A couple of weeks on, having paid money via my debit card to firstin, I hadn’t seen sight of the product on the courier, so I rang them and was told there was a delay, it would be another week. I could handle another week. I’m not in any hurry.

It is now a month on, and after no email communication from firstin, except for a product I have never ordered from them, and me having to ring them a few times, I still have no portable battery pack for my iPhone.

After a few tweets back and forth about iPhone batteries in a disaster, I realised I still had not received my battery pack. I googled the name of it to show a friend in Christchurch what I had ordered and then found this page. Its for the same product on the firstin website, but states that if you order before Fathers Day (2 days ago) and it hasn’t been delivered in time for Fathers Day, you’d get it for free.

Stop. The. Bus.

Fathers Day was last weekend? I ordered a month ago and still haven’t received mine! Do I get mine for free too? I’ve been waiting longer than some of your other customers and I still haven’t got my product. That’s customer service that costs businesses the loyalty they rely on to survive.

So in response I’ve sent them a message on their website raising this issue with them. I’ve included it below. And if I get some sort of response, I’ll be sure to share that too.

I’m really peeved. You had this item listed again prior to fathers day with a promise of it ships before fathers day or you get it free, and yet those of us that ordered OVER A MONTH AGO, are still waiting? Do I get mine for free too? I’ve given you a few chances, had to call a couple of times because you don’t email updates to me.

I’d like to cancel my order because your poor service has cancelled my loyalty to your website.

UPDATE: 8th September – 8.00am

It just arrived on the courier. This is what was advertised:

See that nice retail packaging, the nice design on the top of the charger? Well, below, is what I’ve actually received. I’m still not happy and am awaiting their response to my email I sent them last night.

UPDATE: 8th September – 10.15am

An email from firstin has arrived! Here it is:

Apologies for such a hassle with your order. It has been shipped to you, it was drop shipped by our supplier on Monday so I will do a track and trace on its progress. I have also processed a refund for you for $25.99, due to such a delay we quite agree you should get yours for free also. It will be a straight reversal back to your credit card and it can take a couple of days to show up.

Once again we do apologise for such a lengthy delay.

So congrats firstin for doing what is right. Finally.

To: IT Guy Who Shall Remain Nameless

Re: Spam Filter

The spam filter is still very hyperactive. Can you turn it down from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 3 or something? It likes to stop remittance advices and invoices, but lets the Viagra through. I’m starting to wonder if its taking bribes or if there is a corrupt official working inside the filter.

If you get this email, it means I have successfully circumvented the filter. If not, my body is located at our Auckland premises.

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Logitech Portable Lapdesk

I’m guilty of using my laptop on my lap in the lounge. But I’ve given myself a few sore shoulders making piles of books etc so that I can use my mouse instead of the track pad. I prefer to play my games and drive my laptop with a mouse, but its not practical to do so. This weekend I picked up a Logitech Portable Lapdesk. Already, the improvement is awesome. I’m using my mouse and comfortable – no shoulder or arm pain to be found.

The lapdesk has a sliding part that comes out and is more than ample for using a notebook mouse. Its also washable (!) and very lightweight, making it very portable. It also is doing a good job of keeping my lap cool and assisting in ventilation. I’m really loving this Lapdesk and now I’m wondering why I haven’t picked up one earlier!

alikatnz rating – 5 / 5

Belkin iPhone Car Holder

After driving through road works, highways and suburban streets with this attached to my windscreen, I have one piece of advice. Save your money and don’t buy this. I have lost count of how many times this fell off and smacked me in the knees on the way down with my iPhone still attached. It even fell off my windscreen while my car was parked up at work and in the driveway overnight. Belkin stuff is usually great quality, but their iPhone Car Holder has dropped the ball. Big time.

alikatnz rating – 0 / 5

Logitech Harmony PS3 Adapter

Its one less remote, what can I say? It was set up within all of 3 minutes and works straight out of the box like anything Logitech should. I’ve heard there are a few faulty ones out there, so I’m going to reduce the score, but if you have a PS3 and a Logitech Harmony Remote, you MUST get one of these!

