Robert’s Rants & Rationalizations

I signed-up with HostGator.com at 2:25pm, Friday (8/17/07). I used PayPal to pay my first month’s fee. I’ve been a user of PayPal for over five years (is it closer to eight?) I provide an existing domain name and select the option that states that I will supply the nameservers to point to Hostgator’s nameservers.

Five minutes later, I receive an email from HostGator..
“Notification of a Pending eCheck Payment Received”

That’s a major flag…WHY??? I signed into DreamHost (back in 2004) and had my site setup, emailed my account information all within minutes!

I used the link in the 2:31pm PST email about the open ticket regarding my pending authorization of my account payment. I wrote a reply that I was going to try to find a way to pay with my credit card and if I can’t, I’ll cancel my account.

I found my online invoice, found the link to pay and paid with my credit card. This happed at 6:30pm. My receipt email is stamped at 6:31pm.

William in HostGator Sales emailed me at thirty minutes later to state that my eCheck cleared. eCheck? I immediately replied to get a clarification on the status of my payments, the echeck and my credit card. Are there two payments, now, or what?

It’s 7:30pm, and I am still waiting for 1) a response, and 2) my account information which I’m supposed to get when the payment goes through (one hour ago)!

Updates to Come!

By 8pm PST, I was chatting online with support and they resent the account setup info. I now have to follow up with ‘Sales’ about the paypal and the credit card charges. Support only shows one charge.

If you have read some of my past support-related rants, you understand this rant! Our IT department doesn’t have the resources, at this time, to make mods to a database table that one of my projects gets its information. That information is extracted on a regular basis to keep another db up-to-date. So, the IT department said I can ask the GIS consultant company, specifically, the consultant that works on the db until we get a new GIS staff member.

The consultant delivered everything except the sql query. Get this: the consultant took and billed eight (8) hours to add a column, set it increment the value, populate the column’s existing approx. 1,500 records with an incremental number starting with 100,000. EIGHT HOURS!!!

Beyond that bill, I wanted the sql query so I could modify it so I can only have the columns I need and change the names of the columns. STANDARD STUFF.

It took two weeks, and several conversations, mostly to her voice-mail, and an explanation to the IT manager why I needed it when the IT manager was trying to be cautious about security! I explained that the sql statement doesn’t contain any account information which would allow me, or anyone, access to the data!

So, I called this morning, she was in with her boss, so the receptionist said, and I left a voice-mail message following up on the dicussion about two weeks ago about getting the sql statement that was used to extract the records from our db.

Five minutes (maybe eight) past and the IT manager stops by and speaks to a co-worker who happens to be experienced in db management, specifically MSSql which the GIS system has as the backend.

A few hours later, I get an email from the IT manager stating that the consultant cannot give me the info I want since she used the “Enterprise Manager” and included all the columns rather than what the past GIS person gave me. And, I gave the consultant the original exported file!

Why doesn’t this vendor talk to the person who contracted her firm to do this work, and the one’s that paying the damn invoice!

Here’s the problem: not taught how to respond in an appropriate manner. An acceptable response could be, “I’ll have to look into that and get back to you.” You’ve heard that one. It means I don’t have an answer for you at this moment, so let me take the time to figure it out.

It just annoys me she went around me to have a co-worker (the IT manager) address this issue.

Maybe I should have the Finance Director have that company’s invoices audited to find out if they are over charging us for their DB work! Two of us non-IT-department folks were shocked to see how many hours were in the estimate!

One word . . . . . . .PISSED!

I am a Geotrust customer for the past two years, and paid for another three! I go to their website and find their support section and get their address, support@geotrust.com. I sent my first March 24 and my fourth today, April 11, my latest because the previous three have not generated a reply, NOT EVEN AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE!

How bad is that?

That is bad, real bad.

