Blue Note Blog

When I finished writing my last rant, I went to call Sprint again to see if their computer was working. Again I heard the broken recording. When I was transferred to a CSR (<1 minute hold time, by the way) she was most helpful in getting things back to rights. Apparently last month the CSR did not set up my account for automatic payment, she cancelled the automatic payment that was set up…I’m confused. Regardless, Mary told me everything was cool and after another billng cycle the automatic payment would resume. I’m not holding my breath.

I went back to the 1200 character input form to send Sprint a message. Here is the message I sent:

I tried to send this message previously but was blocked - it’s
over 1200 characters. Since I see no other way to email you, I have
posted the message on my website. You can read it here:
http://www.bluenoteweb.com/chris/blog/?p=14

This “send an email” page looks terrible in FireFox, and your javascript
counter is broken. You need to have a sit-down with your web dev
people. Here’s the error message that shows up in my javascript console
once for each character I type:
Error: document.SendMail has no properties
Source File: https://manage.sprintpcs.com/Manage/myportal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_37LL?cID=6_4_37&nID=7_0_37JM
Line: 460

I received an email reply just a few minutes ago. Here’s what Sprint has to say:

Thank you for contacting Sprint together with Nextel.

It is not possible to send the Text Message which contains 1200
characters in single go.

You can send maximum of 160 character length Text Message from your PCS
Phone.

Please let me know if you need any further assistance. We are always
here for you.

Have a good day!

Vinny
Business E-Care
Sprint together with Nextel
“Where our customers come first!”

Vinny apparently does not speak English as his first language. The phone CSRs normally are very correct in their grammar and sound like normal Americans - not so much here. But really, that’s not relevant…what is relevant is that Vinny’s reply has nothing to do with my original message. I give up.

To the fine folks at Sprint PCS:
I tried to find a way to send you an email on your website, but could only find the “send us a message” form that is limited to 1200 characters. The initial message I wanted to send was not much more than that, but I could not find any other way to contact you except the customer support line. I’ve told the CSRs most of this and they apparently don’t have the knowledge or authority to do anything about it. Now I’m annoyed. My quick message about a minor inconvenience has become a full-on rant. If you’re looking for the original message I wanted to send you, see the bottom of this post.

I’ve used Sprint cellphones for over 5 years now. I first signed on with them back in 2000. For a few months I had a Verizon phone, but eventually switched back. The network coverage has been great. I’ve traveled across the country to see family in Florida and Ohio, around southeast Texas on a recent deployment and all around the DFW metroplex and nearly always had a signal. The only time I’ve been without a connection for an extended period was for a friend’s wedding in rural (make that RURAL) Indiana. I make use of my Treo’s internet services for all kinds of things, including managing my web servers when I can’t get to my desk. 99% of the time I’m very happy with it.

The customer service could use some help, however. In the 5 years I’ve had Sprint, I’ve been through several changes. I switched my phone number from 817 to 940 when I moved to Denton for school. I’ve changed plans pretty often to keep the best deal. When Karla and I got married, we combined our separate Sprint plans into a family plan. I’ve upgraded from very simple internet service on an older phone through several revisions and now to Vision service on the Treo. Every time something changes, I have to call Sprint and get them to fix my bill. It’s really getting old. A brief overview:

-When I moved to Denton and switched phone numbers, I received a phone bill with a cancellation fee for my old account and an activation fee for my new account, despite the CSR’s guarantee that there would be no fees involved - I was still the same person, on the same plan, with the same phone, I had just relocated and wanted a local number. My memory is a bit fuzzy (that was 4+ years ago) but it seems I had to call them about that at least two months in a row.

-When I came back to Sprint from Verizon I had a limit on my account - if my balance was more than a particular dollar amount, I had to pay it right then or my service was cut off. I worked as a warehouse manager at the time and carried a company cellphone. Several times I received phone calls from my significant other on the company line to tell me that my personal cellphone was disconnected. A few times this was because I had gone over my minutes and Sprint’s autopay system had not yet taken the payment from my account. There were several occasions when Sprint simply failed to take their monthly payment from my bank account. My bank offers “bounce free checking” - even if the account did not have enough to cover the bill (which it did - the warehouse gig paid well) Sprint would have gotten their money. I tried several times to get that limit removed or at least increased but was unsuccessful.

