KaySquirrel’s Blog Thingy

Spymac Customer Service Problems!

This is for all the other people who are waiting to hear back from Spymac’s technical support department:

I received an email from Mike W Johnson yesterday, containing an invitiation to discuss some of the issues I have been having in getting technical support assistance.

While I have responded via email to Mr. Johnson directly as well, I have posted the email response I sent him below, to assure you all that you are NOT alone in your unhappiness with the substandard levels of service offered by Spymac!

Email I sent:

Hello,

Thank you for your email. It is unfortunate that I have had to go to what I consider to be rather drastic measures just to obtain a simple response from Spymac, however I do appreciate the obvious thought and consideration put into your letter. I am unfortunately working overnights for the next while, and not available via telephone during the daytime.

Since signing up for a year’s worth of paid web hosting last August, I have encountered a variety of difficulties. In each case, I have become more and more appalled at the lack of basic customer service skills displayed by the Spymac support team. Working in Tech Support myself, I can certainly understand (and forgive) that on rare occasions, an email will be accidentally misplaced, missed, or deleted in error. However, when a lack of response from a company’s support department becomes the most reliable thing about that company, this is unacceptable. I am disgusted, both as an IT industry worker, and as a consumer who works hard for the money they spend on things, that this is the sort of behaviour that has been permitted to go on at Spymac for at least the 10 months that I have been a paying customer.

Shortly after signing up, I got a SQL database connect error on my website, so I contacted the support dept. to report it, and to see what could be done about it. Right away, I was disappointed that there wasn’t even a courtesy auto-responder setup for the support department, to at least acknowledge my email to them. (The reason for this became more clear to me once I discovered that the auto-responder for my own Spymac account would either not work at all, or send out a completely blank email, no matter what text had actually been entered as an autoresponse message!)

After a week passed, and my email had not been answered, or its receipt even acknowledged in some way, I simply assumed that it had been missed, or deleted by accident, or something of the sort. I hoped it was a one-off, and and so simply resent my email. Another few days, and still no answer. It was either my 3rd or 4th request — and having to put “SQL CONNECT ERROR ISSUE THAT YOU KEEP IGNORING!!!” in the subject line — that finally prompted the support dept. to send me an email back. The response was something akin to “We are not ignoring you, the problem is still being worked on, and should be resolved shortly.”

1.) A paying customer should not have to purposely type like a rabid psychotic in an email subject line in order to illicit a response from a company’s support department. I have noted, however, that this level of communication, and email technique, seem to be the only effective way to guarantee a response from Spymac. Having my perfectly reasonable requests for help have go unanswered, yet receiving an email from you only after I’d posted on the Support Forums, and emailed Spymac’s technical support, corporate, sales, and partnership departments, and some of its advertising partners? I am forced to debate the odds of this being entirely coincidental.

2.) Not responding to a client = ignoring them. Not acceptable. While it was nice to find out that the issue was being worked on, the manner in which the support representative responded was, in a word, pathetic. It’s like a restaurant waiter giving you a blank look and walking away after you place your meal order. Have they heard you? Are they going to get the chef to prepare you the meal you want? Do they have some kind of severe mental deficiency that prevents them from communicating with other human beings? Do they even work there?

On March 22, 2005, Spymac lost my payment information somehow. Apparently the contact information on file for me was invalid, and when the support department was unable to reach me, they shut the site down. While the loss of credit card information on file is worrisome, the fact that they shut the site down so that I would notice, and contact them about it was an understandable method of trying to get my attention, given the circumstance. When I telephoned support, however, and spoke with Jaime, he confirmed that the email address listed on my file was the very same one I’d used to email them to ask why the site was down.. Which does not inspire confidence in a company, at all.

On Mar 22, 2005, at 12:18 PM, I emailed Spymac Support:

Hello,
My username is spy1u744
When trying to access my website at [my domain name] I get a message saying:
The domain “[my domain name]” is not available.
I noticed this issue at about 13:00 EST today, and it is still not up.
I’m also not able to login to the account at http://hosting.spymac.com/poplogin/ to check my webmail, after entering the username spy1u744p1 and the password, all I get is an “access denied” page.
Please look into this, and advise when everything is back up and running.

