End of my rope (solved)

[kasp]

EDIT This has been resolved, Craigix shop was sending emails from gp2xmobile@googlemail.com which was getting caught in the spam filter at work. I was looking for emails from openpandorasales@gmail.com which I also had on a whitelist.


I really wanted to support the Pandora project I really did.


I have been patiently waiting for my Pandora with little to no communication from the Pandora team about the status. That's fine I can sift through the forum posts and work it out. However a newsletter would be nice.


When I tried to get my initial queue position all of my emails were ignored. Oh well that's fine I guess I can wait I will get it when I get it. Oh they are releasing a premium version of the Pandora which allows people to just queue jump. I guess that's ok after all they are losing money hey I might just get a premium unit myself. Oh they aren't replying to emails that's fine I guess I will just stick with my current pre order.


So they release a 1 Ghz Pandora that sounds nice I guess I will pay for that. So after I email them I get a quick response and I pay for it. I notice everyone else has received confirmation and a queue number I guess I will send an email asking for it. Strange no reply after a week, perhaps I will send another email. Hmmmm still no reply, I posted in the 1 ghz forum about it and Craig tells me to PM him and tells me that.

I've forwarded to J, we have a lot of emails right now but it *will* be answered.

Ok great looks like I will get an answer. Another week goes by so I send Openpandora yet another email about it and also send a PM to Craig since after a response like that you would expect something to happen. Yet more than two weeks have passed and I still have been met with silence on the issue.


I have paid 800 dollars to Open Pandora for them to completely ignore me and give me false assurances that they would even confirm that they have received my payment even after Craig himself has told me that I will receive this information.


How is this behavior acceptable? Can anyone tell me if what am I asking for too much? I really don't think I am being unreasonable, I have tried to get this issue resolved with Craig and his shop multiple times but they seems completely unwilling to address this problem. Why does the community say Open Pandora has good communication? When it is clear to day to me that they do not. How many times has Craig given the bullshit line of everything is trapped in his spam folder. They use gmail this should not be an issue.


I find myself talking to people about the Pandora in a really negative light now. I used to recommend the device to people but now I find myself slagging it off,(not the device itself) mainly the wait, the communication and the uncertainty. My entire experience with the brand has been negative and I haven't even touched the device. Everyone who has seen me wait for the device and I think the latest dramas with the 1 Ghz when I tell them about it even the most curious of them who wanted to see the device are telling me to just bail out. I used to be certain that I would receive a product at the end of the wait however now I am not so sure. Not that I think they are running a scam but because their administration and paperwork seems so incompetent that I have been lost in their system.


I really know why people turn sour to this project and I am guessing I am not the only person who has experienced treatment like this.

 

[EvilDragon]

You have seen the latest newspost about the 1GHz units...?


While I can understand it's frustrating to not get replies to eMails, I can understand how that happens.


I'm currently getting about 40 eMails per day, which take quite a while to reply.


I thought I'll get some external help for replying those - but most of the time these are questions that no one else can answer unless he's deeply involved in the full process.


I'm now trying to get my colleague and girlfriend to help me out with mails, as they can ask anytime what they should reply if I'm in the same room, but believe me, the whole eMail replying process is a lot more complicated than it seems at first.


That won't help you much, but it might give you an explanation of why you haven't gotten a reply yet.


I'm trying to post the most important things on publically on the boards, so that the customer know what's going on.


Not the best solution, but better than nothing.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

A 1GHz newspost happened right now:


http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/9104-test-run-of-the-1ghz-pandoras-happens-today-2012-07-05/


Yes mails are slow to be responded.


I'm myself waiting for seven units since one month ago, i even proposed to pay in advance, so of course, as u said, this is obviously not a scam ;^).


You (and some of us) need some more patience .

 

[EvilDragon]

Yes mails are slow to be responded.


I'm myself waiting for seven units since one month ago, i even proposed to pay in advance, so of course, as u said, this is obviously not a scam ;^).

You are


Did I miss that one?


