Thursday, December 21, 2006

Tucows NetIdentity - The Unintentional Comedy

How funny is it at Tucows NetIdentity?

It's so funny nobody even notices the company's funny name any more.

It's so funny, my sides hurt just from thinking about it. Wait, that's my wallet.

It's so funny I forgot Tulaugh.

Funniest one is Ross Rader, the man that Humor forgot. Tragically born without a sense of humor, he's the captain of the good ship Lollipop, on its way down, down, down.

WAH - HOOOOOOOOO! YAHOO0-----oooo YAHOO--- !

He's Slim Pickens, George C. Scott, and Peter Sellers, all rolled into one, then rolled downhill in a wheelchair.

Ross's just too close to the problem to see how funny it is from outside here.

Ride that bomb down, Ross.

G
o
o
o
o
d

B
y
y
y
y
y
e


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I'll give you a glimpse.

This is Ross, trying to give unnecessarily, and woefully inadequate, multi-media instruction to a herd of hungry customers, who just want their email to work, thank you very much.

Can you smell the gratitude?

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

No more BS Ross, FIX IT!

It's been since September, since I was able to use my NetIdentity email address. Three months.
To bring you up to speed, NetIdentity was bought by Tucows, who is the 5th-biggest spammer on the internet, according to SpamCop. That means that NetIdentity is now on their spam blacklist. No mail can get in or out.

Some companies would move heaven and earth to get off that spam blacklist, and communicate with their 200,000 customers, so they wouldn't worry. Not if the company is Tucows.

They've decided to stonewall this. No info goes in or out. Publicity is carefully controlled, just like in Communist China, or the old and very defunct USSR. Hey, Tucows. They tried it for 70 years, totalitarianism doesn't work.

Tucows's spin machine is working full-tilt. They've got a company blog, doncha know. It's to provide "transparency." That word must mean "opacity," in Tucows double-speak.

On the Tucows blog, for instance, all comments are censored, and offensive ones (where the customers speak the plain truth, calling Ross "incompetent," and Tucows "greedy," and they use the forbidden "r-word," you know when they ask for a "REFUND" are only up until they are noticed, and then they are deleted.

If you're on the outside, or if you read that Tucows company blog, you would think nothing was wrong, especially if you read the propaganda from Ross Rader, the cheery chipmunk who fronts as NetIdentity's General Manager, on that company blog.

When Ross isn't making publicity appearances, and taking fun office junkets to Brazil, he posts breezy statements of positive change at Tucows/NetIdentity. There have been some problems, some uphill battles, but darn it, the technical team keep making improvements, things are improving, and it all just keeps getting better and better.

Basically, his posts say customers who are unhappy their email isn't delivered, are soreheads.
Customers who post complaints are badgered, intimidated, and belittled. They are told they don't have "specific complaints," when all they want is their email to go through.

What have they got to complain about, anyway? Their complaints are heard, and Tucows has a blog, and all is being fixed, and all is well.

So well that customer service emails and phone calls go unanswered. No response at all.

You would think that a full-system email shutdown, such as is ongoing at Tucows/NetIdentity for three months now, would be cause for concern.

Apparently not, as nobody answers the blogs over the weekend, nor the phone over the weekend, and apparently everybody at Tucows goes home over the weekend.

Email service that doesn't and isn't, is not-an-emergency, not a cause for concern, and hey what do you expect for $30 / year. Mail delivery? Customer service? Courteous behavior? Respect?

It's like that Monty Python sketch.

It says "prompt photo service" on the sign.

No, that's just the name.