Its small receiver is barely noticeable on your hi fi rack and in true Logitech fashion, is pretty stylish. You may find yourself not wanting to hide it away on the rack and have it somewhere more visible – potential poser value! The receiver does a fantastic job of taking the infrared signals from your Harmony Remote and converting them into the Bluetooth commands that only the Playstation can understand. As for the X O etc buttons, they’re custom buttons on the screen of my remote, but other remotes may be different. And I love having one remote!

alikatnz rating – 4 / 5

I’ve bought some other gadgets and accessories and I will review them in good time! I’ve got my hands on a selection of iPhone cases… DISCLAIMER: I paid for all of these from my own pocket. Simple. Now broke. Please use the contact me form to arrange sending me your gadgets! LOL!

In mid-November, I spoke to your New & Moves desk and arranged to have my phone & broadband moved to our new address on the 18th December 2009. I advised them that my new address would be my postal address etc.

The move of your services went without a hitch, however, your company’s inability to do general administration work appalls me and borders on the illegal.

On the 12th January 2010, I rang 123, concerned that I hadn’t seen a final account for our old address. I was told that as I was getting bill online, that had been canceled, but the bill had not been printed. I asked for a copy of the bill and was told they would post one out to me at my new address. I am growing old waiting for that first copy. I was also told that on the 13th you would direct debit the final bill from my bank account. Just as well I had taken the initiative myself and rung your 123 number. Taking money without giving the customer a bill or an opportunity to dispute the bill is against your own terms and conditions by not providing me with the minimum 10 calendar days as set out in your direct debit agreement and quite possibly against the law. Fortunately for you, I had some money available to pay the bill as I was expecting it and was able to avoid severe penalties from my bank.

I informed the CSR that night that my postal address was wrong on the account and she promised she fixed it. I also got Caller ID put on the line.

The next week I received a letter welcoming the addition of Caller ID, sent to the wrong address. Seriously? I’ve already told you twice that my address was wrong in your system and that I had moved. I ignored this letter about Caller ID thinking that the change was taking a few hours to filter through your computer system.

On the 20th I got another letter from your company advising me that my bill would be increasing. I have no problem with that, the problem was you have sent it to the wrong address again.

Today is the 25th and I still haven’t received a copy of the bill from my old house, which was never sent, the copy has never arrived and today I had to ask for another copy.

To say I am angry about the whole thing is an understatement. I shouldn’t have to tell a company 3 times that information you have is incorrect. You shouldn’t be taking money without sending out an invoice either.

As of now, I will never be setting up a direct debit with your company ever again. I can’t trust you with my bank account number. Its as simple as that.

And now, the part that boils my blood is when you lodge a Direct Debit to Telecom, heres what they agree to:

1. The Initiator:

(a) Has agreed to give advance notice to the Customer of the net amount of each Direct Debit and the due date of the debiting at least 10 calendar days (but not more than 2 calendar months) before the date when the Direct Debit will be initiated. This advance notice must be provided either:

(i) in writing; or

(ii) by electronic mail where the Customer has agreed to this.

The advance notice will include the following message: “Unless advice to the contrary is received from you by (date*), the amount of $……… will be direct debited to your Bank account on (initiating date).”

*This date will be at least two (2) days prior to the initiating date to allow for amendment of Direct Debits.

(b) May, upon the relationship which gave rise to this Authority being terminated, give notice top the Bank that no further Direct Debits are to be initiated under the Authority. Upon receipt of such notice the Bank may terminate this authority as to future payments by notice in writing to the Customer.

So basically, Telecom have failed me yet again. They failed to advise me that they were taking the money and its only by shear luck that:

(a) I rang them to enquire about a final bill for my old house
(b) For once, I had money I could use to pay the bill
(c) I paid for a redirection on my mail

I will update this post with a response should they ever see fit to get back to me over this disgraceful customer service I am always on the end of.

This is a Grumpy Alikat

Last Tuesday evening on my drive home, I saw a large plume of black smoke on the horizon and lots of fire trucks heading in the general direction of Mt. Wellington. As it happens, Corporate Consumables was engulfed in fire.  Being a geek and having a loose association with the emergency services, I snapped a pic of this smoke plume and twitpic’d it hoping that my firemen friends could give me the skinny on what was happening. I was hoping like hell it wasn’t a friends business premises which was in the same vicinity.

In the next 20 minutes it took me to drive home, it got retweeted a couple of times here and here among others. But you could imagine my horror on getting home, I checked out the NZ Herald website, and my photo was already on there with someone elses name taking credit for the photograph.

