ShopTech EM2
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If the issue is that you can't directly contact them and talk to a human, Jared wins.
If the issue is that they don't respond well to tickets and need to be contacted directly (voice call), Scott wins.
If the issue is that you can't access their website from 3rd world counties, everyone wins.
Stop trying to contact US businesses from 3rd world countries. Problem solved.
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@scottalanmiller My issue with your approach is that you had a problem and jumped directly to this absurd conclusion that the company was out of business. If you had bothered to actually directly call them that day in addition to the other means of contact you attempted, you would have not had this days long lack of contact problem with the other means of contact.
Yes, the company is the one at fault for having poor controls in place on their website.
Yes, the company is the one at fault for having poor controls in place to monitor feedback on their social media channels.
Yes, the company is the one at fault for having poor controls in place to reply more quickly to emails.None of that negates the fact that you did not use a basic communication method that was at your disposal to contact them.
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@art_of_shred said:
If the issue is that you can't directly contact them and talk to a human, Jared wins.
If the issue is that they don't respond well to tickets and need to be contacted directly (voice call), Scott wins.
If the issue is that you can't access their website from 3rd world counties, everyone wins.
Stop trying to contact US businesses from 3rd world countries. Problem solved.
Next?The issue is.... trying to determine what kind of company they are, what condition they are in, if they respond to tickets, if they are in business, if they are viable....
This is IT research for customers. It's not about coddling vendors and defending vendors, it is determining exactly what condition a vendor is in after discovering that they have an issue with their web page that was enough to question if things were healthy.
I've had vendors have phones directly to someone at a house before who would claim that the business was still around but it was not. They wanted to make sales even though no one was working there anymore. If you work hard enough you can generally get someone to respond. The question is... is there someone actively checking tickets, support channels, etc.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller My issue with your approach is that you had a problem and jumped directly to this absurd conclusion that the company was out of business.
When did I jump to this? Only after many days of no contact. I originally only felt that they looked out of business to potential customers who are not technical and would have no idea how to track them down. It was only later after not responding to anything and having their channels go dead that I started to question their actual status.
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@JaredBusch said:
If you had bothered to actually directly call them that day in addition to the other means of contact you attempted, you would have not had this days long lack of contact problem with the other means of contact.
But getting a gauge on the response time of the only "official" channels provided (you can't claim Google cache that they tried to hide is official, they've even implied that blocking me from that info was intentional) was the goal once their official website info was blocked. Reaching someone "by any means" was not a goal.
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@JaredBusch said:
None of that negates the fact that you did not use a basic communication method that was at your disposal to contact them.
To be clear, I used five basic methods. I used them in the order that they were officially provided by the vendor. I went...
- To the official website which provided no additional info as to contact.
- To their public social media feeds that were not restricted to me
- Their corporate Twitter direct contact (an email system)
- Their product Twitter direct contact (an email system)
- Their Facebook IM (direct IM system)
- Their public Twitter corporate
- Their public Twitter product
- The Facebook feed public
- Direct email through the primary method provided by them through Google cache
Additionally I went the unofficial route of posting in a public forum and letting them know about it so that they would have that mode as well if they so chose.
Saying that I skipped a basic means to contact them makes it sound like I didn't follow many basic methods and not in the order as would be reasonably deemed as "official" as possible given that they specifically restrict email and telephone info from me AND the email is global but their phone number is not.
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I'm getting a call back from them.
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From Mexico I get the CloudFlare security check and then get properly redirected to their homepage.
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A few things we have learned thus far from speaking with them:
- They are aware that they are blocking some regions.
- They are not aware where they are blocking and thought that I could not be where I am.
- The Google cached contact info is not the primary channel. Don't know if it works or not yet, but it is not the right info for email at least.
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@Romo said:
From Mexico I get the CloudFlare security check and then get properly redirected to their homepage.
Yup, according to their guy inside, it is supposed to be open for North America. And the US always considers North America to include all the way to the Columbia border. So that I am blocked is not intentional according to what I've been told thus far.
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@scottalanmiller said:
A few things we have learned thus far from speaking with them:
- They are aware that they are blocking some regions.
- They are not aware where they are blocking and thought that I could not be where I am.
- The Google cached contact info is not the primary channel. Don't know if it works or not yet, but it is not the right info for email at least.
Is it really possible to block something and not know what you are blocking??
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@Romo said:
Is it really possible to block something and not know what you are blocking??
LOL. Easier than you would think.
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They've reached out to me via phone now and we are having a good conversation right now.
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They are actually very positive about the feedback that I've gathered and looking into who is blocked and how they are blocked and how to change that to make more sense. It's a great discussion going on.