I thought I replied to all the ones from you... I can easily supply you with 7 units right away.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

It's Craig ^^. I upgraded my 1st batch to 1GHz, and as i found some customers for no-wifi units at lower costs, i wanted to do a fast one-shot, reducing shipping costs, etc...

 

[THB]

You (and some of us) need some more patience .

Or Craig could sort out his communication issues.


The Original Poster has the patience of a saint. I wish all my future customers were like him.


Read his post again, he isnt complaining about the lack of the 1Ghz pandora, just the terrible communication.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Yes, i understood what he complained about. Same for me.


I was told "in a week", then blackout ^^.


Some of my friends are already gone in vacations so i fear i finally have to buy less than 7.

 

[quartercast]

I sympathise with you kasp, I don't think it's acceptable but at the same time I'm not surprised either.


Seems like OP Ltd needs some kind of order/enquiry/support ticket system in place. This is 2012, I doubt everything has to be done manually by email using a gmail acct or using PMs.


I wonder if there is any open source software which could be used to automate things a bit.

 

[kasp]

I sympathise with you kasp, I don't think it's acceptable but at the same time I'm not surprised either.


Seems like OP Ltd needs some kind of order/enquiry/support ticket system in place. This is 2012, I doubt everything has to be done manually by email using a gmail acct or using PMs.


I wonder if there is any open source software which could be used to automate things a bit.

OTRS comes to mind. Free ticket software that is pretty easy to get going (Well providing you know linux and aren't trying to tie it into LDAP). Then you have RT (Request tracker) which is fairly difficult to get running but once you get it right it is bliss. Spiceworks is another but it is windows based has ad's and sends information to Spiceworks (nothing important or can identify but doesn't sit well with me) and it is really used to look after an entire network including monitoring and asset tracking. A lot of system admins swear by spiceworks however everyone recommending it is usually purely windows based, never seen a linux admin recommend it. Spiceworks is the easiest of all of them to setup, you could probably have it up and running in under 30 minutes.


Back to my pandora saga I think it was when I actually knew Craig had seen my issue and said it would be dealt with is what has caused me to be annoyed. I just don't like it when someone says they will do something and then don't do it.

 

[craigix]

We have emailed you, and answered your emails, this is from when you PM'ed me:





From J, on June 19th, from when you first posted about this on the forum:





I have emailed with apologies and given him the queue position 82 - so it is in the correct queue position as to when he made his payment. Just thought I should let you know.


--


I don't know what else to say, it does frustrate J and D when they see posts like this on the forum and have answered people, check your spam folder etc. there is little we can do, we use gmail as it seems to be the best service for 'getting though' but for some reason some emails still seem to vanish for some people.

 

[craigix]

Or Craig could sort out his communication issues.


The Original Poster has the patience of a saint. I wish all my future customers were like him.


Read his post again, he isnt complaining about the lack of the 1Ghz pandora, just the terrible communication.

Only as you can see we did answer him?

 

[kasp]

We have emailed you, and answered your emails, this is from when you PM'ed me:


From J, on June 19th, from when you first posted about this on the forum:


I have emailed with apologies and given him the queue position 82 - so it is in the correct queue position as to when he made his payment. Just thought I should let you know.


--


I don't know what else to say, it does frustrate J and D when they see posts like this on the forum and have answered people, check your spam folder etc. there is little we can do, we use gmail as it seems to be the best service for 'getting though' but for some reason some emails still seem to vanish for some people.

Ok so I checked our exchange server email and nothing was there in spam, bounced etc. So I then checked our smart mail host and sure enough there were 3 emails from openpandora sales in there. I do have to apologize I did jump the gun however I really wish you replied to my PM Craigix it would have stopped me going off the handle.


Now what I find strange is why your emails wound up there in the first place especially since I added you to a white list quite some time ago after seeing you complain about it. Turns out our smart mail host upgraded their interface and I am guessing something happened there. However looking at your emails there is nothing in them that would trigger a spam filter. The only thing I can think of is the address itself having sales in it. It does actually look like an email a spammer would use, which is salescompanyname@gmail hotmail etc or companynamesales@gmail hotmail etc.


