ekebodesign blog

(only in English, endast på engelska, vain englanniksi)

These are a few of my recent experiences with suppliers of IT services and equipment:

Telia-Sonera

When I started my business, I had a landline telephone only, and therefore a telephone modem for the Internet. The Internet and email supplier was Sonera, the former Finnish Telecom, now Telia-Sonera. Once the email was impossible to access, and calling to Sonera’s help desk caused hours of waiting on the phone. The message was a blunt “No, we haven’t noticed anything, no one else has complained, the problem must be in your equipment or skills”. Well, I am an electronics engineer with a university degree (M.Sc.), so I didn’t believe them.

All of my company’s jobs came to me and went out using email, so I was really concerned. I started to call my customers (hoping there weren’t new ones getting irritated of my not answering their messages), only to hear they don’t believe me, I must be lying. Several weeks later the main TV and radio news said that Sonera was experiencing massive problems with their email servers being blacklisted and shut off from the Internet. On my part, the problems lasted six weeks, with no work getting in or out. Imagine what that cost the business, no revenue for two months!!! Then old messages, up to two weeks old, started dripping in. Many were totally lost in cyberspace. I know, because I belong to many Yahoo groups and could see from the numbers on the digests which ones were missing.

I contacted Sonera’s management and all I got was one month’s email fee, 3.5 euros, around 5 dollars, compensated. Later a law was made that operators must compensate a fixed fee for n days of non-accessibility, which is substantially higher than what I got.

When my local phone company built the broadband network into my village, I switched over to them and have stayed there. There’s only been one little glitch during the 3.5 years. Sonera, on the other hand, has had trouble after trouble after trouble, all the time. Now they are moving their email servers back to Finland after having them in Sweden for some time.

I have told everyone who think about using Sonera for their broadband services to not use them. Even if Sonera is cheaper than the alternative provider.

Last Thursday, I spent all evening sorting out a friend’s computer after Sonera’s network update. She had called their helpdesk and heard that the network is OK.

What I saw was this: Firefox and Thunderbird were blocked by the firewall, Zone Alarm. Four red crosses for both programs. The computer had been switched on during the network update. The owner has been mostly away from home, because she both works and studies. She’s computer illiterate, so she would never attempt to do anything to the software, except update OK when the updater suggests that.

There were no viruses or malware in the computer.

The only thing that was correctly updated was the virus shield, Avast. But there was a software update not done on that one too.

I had to remove and manually reinstall 8-10 programs and manually remove the block from Zone Alarm.

Now Sonera has made calls to their customer service liable to charges, and want the customer to figure out their connection problems using Sonera’s web site. How can you do that if your web access doesn’t work???

They have this assistant software to download, but you’d better do it as long as your web access works

2 of the 3 links to download didn’t work on Sonera’s web site!

Lesson learned: Do not use Telia-Sonera as your broadband operator.

Pixmania

My desktop computer broke down last June. I had earlier bought some extra RAM for it to make it quicker, and it worked like a dream for more than a year after that. But then strange things started to happen. Accidental shutdowns, strange behavior, freezing. I thought I had a hard disk problem, so I bought a new, much bigger one. I installed it, and Windows, but the strange behavior continued. I came to the conclusion that this is a power unit problem. I opened the computer again, and looked at the power source. 250 watts, no wonder, it didn’t last. I checked that this is a standard ATX computer, so I bought myself a new, good-looking 380 watt supply instead from Antec. The original was made by Delta, but they sell only to manufacturers. Standard, yes, but the new supply was wrong. When I put it in, there was no picture! I asked a pro about it, but he didn’t understand the problem, just told me to put the old supply back and check if there’s a picture.

My work had already piled up and I had to have a working computer, so I went and bought my company a laptop from Acer. Installing all the software I had had on the desktop and also huge amounts of data (from my external hard drive – thank God for that!) took some time, and I had to put the desktop aside for a long time.

In March, I had the time to check out the power issue again. It turns out that there have been several ATX standards during the years, and my desktop was built in 2002. There’s a 20-pin connector on the motherboard, with pin 18 in use. The old power unit has a white lead going there, and from the standard I saw that it’s -5 V. Some web sites say it’s optional. The new power source had an empty pin 18. It actually had 20+4 pins, but there’s no 4-pin connector on my motherboard. I came to the conclusion that it’s an old power unit I should be looking for, and probably a cheap one (because it’s old).

