I am writing this blog post to give me time clarify my thoughts as to how to respond to my latest on-line dilemmas. Computers were designed to make our life easier and as for the Internet well the ultimate communication tool surely. Well yes that would probably be true if a whole new layer of complexity hadn’t entered our lives. Why do I lurch endlessly from one on-line frustration to another.
I am positive you will identify with the two problems I am currently grappling with and have stories of your own to relate.
Let me start with my immediate concern…. I need to make some on-line banking transactions – and normally they would take five minutes. Let me add that they are important and need to be dealt with today.
Lloyds bank’s home page has a invitation to come on in as long as I enter my User Name and Password. I entered the usual information only to see the same screen with it’s invite stubbornly sitting there. NOTE: Nothing to tell me my input data had been incorrectly entered.
OK – I accept I could have made some input error and have another go – this time with great care and precision – same damn thing.
I know, for sure, 100 percent, absolutely, definitely, with utter certainty, without a shadow of doubt, positively that I entered the correct information – and before you suggest it the CAPS lock wasn’t on – I checked.
SO – this is where I am now…
The dilemma – do I enter the information again knowing full well what happened last time my input data was not accepted following my third attempt – namely I was informed that I was now locked out from my account and needed to get help from the bank. My follow up call to the bank that time was equally frustrating as I discovered that there was no way they would send the information in an e-mail or provide it over the phone. Five days later I receive the login details in the post.
Now next to the login fields there are links offering help if you have forgotten your username or password. Now I know it is silly to be seduced by a word such as ‘Help’. You then fill in the data asked for there and the same thing happens – you are informed that they will send you the information.
Will a phone call to the bank before I am locked out work any better – hmmm – I suppose that is worth a shot although I suspect I will finish up with the same – wait for the post response.
I will let you know.
And now for ClickBank who have been the other thorn in my side this week.
I have been involved selling Self-Hypnosis MP3 audios via ClickBank. Recently we discovered a problem with the account and needed to get in touch with the company reasonably urgently as some strange things seem to be happening. Now bear in mind that ClickBank are a very large organisation.
I logged into our account and found that help was available via a form on their site. BUT – no phone number
Shouldn’t be a problem as their contact page pronounced “Dedicated to Exceptional Customer Service”
So I filled in the form on site – this was last Wednesday – eight days ago.
Rather foolishly at the time I was relatively confident as the page was headed up “Please fill-out the fields below and then select Submit. Your question will be routed to our team of Customer Service experts and answered within 2 business days.” I am quite concerned about what has been happening to our account so was not totally happy it was going to take 2 business days – but well I suppose they are busy.
When no reply by Friday – I filled out form again and so on until today when I have returned for the fourth time and filled out the data. Each time I am reliably informed that the data has been accepted. However I have had no response and no message sent to my e-mail address to say the data would be answered shortly.
What now??
All I found out during a web search to see if I could find a ClickBank phone number is that many other people are looking for the same thing.
Oh there is another solution – there is a physical address so I can write to them. As they are based in the US and I am in the UK shouldn’t take more than a week to sort out my problem.
So much for the speed of Internet Communication – all of that is no good if Companies are placing barriers in the way and offer no reasonably speedy alternatives if the technologies fail.
Well off to ring Lloyds – wish me luck