Although an automated response (autoresponder) is good, another rant is PHPIzabi that has an auto responder on one of their support domain addresses, BUT THEY NEVER FOLLOW-UP when their email states…

“From: feedback@realitymedias.com
Subject: Re: Message to Real!ty Medias

Kind regards
Real!ty Medias”

It’s just wrong to have a support address and no one is there or someone is there and they don’t respond!

Well, another method to get their attention is to send the lengthy emails to their fax machine during off hours!

Maybe the last entry of this situation…maybe.

The CEO, Claude desjardins wrote:
On 4/11/07 11:23 PM, “Claude Desjardins” wrote:

> Dear Robert
>
> I have sent a reply to your previous request which obviously didn’t got
> through. I hope this one will find its way.
>
> As stated in my previous answer, I’m sorry about the delay in my replies
> – I assume you know my role which is the reasons behind the delay.
>
> Concerning your “situation” with the PHPizabi support system, I can only
> say that peoples who are in charge of answering mails are generally good
> helpers and only rare cases escalates up to this level. Please bare in
> mind that the PHPizabi support team is constituted of a very small group
> of volunteers and that the time they spend on the support activity is
> shaved off their own spare time and that they have numerous requests to
> cover every day. At this point, you may reiterate your support request
> through the same system – you will be assigned another helper.
>
> As for your refund request, providing the licensing structure and
> e.u.l.a., PHPizabi licenses and modules are not refundable unless 1. The
> refund concerns a module (not a hack, nor a license), and 2. The module
> is found to be defective or fraudulent. – Please refer to the PHPizabi
> Online (PIO) EULA & Terms for more details on this matter.
>
> Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions.
>
> Kind regards
> Claude Desjardins
> CEO – Real!ty Medias

Read the whole story, below.

The internet now gives us an avenue to let others know what’s happening out here! -rkim

As of March 23, 2007, I have dropped the Phpizabi.net (Claude Desjardins) software due to a BAD attitude support person (Rubberduck, aka “Dave”) and absolutely NO RESPONSE from Phpizabi Support, and to compound that, THEY WILL NOT REFUND MY DEBRANDING MONEY!!! I highly recommend osDATE from Tufat.com.-rkim

I found, downloaded and installed PHPizabi’s dating app (PHP/MySQL backend). I was so impressed that I paid for the removal of the copyrights on the output pages (keeping the copyrights in the code).

Then, I wanted a few more features. I round an RSS module and paid a very, very reasonable fee of around $5.00US. In the readme, the author doesn’t support it, but PHPizabi Support does. I contacted them when it wasn’t working.

I sent the first email to support@phpizabi.net on 2/19/07, and received a reply the next day, 2/20…

On 2/20/07 3:36 AM, “support@phpizabi.net” wrote:

Dear Robert A. Kim
Thank you for your interest in PHPizabi

can you please set me up an account with access to admin so i can check your settings ?

Kind regards
RubberDuck
PHPizabi, Real!ty Medias

I replied the same day with a new account with admin rights…

RubberDuck,

URL: http://www.oneononeconnection.com
ID: RubberDuck
PWD: **********

…with admin rights

Also, can you check the “ghost” option within the Users Control. I get error “Unable to load users/theme/default/templates/GLOBALS/swap_mode.tpl”

Also, to check my environment… http://www.oneononeconnection.com/phpinfo.php

Thanks,
Robert A. Kim
San Jose, CA

Days past without an update. I checked the last time the account was used. It was 2/21, the day after sending the login information. I thought it was curious that nothing was sent to me after a few days had past after RubberDuck had visited the site. So, I send a follow-up email on 2/22…

Any ideas what the problem is?

Robert

I hear nothing by 2/25, so I sent another email to support@phpizabi.net.

Any suggestions where I should look?

Any response would be welcome.

Robert
Oneononeconnection.com

And, I resent the previous email on 2/26. I heard nothing, so I thought I’d send the next message from one of my other addresses with the thought that they aren’t going to support me and they are just avoiding any email with my regular email address. I sent the email from my everynowandthen.com domain…

Subject: Given up on a paying customer at http://www.oneononeconnection.com/?