I found a cheap one, 17 euros, from Pixmania. They have a Finnish web shop, but the company seems to be French. Some of the Finnish seems to be machine translated with French sentence logic, making it double dutch in Finnish. Right, I ordered the 17 euro thing. After all, the specification on the web said that it has a -5 volt output. On the order there appeared extra lines with some sort of return service, which is normally free and regulatory in Finland. 10.5 % on top of the item price, and no way of removing it. Later they thanked me for choosing it! The total cost was 17 + 1.78 + 12.9 euros = 31.68 euros. The order date was March 7, and I paid it immediately using bank transfer.

They sent an order confirmation, and on March 11 an email about the delivery and a tracking code with a link to the Finnish post. The link gave an Error 500 and the code wasn’t a code from the Finnish post. No clue as to where it was sent from (afterwards I think it came from Denmark). I sent them an email stating the information is incorrect and asking for a correct one. No answer.

I received the packet on March 18. A quick check on the power unit plate made me aware that this isn’t the same product that’s on their website and that I bought. I immediately notified them that the product I received is different from the one on their web site. They sent me two pdf’s with return codes and return info. They said I must put the original invoice into the packet. I asked where I can find that, since there was no invoice in the packet. I printed out an invoice from their web site instead, since they didn’t answer me and the return time was running out. There was the Easter holiday and work on my company’s end of Fiscal Year too, so I sent the packet out on March 28, more than two weeks ago. All Finnish web shops of this size have an agreement with the Finnish post about customer returns free for the customer, but Pixmania doesn’t have, so I had to pay for the return, 7.9 euro, and fax them the receipt. I did that the same day.

On their web site they state that their customers get their money back within 15 days of return. Well, it’s now 16 days and no one has sent me a message that they’ve received the packet. The address was to a cargo company in Helsinki, where it’s probably shipped to some other country.

I also asked if I could replace this with some other of their power supplies. No, they said, I have to place a separate order. I asked them which one of their supplies has the -5 V present, because there’s no way I can know if the data in their web shop is correct. No answer.

I went back to their web site. Now it says you can only replace on order with other stuff from their web site with the return money??? My account doesn’t show this power supply order at all in my order history, but no refund either!

As my company made this purchase, there’s no consumer protection available.

Lesson learned: never buy from Pixmania.

Tietoasema

As I was desperate to get the desktop running, I searched the Internet for advice. I found a Finnish discussion “stupid questions about computers” where someone had found an adapter 24 to 20 pin ATX. The documentation in the web shop was non-existent, but in my desperation and in the wee hours, I ordered the item. 8 euros for delivery. The same for the adapter. I got it from the post office and … they sent a 33 gram item in a packet, payment up to 2 kg, loads of brown paper. I first thought the packet was empty, until I found the little gadget, two connectors with wiring in between. Oh yes, the white lead was there, but that doesn’t help if there’s no -5 volt present in the first place! They could have sent it in a padded letter for .7 euros, but apparently thinking is forbidden in this company.

Lesson learned: check the delivery policy on small items before ordering, and order when you are properly awake.

Buying from web shops far away from you

I live in the countryside. The nearest IT shops are 30 to 40 kilometers away, open during office hours, when I’m tied to my work. Okay, the local phone company has a shop 11 km away, but I’d like some competition.

My old cell/mobile phone totally died in September 2006. It was an old Nokia business phone that had served me faithfully for 8 years. That’s why I wanted a Nokia again. I did some extensive search and comparation of models and prices, and chose the N70 for my company. The local phone store didn’t have it. I bought one from a web shop in Salo, around 100 km away.

Some time ago, the phone silently died on my kitchen table. A check on the seller’s web site gave me that Nokia has arranged its own service and that I could look for an authorized repair shop on the Nokia web page. So I did, and the nearest one was Teleässä 35 km away. They had moved, so I had to drive around for a while.

Yes, they took the phone, warranty still valid, but they wouldn’t lend me an old one, because I hadn’t bought the phone from them. They also sell phones, so they probably saw me as a potential new customer. Then they asked for a phone number to call when the repair is done. I gave my landline number, but the guy said they don’t call landline numbers, don’t you have a mobile/cell phone number? I said the only cell phone is in your hands, totally dead. He told me to call them three days later. The phone had to be reset and updated, but as I needed to be available all the time, I went to another store to buy a new, cheap Nokia for myself. I didn’t want to support a shop with such arrogant customer service.

Lesson learned: try to find a web shop that has its own warranty repair or go to a friendly brick and mortar store.

I just listened to a radio program where the lawyer of the Finnish consumer protection agency said that businesses strive to not conform to national legislation and state on their web sites and in their ads terms that are not in accordance with the law. Even if the authorities tell the businesses what to do, they won’t do it. That’s why everyone has to tell about their experiences, not hide the faulty goods under their beds and feel ashamed of their misfortune (alas, the Finns really tend to do that and the businesses know it).