Thank you

~ [my name]

Their reply:

From : Spymac Tech Support
Sent : March 22, 2005 2:34:10 PM
To : [me]
Subject : Re: Paid Hosting Support Request - user spy1u744

Hi,
We were trying to contact you in regards to a situation in which credit card details were not saved in our system, therefore we have no payment information on file for the automatic renewal of your account. We were unable to get a hold of you, so unfortunately, the only option was to shut down your site in hopes that you would get a hold of us.
If your account has been paid for one year, we will get the site up as soon as possible. If you are not on the yearly plan, we will need new information right away.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your attention to this matter.
If you require further assistance, please let us know.
Jaime
Senior Technical Support
techsupport@spymac.com

Why is there no contact telephone number listed in the representative’s signature? Especially when notifying someone that new credit card information may be necessary, it should be basic common sense to provide a client with the option to provide that information via telephone, should they wish. Why is it that someone working in technical support would not acknowledge that email is not the most secure way to transmit sensitive information, like a credit card number?

Then, a mere 7 days later, one of the most disappointing occurrences in my dealings with Spymac:

The entire email correspondence history is below, from oldest to most recent. The 4th, and last, email is of particular interest.

Email 1 - from Me to Spymac

From : [my email address]
Sent : March 28, 2005 5:23:00 PM
To : staff@spymac.com , techsupport@spymac.com , hostmaster@spymac.net
CC : [my email address]
Subject : PAID HOSTING SUPPORT REQUEST - WHOIS lookup info is inaccurate
Hello,

In light of your recent refusal to use your daily backups to assist a paying customer, please be advised of the following:

1) Some hosting companies will assist their customers in such a manner. http://www.rochenhost.com/ (http://forums.rochen.com/showthread.php?t=3004 ) is but one example of this.

2) You need to update our account information as follows, so as not to delay things when we transfer our domain name elsewhere:

Username: spy1u744
Domain: [my domain name]

SpyMac’s Hosting Accoun
t Information shows the following:

General information
User data
Name
[my name]
Address
[my address]
ZIP & City
[my postal code and city]
Telephone
1 733 0
E-mail addresses
[my email address]
Comment
invalid address
Service overview
Username
spy1u744
Domain(s)
[my domain name]

In order for domain name transfers to take place without delay, correct information must be listed in the WHOIS registry.

You seem to have the right email address on file for us, but a WHOIS lookup at https://www.gkg.net/whois/ generates old information, that is no longer valid:

Whois Results Response for query: “[my domain name” %
% =============
% PSI-USA, Inc.
% =============
%
% This is the PSI-USA, Inc. WHOIS server.
%
% All requests are logged.
%
% Requesting IP: 216.217.56.2
% Requesting URL: http://whois.psi-usa.info
% Requesting Object: domain [my domain name]
% Timestamp: 2005-03-28 23:36:26
%
% You can see the policy that you agree by submitting a query to this server:
% whois -h whois.psi-usa.info POLICY

domain: [my domain name]
status: LOCK
owner-c: LULU-482608
admin-c: LULU-482608
tech-c: LULU-456402
zone-c: LULU-456402
nserver: ns1.spymacdns.com
nserver: ns2.spymacdns.com
created: 2004-08-21 19:11:15
expire: 2005-08-21 19:11:15 (registry time)
changed: 2005-03-15 22:41:30

[owner-c] handle: 482608
[owner-c] type: PERSON
[owner-c] title:
[owner-c] fname: [my first name]
[owner-c] lname: [my last name]
[owner-c] org:
[owner-c] address: none
[owner-c] city: [my city]
[owner-c] pcode: [my postal code]
[owner-c] country: CA
[owner-c] state: CA
[owner-c] phone: +1-733-0
[owner-c] fax: +49-000-000
[owner-c] email: [my old email address]
[owner-c] protection: B
[owner-c] updated: 2005-03-14 13:27:02

[admin-c] handle: 482608
[admin-c] type: PERSON
[admin-c] title:
[admin-c] fname: [my first name]
[admin-c] lname: [my last name]
[admin-c] org:
[admin-c] address: none
[admin-c] city: [my city]
[admin-c] pcode: [my postal code]
[admin-c] country: CA
[admin-c] state: CA
[admin-c] phone: +1-733-0
[admin-c] fax: +49-000-000
[admin-c] email: [my old email address]
[admin-c] protection: B
[admin-c] updated: 2005-03-14 13:27:02

