Skype misleading their customers…

Posted on Jul 29, 2009 in Other | 4 comments


skype_oopsOK, so this is pretty unrelated to websites, but it must be said. Like many people, I use skype on almost a daily basis. The quality of calls is good and the features it packs are enough to get me by.

However, things change when it comes to the paid service. Who would have thought things stop working once you actually pay?

Last week, I bought an online number and tried to assign it to myself within the business panel. To my surprise, after buying this number I discover that I can’t assign it to my account, as my account details say “You cannot assign online numbers to this member”. Hmm…. thanks for warning me before I bought it!

UPDATE : Some users have received completely different replies from skype to mine, claiming that this is a policy change and that online numbers now can’t be assigned to users accounts not created via the control panel. I can see what they were thinking when they decided this, but it’s completely retarded that they don’t warn or consider regular users of their service, who signed up with their own accounts and now have to change they way they work completely if they want online numbers! Have a look at the Get Satisfaction Thread

To add insult to injury, the form they provided for people to create accounts the way they want – via the control panel – doesn’t even work!

I finally got a reply from skype. The usual template apology and a refund. Given the time wasted and inconvenience caused, it doesn’t make the cut for me,  but considering the response rate I get, I’m not going to waste any more of my time. I just won’t use the business panel seriously any more…. oh well.

So, I send Skype an email:

I just ordered an online number, yet I can’t allocate it to my skype accont called -.

Why is this so? I have credit that I want to use, if you can’t let me assign a number via business, then I request you transfer the credit to my personal skype account, -.

Not an unreasonable request…. fix it or do something about it. Any company worth buying services from should accept responsability for their mistakes. Here’s the reply I received two days later:

Thank you for contacting Skype Support.
We are sorry for the difficulty to allocate an online number to a member
of your Business Control Panel.
We are aware of this problem and are working hard on fixing it as soon
as possible.
We apologize for the inconvenience that this may cause.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to change online number (SkypeIn) to
Skype Credit directly.
We will pass on the feature that you are requesting to our development
team for consideration to potentially be included in a future release.
Thank you for your feedback!

Thank you for contacting Skype Support.

We are sorry for the difficulty to allocate an online number to a member of your Business Control Panel.

We are aware of this problem and are working hard on fixing it as soon as possible.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this may cause.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to change online number (SkypeIn) to Skype Credit directly.

We will pass on the feature that you are requesting to our development team for consideration to potentially be included in a future release.

Thank you for your feedback!

So…. as you can see, very generic, not helpful at all and basically I’ve been told to patiently wait for a time-expiring service I paid for to start working, cutting into my subscription in the meantime. Notice here that I’m not offered ANY solutions, no refund or anything.

I do a little further investigation and find that Skype has a status notification website, heartbeat.skype.com. On that page, everything is working fine, yet the first post is over two weeks old and acknowledges the exact problem I’m having!
skype_heartbeat

I notice I’m not the only one either. Get Satisfaction has a problem with growing number of concerned users.

So, I wait about a week and notice they haven’t done SQUAT to remedy this. No updates, nothing! I write another email:

I would like a refund for my online number bought last week. Its the only number (unused) on my business area for account netweblogic . You have still not resolved the issue of assigning numbers on the business panel so I’d like my money back.

To my further annoyance, I’ve received no reply… this was sent three days ago. It’s a shame that companies like this can show such poor organization, and frankly it’s scary. So I propose you and I do something about it. Retweet this article or point people to the get satisfaction problem, if we don’t keep them in check, who will?