyone’s invited! Join us for Sofia’s world-famous pizza/pasta; meet the panelists; heckle the panelists; meet like-minded listeners; and be part of the final Tech Talk Radio for 2010.

You can point and laugh at our attempts to run a 2-hour radio programme, built on nothing but a few extension leads, a Sony Walkman, a Bluetooth headset and a pile of pizza boxes.

BOOK NOW! by calling Sofia on (03) 9803 5299 and asking to reserve a place for the Tech Talk Christmas Special on Monday the 6th of December 2010. Get there around 7:00 P.M. and we’ll aim to start the show at 8:00 P.M..

It’s okay, we told Sofia that we’re lobbing on the front doorstep.  They were pretty good about it, actually. (Just wait until they find out we’re turning their restaurant into a radio studio for a few hours.)

Cost is just $17.50 per person for the set menu. Entertainment, as always, will be courtesy of The Panel.

Andrew has put the details on the website here.

See you at the Christmas bash!

awkward moments · Christmas Special · Outside Broadcast · Tech Talk Radio · TTR

Dear Microsoft,

Please don’t send ninjas to Adam Turner’s house, to abduct and torture him in some secret facility.

On Tech Talk Radio tonight I said something akin to, “Adam was in here a few weeks back, and had Windows Phone 7 and it was really cool.”

What I meant to say was, “My brain is switched off, and I’m talking on live radio, and what Adam actually had was a WinMo 6.5 device running HTC’s Sense UI.”

These are the show notes for the episode I was thinking of, which went to air on 2nd August 2010.

And this is a photo of Adam’s menagerie, taken by me on the night:

See… no Phone 7!!

Apologies to Microsoft, and to Adam. I’ve rechecked my medication, it’s all good.

As you were.  Carry on.

adam turner · awkward moments · conspiracy · Google Phone · HTC · Microsoft · Phone 7 · Tech Talk Radio · TTR · WinMo 6.5

awkward moments · funny · motivational

For the love of God, will people please stop sending money to complete strangers via Western Union, and complaining that their money has mysteriously disappeared?!?!

I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with the following gentleman at work yesterday. This man, let’s call him “Phil”, was looking to buy a car on carsales.com.au, which is a popular Australian car auction website.

Having found an almost-new Ford Falcon sedan with low mileage for just $12,500, Phil thought that was a bargain.  IT’S ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, thought Phil to himself. He made some email enquiries, and the seller said that he had to travel overseas with the military, and that he was reluctant to sell the car for such a low price, but that he needed a quick sale and didn’t expect to be back anytime soon.

The seller told Phil that he would remove the car from carsales.com.au, and list the vehicle on eBay with a “buy it now” link.  The seller then sent Phil an email with a URL, to something which looked a bit like this:

http://www.ebay.com.au.car-sales-server.someotherdodgydomainname.co.cn/

Phil clicked on this link which took him to what he thought looked like an eBay listing for the car, with a “buy it now” link.

But Phil was concerned about buying the car ’sight unseen’.  So he did two things:

1. He rang VicRoads, and they referred him to a VicRoads website, to check the legitimacy of cars being offered for sale.  He entered in the registration details, and the make / model / colour / VIN matched the vehicle being offered for sale; and
2. He asked the seller if he was covered by eBay’s “Buyer Protection” scheme.

The seller said yes, of course, and sent him another link to an address which looked a bit like this:

http://www.ebay.buyerprotection.biz/

At this site Phil submitted a form with the eBay Item number, and received a cheerful email reply confirming that the transaction was legitimate, and that Phil would indeed be covered by eBay’s comprehensive “Buyer Protection” programme.

Phil and his money were easily parted. He journeyed down to the local Post Office forthwith, and used Western Union (as requested by the seller) to wire $12,500 to a man by the name of JOHN SMITH.

For some unknown reason, the car never arrived. Phil used a freight-tracking website which the seller provided, but then that shut down, then the emails stopped, and the eBay link which Phil had in his emails stopped working too.

When Phil reported this to eBay, they told him it was a common scam and that Phil’s transaction ID did not exist.

When Phil reported the incident to the police, they told him that the car registration and make / model / colour / VIN were all legitimate, and that the scammers had simply copied these details (and the digital photographs) from a legitimate car advertisement.  They also told Phil that there was little, if any, chance of recovering his money.

How to avoid eBay scams

This list is by no means exhaustive. But some or any of these tips might have stopped Phil becoming the victim of an eBay scam:

1. Learn how to read URLs and internet addresses.  It’s not hard.  If in doubt, ask that tech-savvy person in your family for help.
2. Never, ever use Western Union to transfer money.  eBay says that Western Union is regularly used by online scammers: “They typically ask buyers to make payments using Western Union or a similar money transfer service because they are hard to trace.” Pay using direct deposit or PayPal so that some level of accountability exists.
3. Use a current web browser that offers protection from phishing scams.
4. Always type URLs directly into your web browser, e.g. “ebay.com.au”.  DON’T click on links in emails. DON’T click on images in emails.
5. Don’t buy expensive stuff if you haven’t seen it in Real Life!!  Always inspect real estate, motor cars, white goods and expensive items prior to bidding. The opportunity of a lifetime comes along every day.

And remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

419 · awkward moments · buyer protection · eBay · email · fraud · PayPal · scam · Western Union

It doesn’t get funnier than this.

awkward moments · funny · inspirational posters · Social Networking

Hahaha … these are fantastic!

awkward moments · facebook · funny · Social Networking · status updates