[tech-c] handle: 456402
[tech-c] type: ROLE
[tech-c] title:
[tech-c] fname: Hostmaster
[tech-c] lname: of the Day
[tech-c] org: Spymac Network, Inc.
[tech-c] address: Empire State Building
[tech-c] address: 350 5th Avenue
[tech-c] address: Suite 3304
[tech-c] city: New York
[tech-c] pcode: 10118
[tech-c] country: US
[tech-c] state: NY
[tech-c] phone: +1-866-5779622
[tech-c] fax: +1-800-6897680
[tech-c] email: hostmaster@spymac.net
[tech-c] protection: A
[tech-c] updated: 2005-03-02 16:23:59

[zone-c] handle: 456402
[zone-c] type: ROLE
[zone-c] title:
[zone-c] fname: Hostmaster
[zone-c] lname: of the Day
[zone-c] org: Spymac Network, Inc.
[zone-c] address: Empire State Building
[zone-c] address: 350 5th Avenue
[zone-c] address: Suite 3304
[zone-c] city: New York
[zone-c] pcode: 10118
[zone-c] country: US
[zone-c] state: NY
[zone-c] phone: +1-866-5779622
[zone-c] fax: +1-800-6897680
[zone-c] email: hostmaster@spymac.net
[zone-c] protection: A
[zone-c] updated: 2005-03-02 16:23:59

>From: [my old email address]
>Subject: Paid Hosting Account Information Update
>Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 18:04:58 -0500 (EST)
>
>Please be advised that effective immediately, the
>contact email address for [my domain name]
>(Username spy1u744) should be changed to
>[my email address]
>
>Regards,
>
>~ [my name]

I contacted SpyMac on February 9th, 2005 to update email address information, and despite this, the information in WHOIS lookups is still wrong — AND when SpyMac recently needed to contact me with regards to credit card information, your representative said that the email address listed for me was wrong?? (Although when I called in later, he confirmed that that was the address listed on file, and SAW that I had written to SpyMac from that very same address not 10 minutes beforehand.)

Kindly update the information as described below, and ensure that this information is transmit correctly to the WHOIS registry , so that when we initiate a domain name transfer — as we would prefer not to remain with SpyMac any longer — there will be no delay caused by inaccurate record-keeping on your end.

Address
[my address]
Telephone
[my telephone number]
E-mail addresses
[my email address]

We will contact you when we want the domain unlocked for transfer — do not unlock this yet.

I have already contacted GKG to report the inaccurate information in their WHOIS record, and have provided them with SpyMac’s contact information, so that they can contact you directly should they need to do so.

Regards,

~ [my name]

Email 2 - From Spymac to Me

From : Spymac Tech Support
Sent : March 28, 2005 6:00:54 PM
To : [my email address]
Subject : Re: PAID HOSTING SUPPORT REQUEST - WHOIS lookup info is inaccurate

Hi,
We have submitted the change, and it should be visible on the whois server in 24 to 48 hours.
If you require further assistance, please let us know.
Jaime
Senior Technical Support
techsupport@spymac.com

Email 3 - From Me to Spymac

From : [my email address]
Sent : March 29, 2005 1:57:15 AM
To : techsupport@spymac.com
CC : [my email address]
Subject : Re: PAID HOSTING SUPPORT REQUEST - WHOIS lookup info is inaccurate

Hello,

Once logged into our account spy1u744, under Overview, we still show the following:

General information
User data
Name [my name]
Address [my address]
ZIP & City [my postal code and city]
Telephone 1 733 0
E-mail addresses [my email address]
Comment invalid address

I understand that it will take up to 48 hours for the WHOIS registry to update. It seems odd if we’ll have to wait up to 48 hours for SpyMac’s own internal information to be changed, as well. Please confirm that this is indeed the case.

Considering the issues we’ve had thus far with getting the WHOIS updated to reflect accurate information, you will understand why I want to clarify when we can expect the “General Information” section to reflect current information, too.

