Monday, March 06, 2006

Idiot Customer service, part Oh-I've-lost-count

I tried to join FileFront on saturday. I got stuck in an endless loop of failure to authenticate. So I told them. Here, for your edification, is our correspondance.

Kim Plowright to support@filefront.com 4 Mar (2 days ago)
Hi there,

I'm trying to use your service to upload a piece of game video.

Initially, I poked around on your Submit a File link (points to http://personal.filefront.com/) but kept getting directed to http://manage.hosted.filefront.com/ which just shows a message 'Please Login'.

So, I tried to register for your site. Interestingly, all through the registration there are large banners informing me that I do not need to register to upload video... but your submit a file link requires a login. How does one login without registering?

Finally, I went through the free registration process. The form submits my info, and returns the result page, but this loads your contextual navigation and a tall banner ad in the right hand margin of the page, then reports 'done' with no content in the content area. I'd take a wild stab at the possibility that your advertising services'
javascript is interfering with your registration system, if only because I've just had to troubleshoot a similar problem at work.

I haven't recieved any 'complete your registration' emails, so I assume that my registration isn't complete, and there was a further stage of information needed.

Can you let me know:
- What is the mechanism for uploading video if one chooses not to register on the site
- When I might be able to finish registering, and what the problem may have been?

Incidentally, I've tried in both Firefox 1.5 and IE6 on a PC running Windows XP. I tried to register using the 'register' link next to the login.

Thanks
Kim
----
L*** <***@filefront.com> to me, support 18:03
Miss,

Thank you for contacting customer support.

That is an error. You must register to upload to our site. Our records show
that your account was created. Some users email service blocks are email or
thinks it's spam and it's sent to the junk folder.

If you have anymore questions please feel free to contact me at this email
address.

Thank you for using FileFront.

L***
Customer Support Rep, FileFront
Ziff Davis Media Game Group
***@filefront.com
----

So... the answer appears to be 'Our site is wrong - and we think you're too stupid to have checked your junkmail folder, despite the fact you tried on several browsers and could use the word javascript in anger. And we didn't notice your questions, either'.

Sod that, I'll use YouTube, I think.

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