I saw red. I saw more than red. I had that red mist that racing drivers talk about. I immediately emailed the NZ Herald telling them that it was my photo and they should be crediting me, not the person who emailed it in. To their credit, they quickly fixed it up and apologized. Nice considering it wasn’t their fault.

The small print in twitpic’s privacy policy states that once it’s on their site, its public. I tracked down the person who uploaded my image, without my permission to the NZ Herald site and he just shrugged me off with the following tweet:

The world of in demand news is a tough game. I crossed the finish line before you

When you submit an image to NZ Herald, you have to check a box confirming the following:

Please tick this box to confirm that the media you are sending us belongs to you, was legally created, is available for use by nzherald.co.nz and other APN publications free of charge now and in the future, and has not been altered in any way that would mislead the public.

It didn’t belong to him to submit in the first place. The photograph, taken rather illegally as I was driving at the time, belonged to me. I may have not wanted this photo published on the NZ Herald website given that I was driving a motor vehicle at the time I took this photo. But now its well and truely in the public domain. But its fraud on his part. He purported to NZ Herald that he was the legal owner and this image was legally created.

I hate to break it to ya sunshine, but you’re not the legal owner and it sure as shit wasn’t legally created.

But theres lessons to take away from this, some of which have been learned the hard way.

I wouldn’t have gotten so angry if they’d asked and appropriate credit was given.

The internet is not anonymous. I was able to track this person down on twitter and have an “exchange” with them. They then changed their user name, but not their real name or location, so I was able to track them down again. Try harder to hide yourself next time. Protecting your tweets just isn’t enough.

Your twitter account is a brand. At the peak of my rant, I was warned that I was damaging my “brand”. Point taken. Thanks Wendy.

From now on, before twitpic’ing something that might go around the world a few times, watermark it.

Watermarking on the iPhone

So from this, and the old adage “theres an app for that” I set about finding an iPhone app to watermark my photos with copyright information before submitting them to twitpic or similar sites. I found one called PhotoMarkr. You put in text you want as a copyright notice and you can move this around, resize it, adjust opacity and even add a large (c) to make your point perfectly clear. Here’s my original photograph, as it appeared in the NZ Herald and the new version, as edited in PhotoMarkr. Not bad for a wee app that cost NZD$4.19

Before PhotoMarkr

After PhotoMarkr

The basics of using this app is you can either use your camera from inside the app or you can load an image from your phone. With one touch of a button, you can add your preset watermark, or adjust to suit. Use your fingers to move, rotate, resize and adjust transparency and then save your image when done. You can tape each object and move them independently of each other, sadly adjusting the transparency adjusts both objects, but that is the only flaw I have found with this app. Here is a couple of screenshots from the app below.

PhotoMarkr Screenshot #1

PhotoMarkr Screenshot #2

Shame there are a few people on the internet who spoil it for the rest really.

Today when I got home from work, I had a letter from Telecom in the box. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting it to be a confirmation of a direct debit I had set up, but on opening it didn’t look like a direct debit letter, it looked like another kind of letter. I thought, oh how fantastic, more nonsense about being upgraded to ADSL2+, but alas no, IT WAS AN APOLOGY AND CONTAINED THE WORD SORRY IN THE TITLE. Sorry for yelling, but I am that surprised.

There’s a few sentences in this letter that I find pleasing.

In recent weeks in some parts of the country, we haven’t been able to fix telephone and broadband faults as quickly as we’d like. This is not good enough.

As you read on, you basically get the feeling that they’re trying to blame Visionstream and the recent industrial action as the cause for the delay. If I was a contractor, I would be feeling pretty pissed off about some of the things, but I’m not. I’m a customer, ya know, the customer is always right.

Then further down there’s another part I really like:

We’d like to make it up to you

As you’ve had a fault recently, I apologise on behalf of Telecom New Zealand that you were affected by this situation.

The rest of the letter details criteria for restitution from Telecom, if you remember all I was asking for was one month of broadband charges, well, I have received a credit for my home phone line and my monthly broadband charges. All up, That leaves me with $22 to pay.

Thanks Telecom for coming to the party. It is better late than never I guess and I think congratulations are in order for stepping up and sending out these letters, admitting that things could be better and putting it right with the consumers. Don’t forget us consumers. We pay your salary. I leave the last word of this post to Telecom:

Thank you for bearing with us. We are doing out best to put a bad situatino right, and we never forget who keeps us in business – you, the customer.