Thank you,

~ [my name]

Email 4 - From Spymac to Me:

Tech Support
Sent : March 29, 2005 9:09:42 AM
To : [my email address]
Subject : Re: PAID HOSTING SUPPORT REQUEST - WHOIS lookup info is inaccurate

Hello,

You had only requested a change in the WHOIS information. Our internal information is used for just that, so it’s relevance is questionable. However, I have made the changes.

-Jason
Spymac Tech Support

7 days after my site gets shut down for no other reason than because Spymac has invalid contact information listed for me in their internal client file.. I get told that their internal information is not relevant?!

There are no words to describe a statement of this nature. First of all, internal information only or not, the fact that a client is trying to ensure that accurate information is listed in their file is entirely relevant, and always will be. He would have seen further proof of its relevance had he actually read the en
tire email history, and seen the difficulties I had run into only one week earlier, when Spymac needed to use their own, internal, “irrelevant” information to try to get in contact with me.

While the issues detailed above are the most serious cases of Spymac’s support department dropping the ball, they are by no means the only examples of a disregard for providing at the very least, an acknowledgment of a client’s request for assistance. When my site’s database had been deleted because of a botched backup job on my part, I emailed a request asking if the ‘daily backups’ provided as part of the service contract could be made available to me, so that I could restore my site to the way it was before I broke it. I think it was a reasonable request, that a 1st level technical support/customer service representative should know the answer to right away. At the very least, an email response of ‘We’ll check into this, and give you an answer as soon as possible.’ would have been an attempt! In what has become known as “typical Spymac fashion”, I received no response to my first query. Predictably, my post on the Spymac support forums trying to get assistance there was also ignored. Only after repeated pleas for an answer, either way, was I told that no, daily backups would not be made available to me.

It would be an oversight if I did not also mention the occasion where repeated emails to Spymac support were necessary so that I could find out if disabling PHP safe mode would be a possibility for my site. Again, all I was trying to get was a yes or no answer.. and even the no I finally received took days, and many emails in to support. Why has then been allowed to become the norm when it comes to the level of customer support provided?

Lastly, as a final kick in the head, I wasn’t even able to get an acknowledgment that the support department had received my request to unlock my domain for transfer. I emailed the request this past Sunday evening, so that they would receive it upon their return to the office on Monday. One would think that they would have at least responded back with an email confirming receipt of my request, and perhaps telling me that they were processing the request, or something of the sort! I received no such response on Monday. On Tuesday, there was no response, either, and this prompted my support forum posts, and various emails to departments within Spymac, as well as to a few of its advertising partners. Why it is necessary to have to resort to these kind of measures, simply to get things done? Why is it so very difficult for your customer service representatives to actually communicate with your customers?

On Tuesday evening — and still without any indication that the support department had received, or were going to work on, my request to unlock my domain for transfer to a better hosting provider — I noticed that I had been locked out of both my account’s hosting tools page, and all email accounts associated with my paid service! Was this because they were unlocking the domain, and authorizing it for transfer? Had they decided to lock me out of my account because I dared to ask for service? What was going on with the service I had paid for? Why was I having to guess as to what was happening? Shouldn’t a support department be provided with some form of training on how to deal with customer requests? Wouldn’t a competent and professional, support department have acknowledged, and kept me up to date about the status of, any and all account administration requests? These, and all other questions about whether Spymac is a well-run web hosting service, and deserving of the money paid to them can only be answered with a resounding no.

I trust that the information provided above will be very useful in documenting, and working to resolve, Spymac’s many issues. Because of all these issues, and 10 months’ worth of proof that things at Spymac are not looking up, or even coming close, I have chosen to discontinue my paid web hosting with your company. I would appreciate if you would escalate this issue to the appropriate department to ensure that the money I have wasted is refunded to me. As you can see, I am very willing to share my experiences with Spymac with those who would listen. Especially since I have now compiled this email documenting Spymac’s many failings, and can share it with whoever inquires as to why I was dissatisfied with the company. I feel that Spymac has, on a consistent basis, refused to provide me with the service and support that I have paid for. I will be investigating every option that may be available to me as a consumer, and I would appreciate it if you could look into what options you can find internally within Spymac, to compensate me for this waste of my time and money.

Thank you,

[my name]
Ex-Spymac user # spy1u744
[my email address]