Today's Adventure in the Biz Opp Jungle:
'In which Charlie apologises for his absence, gets screwed over by a telecoms company, loses the internet and realises how important cyberspace has become for his home business.'
Hi
As expected, it all went wrong.
A week last Sunday I told you I was moving house. The idea was that I'd get the internet hooked up by Thursday, and be able to email you again by the weekend.
I was reasonably confident because a telecoms company promised this to me on the phone.
HA!
Their promise was as worthwhile as a canoe made of Swiss cheese.
I'm not naming any names, of course, in case I get sued for libel. But I WILL say that this is a major company with a red logo who used to flog records on Oxford Street.
Knowing I was totally reliant on the internet, I'd arranged the whole move around their promise.
I even told them that if they couldn't fulfil their promise, they should tell me right there and then, because I would have to go to another provider if not.
The truth is, without the internet I can't:
- Research opportunities online and dig up deeper information on publishers and companies.
- Read all the email newsletters, subscription services, websites and blogs that offer up the latest products, promotions, ideas and scams.
- View my OWN website, visit my forum or refer to past reviews and comments I've made.
- Read all the latest adverts and sales promotions, scour the forums for gossip, or email my contacts for insights.
- Answer my reader enquiries
- Broadcast my emails and deal with any problems that may arise.
There's no way round it. Without constant access to the internet all day, every day of the week, I can't give you the service you signed up for.
Even though I explained this... and that I needed the internet for my home business... did it bother anyone in customer services?
Nah.
Instead they suggested Victorian time travel
On the night I moved - the day before their engineer was booked - the telecoms company rang me and told me that my new address wasn't registered. That they'd no evidence of its existence.
So they were cancelling my appointment.
Worse, they told me the only way they could hook me up was to go back to the original developer of the property for permission to install the internet.
Apparently, they only knew of this place as a single property, not three flats.
Thing is, this place was developed 20 years ago. Were they telling me they had to go back that far?
Or perhaps they could go back even further... to 1885 perhaps... and talk to the person who BUILT the house in the first place.
It now seems so obvious, come to think of it.
We get a time machine, whizz back in time to the 19th century, grab the nearest property mogul by the coat tails, doff our top hats, and ask him if we can have the plans for the house, so we can install the internet.
Duh, why didn't I think of that?
Why didn't I factor this in when I hatched my crazy plan to get hooked up to the worldwide web on a Wednesday afternoon?
Another broken promise
After a lot of negotiation, they promised to send an engineer round on the Thursday, to see if there was anything they could do.
On the Thursday morning, they rang me again...
...to cancel that appointment too.
I replied with something along the lines of: "F*!?-B!!*C/?!!"
How do they get away with it?
Imagine if you bought my 'Inbox Tycoon' manual and I told you it would be delivered within a week.
Then, when you enquired after a week, I nonchalantly told you it wouldn't be arriving after all, but it wasn't my fault.
You'd rightfully get upset.
The same goes for any business opportunity. If it arrives late or doesn't deliver, or the customer service is bad, people go absolutely MAD.
"Scamster, rip-off merchant, evil doer!" cry hundreds of complainers on forums.
Yet somehow these big companies are allowed to get away with it. We allow them to blame it on the "volume" of customers, or "technical problems" beyond their control.
They're big, established corporations. They have shiny adverts on telly. They have celebrities endorsing them. The government have meetings with them. They are in bed with the mainstream press.
So they don't end up getting exposed in the "scamwatch" sections of tabloids as flaky or deceitful.
No, that kind of righteous abuse is reserved only for cottage industries.... small companies and home businesses that don't have the money to defend themselves, or pose a threat to newspaper advertising revenues.
If I was a small company or home business, and behaved like the telecoms companies do, I'd be vilified. My reputation destroyed. My personality defamed.
Ah well...
The big boys win again, I guess
The upshot is, I've got a different BIG NAME telecoms company booked for this Wednesday.
But who knows what will happen?
I hope you can be patient with me. If you've sent a query in the past two weeks, I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply, or research your requests in this week's newsletters.
If you want my opinion on something, go to my website and type the name of the product or publishing outfit into the search facility. You'll then see everything I've written on the subject in the past.
Go to:
www.bizoppjungle.com
Please don't send me any emails until next week if possible.
For the moment, I am using a cyber cafe. It's okay, but I'm paying by the hour, the internet is slow, and it's noisy. So I'd rather deal with queries properly when I've got everything set up at home.
An old fashioned idea
Saying all this, I've been doing a bit of old fashioned research today, using newspapers and the like. And I've found something really interesting for you.
An idea that could be a goldmine.
I've gone on far too long today, so I'll get you something on this by the weekend.
Sorry for the moan, but I feel better getting all this off my chest.
Now for those chips on my shoulder....
Later alligator,
Charlie Wright
The Biz Opp Jungle