RubberDuck, et al,

What is the status on my situation?

My account on PHPizabi Online is ‘#####’ which is also the account I paid for a license of one mod and the “Interface Branding Removal License”.  RubberDuck was given an admin account on my site to investigate the rssi mod that s/he wrote.  One visit and no response since 2/21/07.

Please update me with your status.

Robert Kim

Check out what happened next! Three…two…one! BLAST OFF!!!

Dear Help Desk
Thank you for your interest in PHPizabi

I have no idea what you’re talking about. and your accusation that you gave ME directly your admin information and i didnt help you with my RSS mod bothers me. I DIDNT write an RSS mod! I then searched my email to make sure i didnt just miss your email, and i have no email from you in my records. You may have emailed this email here, which goes to many people to handle, not just Myself. You can contact me directly at ******@phpizabi.net and kindly fill me in on whats your problem.

Kind regards
RubberDuck
PHPizabi, Real!ty Medias

What would you do, now?

What I did was reply in a very calm mannered email like have been trained to do (I spent five years in a level 2 help desk environment). I replied with all my previous emails as attachments. After a few minutes, I had a strong feeling to state where he was adamantly incorrect in his statements.

I sent the following…

1. I did not give you direct access to my admin information. Correct! I GAVE you an account with admin privileges. WHERE did I state you were given ‘direct’ access to my admin account? (see the email below!)
2. Okay, You did NOT write the mod…give me a break and state so in a calm and prejudiced tone! The support by PHPizabi supports it, and you responded with your name, so confusion from that regarding the software support can be expected. In a court of law, your statement would end up meaning nothing…no point to you or a point to me…nothing.
3. Since you stated that many people provide support (and probably access the support email address) is fine, but you don’t provide “support” any justice by providing the number one rule of customer support, provide support by being positive, honest, and never say ‘no’ (the latter doesn’t apply, but it is often forgotten and causes many bad feelings toward (tech) support personnel. As a support person, you should provide support. For me, you are not.

• You respond unprofessionally.
• You “accuse” me of incorrect actions.
• You don’t read the email, which I sent, correctly by having your emotions overcome yourself and start to fog your judgement.
• You don’t provide me any support.
• And, you didn’t properly (obviously) research your issue tracker (or do you just use email archiving?) on the item…
• Oh, and you didn’t (obviously) talk to all, repeat, all the other support personnel.
• You made another mistake by trying to intimate me.

And, it’s March 3, and no response from PHPizabi Support or anyone at that place…

http://ww2.phpizabi.net/index.php?L=community.adminboard

I am leaning to remove the software, try, repeat, try to get a refund for the debranding license, and spread my experience throughout the ‘net.

Update:
On March 11, I emailed support@phpizabi.net requesting a refund of the Branding Removal License of $46.47US. With no reponse in 18 hours, auto-reply or anything, I sent another email to the same and cc’d Claude Desjardins, CEO…

Reality Medias
Claude Desjardins (feedback@realitymedias.com)
+1.8196927897
Fax: +1.8196927897
100 rue Montplaisir
Trois-Rivieres, Quebec G8T 2Z6
CA

So, I wait…

robert

BTW, check out Tufat’s osDate GPL software!

UPDATE:
(not really, and that’s due to Claude Desjardins’ Reality Medias and PHPizabi.net/com/whatever…)

March 21, 2007: With no response to this date(!), I resent the previous emails to “support@phpizabi.net” and “feedback@realitymedias.com” .

This is a sad tell of a person and those he hires or collaborates with. Definitely a flag is raised when a company is incapable of responding in an appropriate manner.

On March 21, 2007, I found this blogger by the name of Chris Rutherford (I can only vouch for what I say, not what others say): http://chris.instantspot.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/12/15/PHPizabi-got-jacked

March 23, 2007, I have retired the phpizabi software. At this point, I can’t recommend or trust anyone that works for or with Claude Desjardins.