Slingshot Saga continues….

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So after waiting patiently for the money they owe me, I decided one more chase up through their helpdesk would be a prudent move. Well certainly glad I did. All credit to the girl who took the call. I have to admit the waiting time today was virtually nill – straight through so well done there Slingshot! Somethings are improving, shame about your exit process for cancelled accounts which are still in credit?!

So following my phone call today, it seems that the only way for Slingshot to apply a credit is to create an update to a billing “cycle” – so if your cycle was the 27th of a month, then you can’t be refunded until after this date? This seems to be a very primitive system indeed that is if the finance team are being completley truthful here. I’ll be asking for a detailed response later from the manager of Slingshot. I requested to speak to someone in the finance team, but guess what? They’ve all gone home early today!!!! Add onto that my request to speak to a supervisor – they’re ALL in a meeting.

So in order to compensate me for the constant back peddling and changing goal-posts regarding my refund they magnanamously added $25 onto what is owed, provided I am happy to wait until the billing cycle.

What a crock….

I know I won’t get anywhere by going up the chain, but I will be writing a very frank letter to the Manager of Slingshot about this. Maybe he can offer me some insight into the primitive financial model they run, which works as long as you remain a customer and as long as you are NOT in credit.

More worryingly for me in fact is that on closer inspection of the terms and conditions it seems to read that Slingshot are not required to pay any refund on termination of the contract (does not specify whether the termination is initiaited by them or me as the user) this may well be one for Fair-Go?

Why I will never use Slingshot Broadband in New Zealand ever again….

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Picture the scene….

You’re moving house – it’s hard work at the best of times, but you want to be prepared so you request your utility moves in advance giving them plenty of notice since you are to move house over Christmas….(bad timing I know!)…

So come official move in date – 4th January. Slingshot Broadband still haven’t sorted my broadband? I call them up on the 5th January to be told that they still only have skeleton staff since Christmas and that it can take at least 10 days to reconnect me – blaming the incumbant NZ Telecom etc… Poor show!

I wait patiently until the 10th January and still no broadband? As a Network Systems Engineer myself I know full well that it’s technically possible to get reconnecting within 48 hours or less… so I ring them back, this time to cancel my services completley – internet, tolls the lot…. bye bye Slingshot…. Won’t miss ya?

But wait it’s not over yet – in cancelling I am left with a credit on my account for $95.73 dollars which I am reliably informed by their helpdesk person can be refunded by their finance department the following Friday (since they only process financial claims on a Friday…??)…so I wait, giving them the benefit of the doubt, Friday arrives, but rather fatefully it turns out to be Friday 13th January 2012…..This is surely an ill omen?

After seeing a distinct lack of action from the Slingshot Broaband Finance Department I decide to ring their helpdesk, first call takes me 16 minutes to get through a wait well beyond the tollerance levels for most consumers out there, but I am determined to speak to someone. I did, only to be cut off after about 5 minutes of pulling teeth….Second attempt to call them, it takes me 26 minutes to get through so I’ve invested nearly an hour of my soul into resolving this debacle….I get through only to be informed the Finance Department have left for the day, and the helpdesk seem either unwilling or lacking in the necessary knowledge to help me any further.

Fast-Forward through the weekend to today!!

I ring Slingshot hopefully for the last time this morning, and after waiting a further 8 minutes to get through (obviously still on their skeleton crew) I am transferred to the financial team, the lovelly lady on the end of the phone, let’s call her “Rita” because that’s the name she gave me hears my story, and then informs me of two imutable facts (from her point of view):-

1) It takes 10 days to cancel my account (You’re kidding me??!!!)

2) I have to wait for the natural billing cycle of 27 days for my money back (I think not!)

Since she is unwavering in her point of view I politely raise a online helpdesk ticket (since I get a written record, reference number etc…) asking them to kindly point me at the exact terms and conditions that state I have to wait so long for my money back, and oh by the way I am seeking legal advice (always helps to mention this for some reason?)

Guess what!! I get a response back within 4 hours that says the follows:-

Hi Damian

Thank you for using Slingshot’s Online Help.

My apologies. I have re requested the credit to the correct date and requested that this be refunded to you asap. This should occur within the next 5 working days. My apologies that this was not corrected sooner.

I hope this helps to resolve your query. If it does not, please do not hesitate to reply to this email or to contact us on #############.

Kind regards,

##############
Slingshot Support Team

I have hashed certain details to protect the guilty….

Sigh….Has customer service sunk so low in this day and age? I have always worked in a customer focused capacity, even when my role no longer requires such a front facing demeaner. It saddens me when I am treated like this because I know others out there are clearly treated the same way.