Vodafone put on a very nice spread of beer, wine and nibbles. As I am always super organised, I had consumed some sushi at work before driving into the city. But I had some wine. Seriously, whens the last time you got something for free from Vodafone? I had a lovely chat with Hamish. We discussed awesomeness like 14.4k modems and the days where the BBS was better than the internet. It was. Once upon a time, in the early 1990s.

We were moved into a room off the Vodafone foyer. There we were given colored dots and broken up into groups of 5.  But before it all got kicked off, we were introduced to the Data Demons. These five boys/men are located at Vodafone owned stores in the central city and north shore and are experts in all things smart phone related. This is a new concept by Vodafone Retail to have these Data Demons accessible in store, 7 days a week. Not a silly idea in my book. I can think of at least one occasion where I have dished out smartphone advice to a Vodafone retail employee.

Sorry about the angle of the photo, but I’m sure you get the idea. Daniel and his crew of Data Demons did a presentation that in the past, you would have carried around 7kg of “crap” whereas this now fits into an approx 120gm smartphone. You can now have your GPS, Phone, Calendar, Documents, Notes etc in the one device and not spread across many. He showed a few slides of smartphone market growth etc and then told us how the evening would work. We were split up into our coloured dot groups and sent to various corners of the V’Nue suite. He also proved that Data Demons are human and had some issues with his laptop. C’est la vie.

First up for our Green Group was the Blackberry Bold. This told me nothing I didn’t already know about Research in Motion and the Blackberry Bold as a device. I’ve come across Blackberrys and I know people who love and people who hate them. But the gentleman who did this presentation did a very good job and covered everything one would expect in a first meeting with the Blackberry.

We then moved on to the Nokia E71. This was the phone I was going to get before I found out how much I loved the iPhone. Again, a really nice presentation of slides and excellent MS Paint skills for this presenter. For the other people there, I think they got this phone more that the BB Bold. Instead of someone holding up a phone going blah blah, we had slides, and I’m a visual learner. I admit I may have learnt a wee bit about the operational side of this phone.

By the time we got to the Mobile Broadband display, the whole group thing had kind of disintegrated. I learnt that the white/black vodems are different, and well the netbook, I had one of those.

At the end of the evening, with half the people left, they had a draw for the HTC Magic. I was pleased that the guy who won the phone did in honesty. It would have been better going to me, but he had this horrible, bulking winmo phone and the HTC with its static-glass touch thing will change his life.

My highlights of the evening were photographing Paul Brislen’s desk, Hamish explaining the magnetic floors and an old lady announcing that she had only come to get a battery for her trusty Nokia 3320. WTF!?!? But these things happen.

Congratulations to Vodafone on a good evening. Sorry I didn’t learn much, but considering you had the Amway function next door, and congratulations on that too, but you did an excellent job and overall I rate the Data Demons 4.5 out of 5. They’re all nice young men, well spoken and knowledgeable. I would love to chat to them in a store any time about mobile data.

Yesterday when I got home from work, I found my Internet not working. The last time I had seen my PC online from logmein.com was earlier that morning. I rang your 0800GETXTRA number at 5.30pm and selected the appropriate selections to get your help desk. After eliminating my modem & computers as the cause of the outage, it was determined that there was a technical fault at your end. I was informed that they would call me back, which may have happened. But I had to call back at 7pm to find out if it was indeed a technical fault. I was patched through to Peter (not his real name) in Auckland, who was excellent and very helpful. He explained that I was most likely mis-jumpered at the exchange. This had happened to me before back in February. But he would get a technician to look into it. But this could take until Thursday afternoon but they would be in touch.

Today I rang at 12.30pm to check on the status of my connection mishap and was told that I would have to wait until 3pm tomorrow for reconnection. I found this wait unacceptable and expressed my concerns about this delay. As far as I’m concerned, I’m paying you top dollar for an Internet service, a service which I am not receiving through no fault of my own.

Tonight when I got home at 5pm, I reset my router and checked the connection as a matter of course, hoping for a miracle and yes, I had my miracle, it was working, and the ADSL2+ had been turned on as well. For this I thank you. As per the advice of the help desk worker earlier in the afternoon, I called The 0800 GET XTRA help desk again to arrange a credit for my inconvenience. What I didn’t realise is that this phone call would take up another 60 minutes of my time and counting.