-Shortly after Karla and I married, we went to a Sprint store to add “free sprint-to-sprint” onto our plan so we could call each other without eating minutes. The person at the store assured us that the change would take effect immediately. Assuming that we were told the truth, we began talking on the phone like it wasn’t using minutes…and got a big surprise at the end of the month. Apparently the guy at the store did not know what he was talking about. The people at Sprint Customer Service would not do anything about it. Eventually we went back to the store and raised a ruckus there, eventually they gave us a credit.

-At some point, Sprint offered three months of their Vision internet service for free. I decided to give it a whirl and put it on both my phone and Karla’s. At the end of the three months we decided that we would keep it on my phone but drop it on Karla’s - she never used it anyway. It took three billing cycles (and a ~30 minute phone call to Customer Service each time) before Sprint got that straight.

-For a long time I had a Sanyo 8100. If I didn’t need everything the Treo provides it would still be my main phone - I keep it around as a backup just in case. I went through several of those on warranty replacements. A few I took in because the headset jack crapped out - the tech told me at one point that it was a very common problem with this model and had been fixed in newer versions. One went in because the signal kept fading on me, they swapped that out too. The one I still have has a button that does not work. It’s not one of the main keys, you can still dial calls just fine, but it’s used for working with text messages. The button just will not press, at all. It seems to be jammed in the down position. When I took it to Sprint to get it checked, I was told that I had removed the water sticker. At the time I had no idea what a water sticker was…it turns out that’s a small white sticker that turns red when it gets wet. The Sprint rep told me that since I had removed the water sticker, I must have dropped it in water, and that’s why the button was broke. A few points to ponder:
–I tried to open the case, thinking that popping the button up should be pretty easy, and was unable. It needs a special screwdriver (three points, very small) that I could not find anywhere.
–Had I dropped the phone in water, I would expect the electronics to be fried. This was not a problem with electronics - the button is physically stuck in the down position.
–This phone was given to me by Sprint not more than 60 days before I took it in for warranty. THEY GAVE IT TO ME. If it does not have a water sticker now, it did not have one when it was handed to me.

That one really hacked me off. I checked to see how long I had left on my contract and determined to wait until my contract was up so I could take my business elsewhere. I had a good long time to wait, and I would still be waiting today.

At some point I bought my first Treo and soon could not imagine running my business without it. When the first one died (I think I dropped it once too many) I had a dilemma. I needed a new phone ($200 was the best price I could find). I really needed to upgrade my plan so we would quit going over our minutes, but that would require a new 2-year contract. Breaking the contract would cost $200 PER PHONE. I did some research and finally decided that Sprint was the best deal for me - $5 unlimited internet, flexible plan and a 10% discount because Karla’s a teacher. Even if she quits teaching, we can get the same discount because I server in the National Guard. All of that together I couldn’t beat, so I caved in and signed up for another 2 years.

So that brings me to my current issue. My debit card expired last month. I process credit cards on a daily basis in my business, and I’m fairly certain that a card expires on the last day of its expiration month, not the first - I’ve never had a problem running cards during the month of their expiration. Regardless, Sprint did not charge my card, and my bill came in much higher than I expected. I called in and gave them the new expiration date, paid the past-due amount, and was told that my new card number would be billed for the current amount on the due date. This month’s bill came in, and again they did not charge my card. I see the manual payment that I made, but the regular monthly payment for some reason did not go through. This is the same bank account that it’s been on for some time - bounce-free and all that. Karla got paid early this month because of the holiday. There’s considerably more money in there than Sprint needs. Why the payment was not made I don’t understand.

I tried to call Sprint about this today. I dialed Customer Service and pressed 1 for English. Immediately I heard a recording telling me my current account balance and a few other details. I had my bill in front of me, I had no desire to hear this. I pressed all kinds of numbers to try and bypass the recording but with no luck. At the end of the recording, the very pleasant voice told me that my entire balance is due RIGHT AWAY.