So there you have it, that is why I will NEVER use Slingshot Broadband in New Zealand ever again…

Feel free to comment here if you have had similar problems with them. As the public/consumers need to be made aware so as to make an informed decision when exercising their consumer rights.

I also welcome and invite comments from anyone within the Senior Management Executive for Slingshot Broadband and to get in touch with me if they would like any further feedback. That is if they want to fix this and improve things for the future…

Happy New Year 2012!!

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Wow…doesn’t even seem like I’ve had a holiday. On Christmas Eve Rachael and I moved house (yes, again!) this time we intend to stay put for a little longer than 8 months hopefully. We didn’t finish moving fully until the 4th January 2012 and even as we speak I am waiting for the broadband to be reconnected!!!! (Slingshot customer servce leaves a lot to be desired).

In between all this excitement however we found some small amount of time to pop down to the South Island to stay with Rachael’s grandparents, Gay and Tony. During this time we met up with my sister who was in the area (sorry I couldn’t change all my plans to suit you) and took in my first harness race with Rachael’s grandparents (since they train harness race-horses) – they had two horses running in this race and one of them won! – “Kotare Roland” – it being my first harness race Gay and Tony were kind enough to let me come down to the winner’s circle with Rachael for a photo with the horse! Awesome!!

In other news I am back at work for the first time today, and trying not to get to stressed or swamped by anything. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to remember that I am only human after all. We all have limits and whilst it’s healthy to push them from time to time, it’s also healthy to understand what those limits are.

The Cisco saga continues….

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The one step forwards two steps back tango is a dance I am becoming all too familiar with, as I learn more and more about the intricate nuances of PKI in relation to certain Cisco devices. I have been struggling for some time now, to get a guest nac server to support a chained publically signed certificate – it’s still ongoing with Cisco TAC, so I will refrain from jumping on any more soap-boxes until it has been resolved, so far their instructions have completely killed the SSL functionality on the box, forcing me to backtrack slightly. Then again when I am being advised by a vendor to log into the CLI and edit the ssl.conf file to get a certificate to work on the box, does fill me with some trepidation.

In other news I’m moving house again – still in the heart of Wellington City; but one step closer to the burbs :) – Rachael is currently bevering away with the rest of the family making the place good to go for move in date which will either be Christmas Eve or Boxing Day!! we know how to choose moving dates lol!

As a part of this move I was investigating moving my telecom phone-line – I filled in the online form with the details, and they emailed me back saying yeah sure we can move your line, and keep the same number – SCORE!! *BUT* it’ll cost me $132 for the privilige? This consisted of two charges, one for an engineer visit, and a connection fee… I sent an email complaining since I am an existing customer requesting a move of an existing connection why should I be paying a connection charge? Suffice to say after some haggling this will be credited back to me, and Telecom have kept me as a customer (by the skin of their teeth)…

Will update you on how the move goes closer to the time – for now I must be gone and get back to beating my head against the Cisco wall that seems to exist here in NZ….

Fast falling out with Cisco :(

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I’m not posting here to rant but it’ll sound like that anyway so here goes….

I’m after a simple nicety. A public certificate for web-authentication on a Cisco anchor controller. It shouldn’t be rocket science and yet first of all, the address I chose – 192.0.2.1 (as opposed to the poorly chosen 1.1.1.1 in Cisco documentation) is unable to be signed by Public CA’s thanks to restrictions in policy set through IANA – apparently this address can only be used in documentation.

This address is for a “virtual” interface that is never actually routed onto a real network, it’s more of a capture mechanism within the controller itself for things like DHCP and Web Authentication/Redirection.

So I have gone for the next best thing – an RFC1918 address in the 192.168.x.x space. Got it signed by a Public CA – I even managed to bind the chained, signed cert with the private key through OpenSSL (version 0.9.8 according to Cisco’s instructions – the fact I have to use a version this specific is a worry in itself) and uploaded successfully to the wireless controller – reloaded the box and this should have been it.

So why does my controller persist in telling me on wireless device(s) that the website I am connected to, does not match my certificate? ….over to you Cisco… I await your reply. Though to date my experience of trying to do guest wireless in a best practice way is being met by a rather problematic platform. I remember the day when Cisco stuff just worked – you could rely on the fact that the code on the box was design for the purpose you chose. My doubts increase with each passing day.

I’m not saying Cisco should be a Pariah, just that I am increasingly having to lean on TAC to get things done. It’s becoming more of an uphill struggle to do some of the simplest things.

Is it me? Am I becoming more of an idiot with technology?