Tonight the person I spoke to (T######) tried telling me that I pay $59.95 a month for my Internet, which I don’t, and decided to argue with me about it. I was then offered an insulting $1.59 credit for being without Internet for over 24 hours and spending over 3 hours on the phone, plus the inconvenience of having to take unpaid leave from my job to meet a technician due tomorrow. When I had this problem back in February, I received a $79.95 credit for one months broadband as the fault was Telecoms, and then back in February, that issue was only resolved once I involved an acquaintance who works for Telecom Broadband. When it became obvious that the person I was trying to converse with didn’t listen to what I was saying, or read the case notes, I asked to be transferred to a NZ based tech. I was told they cannot do this, yet the person I spoke to on my 2nd call last night was able to do this. I’m confused as to why some people can and some people can’t transfer me to NZ based customer services representatives.

When I found that this avenue was going nowhere, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I have knowledge that there are 3 supervisors per floor and I should not be on hold for more than 5 minutes to speak to one. After 10 minutes on hold waiting to speak to a supervisor, I got told I was not speaking to a supervisor, but a senior technician, still based in the Philippines (T######). I reiterated that I wanted to speak with a supervisor. After laying down that I asked to speak to a supervisor, I am entitled to speak to a supervisor and she was going to put me through to a supervisor, did she put me on hold again. I again was on hold for over 5 minutes waiting for a supervisor. I finally got one. (T######). He told me that I still had to meet the technician, which I am quite happy to do, regardless of the fact I am going to lose income to do so, but would like to get to the bottom of this problem. He did not agree to increase the credit. I informed him that I was insulted by the paltry amount being offered given that I have spent over 3 hours on the phone and to his credit is going to follow up my complaint that T9###### argued with me regarding my broadband plan.

I would love to know how is it that telecom can cause the fault, make me do the running around on the phone and meeting technicians, yet not offer anything close to decent compensation for the trouble this has caused. I was earlier planning on moving my familys mobile calling to telecom (added business of $120 a month, minimum) however, given this recent experience, I am reconsidering that decision and also looking at moving my broadband and calling to another ISP. To say I am disillusioned with your company is an understatement.

I look forward to hearing Telecom’s response to this appalling customer service I have received.

My day started innocently enough. I went and had my monthly facial at Beauty on the Hills in Drury. It was bliss. After this, getting on the motorway, I realised time wasn’t on my side. I had to get over to Constellation Drive to collect my new computer monitor, but needed to stop at an ASB branch to withdraw $100 towards the cost of it. My original plan was to go to Botany Town Centre first and get the money there. But with time ticking, Sylvia Park seemed awesome. I got to the counter at the ASB and they told me that I can’t physically withdraw money from my Accelerator savings account, after some begging, they agreed to put my empty cheque account into OD to let me get the money, on the pro-visor that I transferred the money electronically from my savings account to the cheque account before leaving the store. Yay for iPhone’s Safari browser and boo for the Vodafone 3G reception inside Sylvia Park. But by the time I got back to my car, I had made the transfer required to keep my bank happy for another day.

Now I had to get over to Constellation Drive. Where possible, I will never drive any further north than Newmarket. This is where I whipped out the TomTom app and punched in the address. Bingo. It got it slightly wrong, so I used some gut instinct and it got me close to where I needed to be. I used google maps satellite view to figure out that I had to drive around the back of a building to find where I needed to be. Got the monitor. Its awesome. Review to follow.

Now I needed to get to a Rebel Sports store to buy more sneakers for sneaking. I punched in “rebel sports” into the Yellow Pages app and it told me the nearest one was Wairau Road and showed me a map. Awesome! I knew how to get there from Constellation so off I went.

With shoes in hand and a monitor in my boot, I needed to go to the loo. I plugged “public toilet” into Zenbu and it gave me a few options, but none suitable. Fortunately there are petrol stations on the way from Wairau Road to the Motorway. And homeward bound I went.

I conclude that had I not had the iPhone today, I would be lost. I would be still at ASB pleading with the lady at the counter, or lost somewhere on the North Shore. I’m not sure which is worse. But one thing is for sure, I am pleased to be home, even if the wallet is feeling a little lighter.