All I can say is if it triggered our email spam filters which is fairly relaxed compared to most businesses it will trigger a lot of peoples in the corporate world. I guess it is lucky that I actually have access to our entire network otherwise a regular office user would never be able to find out if something is wrong. Could explain why you have an awful lot of vanishing emails.


What I really don't understand is how some of your emails came through and some didn't. I will see if I can find out more information on this and let you know however from a glance it honestly looks like it is your email address.

 

[kasp]

Ok I have worked out why I didn't see the emails when I checked and why it ignored my whitelist on openpandorasales@gmail.com


The emails are sent on behalf of openpandora from gp2xmobile@googlemail.com So I did actually search our spam filters before posting but I entered the from email address and it just didn't pick it up. Just then I used openpandora and it found some entries in the email itself. Now a lot of people I wouldn't imagine actually have access to their companies spam filters, servers or smart mail hosts so I really doubt they could ever track the emails down. After all the question we always say when someone asks if they aren't getting an email is what address is it coming from and then search the system.


Sent an email to Jacquelyn asking if they can send another email to me and hopefully it gets stuck so I can determine what exactly about it triggers our spam filter since there is nothing in the email that should. I really wish I didn't just release all three the second I saw them now. Our servers don't hold logs on spam.

 

[craigix]

I'm happy this has been solved, and we're aware it's an issue for a small % of people.


This is why we try to tell people to check all spam/junk/phishing folders.


The new website will have a better email system, and the phone number will be back!

 

[notaz]

Could it just be set up to reply from proper address, not gp2xmobile@? Sending a mail from one, then replying from another is how spammers usually operate, no wonder it triggers various filters out there.

 

[craigix]

Could it just be set up to reply from proper address, not gp2xmobile@? Sending a mail from one, then replying from another is how spammers usually operate, no wonder it triggers various filters out there.

That email address would have been the email address he originally dealt with when he first preordered, that's the only reason it's still in use - it's actually to try to let the email get through. Also, some of our emails did reach him, which is the weird part.


But as I just said ^ the new website has a better email system in place.

 

[Fzero]

Re: the posibility of using a Support Ticket method for dealing with issues, rather than getting your gmail flooded...


GameGadget, yes, that other popular open hand held, use a ticket system which seems to work, it's nice from the user side of things anyway, easy to raise and check in on your tickets, you can have multiple open etc..


It's also Open Source system


They use this one:


http://osticket.com/


Perhaps OPT could adopt something like this or this?


This is their [game gadget] one, so you can customise it to suit the theme of the [new] Open Pandora website too


http://support.gamegadget.net/

 

[craigix]

We are looking at such a system where any of us can answer emails.

 

[kasp]

I'm happy this has been solved, and we're aware it's an issue for a small % of people.


This is why we try to tell people to check all spam/junk/phishing folders.


The new website will have a better email system, and the phone number will be back!

I can tell you that the majority of users won't be able to check spam folders. For instance I gave you my work email, if I wasn't the system admin there would be no way for me to check the spam filter to resolve the issue. I would say it is is more than a small percent, like I said before our rules are fairly relaxed compared to most places. However you only hear from a small percent of people. I think I would be more worried about the amount of people you don't hear from.


I don't think it has anything to do with your email server, there was nothing suspicious in the delivery method. Your email server behaved exactly as it should have, the spam filter was triggered by something else.

 

[kasp]

We are looking at such a system where any of us can answer emails.

Well there are several systems which could accommodate you. OTRS and get it connected to your inbox. You could already set it up to automatically sort emails by the title or content to different queues. Say if warranty or RMA is mentioned you can automatically put it into the RMA ticket queue and so on for sales etc. It won't be 100% but it will save you a lot of time. As for getting anyone to respond you would set it to auto reply to sender with field update and then enter a description and get it to automatically email the description back to the user. This is what an awful lot of places do, You can set up escalation points as well to escalate things that are still open. You can also do all this with Request tracker as well but I don't have as much experience with that.


If you want to test it out I believe someone has created a Virtual application of RT, there is probably the same thing for OTRS but I haven't seen it out in the wild yet.


If you want to fork out money for one Manage engine is very good. They have a trial as well.