Yes, there is an amount past due, but the current charges are not due for over a week. This happened last month also. The CSR I spoke with told me that only the past due amount was due RIGHT AWAY and argued with me when I told her what the recording said. Apparently nobody who can do anything about it has listened to the recording lately…or they don’t care. Either way it’s annoying. I wouldn’t mind paying the whole thing today if I were certain that Sprint is not going to take the current due amount on the due date anyway…but I can’t be certain of that. I’ve seen too many screwups in their autopay system to trust that.

Once the recording ended and I hit the main menu, I immediately hit 0 for a real person. Thankfully I did not have to jump through any hoops for that one (unlike some other companies I know). I was put on hold and waited for a CSR to come on the line. A few minutes later Ivan answered the phone. He was very polite and pleasant, and told me that his computer system was down and he could not do anything for me right now. He said I should call back in 2-3 hours. In the meantime, he suggested, I should call my bank and see if my account is overdrawn.

I completely understand computers going down. I work with computers all the time. Things happen. However, if the computer is down, why did I have to sit through a recording about my minutes and my bill, then spend 5 minutes listening to elevator music? Surely the all-knowing recording knows that the computers are down and the CSRs can’t do anything right now. I’ll admit, the hold time was much less than it used to be with Sprint, but that’s still time that I could have been more productive.

Annoyed with Sprint, I decided to send them an email. The CSRs apparently don’t pass messages along about broken recordings and I know that it does nobody any good to complain to them about the computer system going down. Ivan has no control over that and there’s no point in telling him my problems. Maybe an email might get to someone who can do something about it. I tried sprintpcs.com and had no luck - maybe that’s related to their other computer problems. I hit sprint.com and found my way to the “my account” page where I can make a payment, but not do anything about automatic payments which was my goal to begin with. I found a “contact us” link that took me to a list of phone numbers and a link that said “send us an email.” I expected a list of email addresses but instead received a form that limited me to 1200 characters. My original rant was only the previous four paragraphs and was much less verbose, but that was over the 1200 character limit. They had a little JavaScript character counter there but for some reason it didn’t work (yes, I have JavaScript enabled). When I hit the “submit” button I was asked to enter a question that was less than 1200 characters…but the text I had just entered was gone. Surely they could have at least saved the form post…maybe even told me how many characters my message had been, so I knew how much to pare off. That’s not that hard. Sprint, if you need some help with the coding give me a call. You’ve got my cellphone number.

Anywho, that’s the end of my rant for now. I’m going back to the Sprint website, I’ll send them a link to this page. We’ll see if they have anything to say about it.

I just received one of the best eBay spoof emails I’ve every seen. These people are getting smarter. The grammar was (for the most part) correct. This email purported to be a message from another eBay member. Check out the screenshots below, can you spot the phony?

If you said the first is the legit email, you’re right. Looking at them side-by-side there are several differences if you know what you’re looking for. In the legit message from eBay, my name is included at the very top. In the second message it tells me that my name has been included…but it’s not. There’s also a strange exclamation point that seems a bit out of place. You really have to look very hard to spot the differences.

So for grins I followed the “respond now” link and was asked to log in. I used a username and password to show these people just how I feel about their operation. I was instantly redirected to the real eBay site with a message that my password was invalid. I have to wonder if putting in my real username and password would have actually logged me in to eBay by some sort of passthrough…in any case, someone who was not paying too much attention would assume they had made a typo in their password and simply put it in again. I’ve got to say that’s a good job on ripping off eBay’s layouts. Some phishing sites that I’ve seen ask for a rediculous amount of information - mother’s maiden name, credit card number, mother’s credit card number (with expiration and CVV codes, of course) - that it’s obvious you’re looking at a scam. This site was much simpler and quite honestly, it nearly fooled me. Be careful out there!

Wednesday I went with a group of friends to see Rent in the theater. If you haven’t seen this I highly recommend it. Several years ago I saw it on stage in Dallas and was blown away - the film version is just as good. For the most part they stayed very true to the original stage play, as far as I could tell. They added a few effects that would simply not be possible on stage. This was not the stage play with a camera, this was a very well done movie. I’ll be singing the song for a week, I’m sure…five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes….I’m buying the soundtrack. Apparently Chris Columbus hired nearly all of the original Broadway cast to play the same roles in the film version and it shows - the music is just as incredible on the screen as it was on stage. Unless you follow the Broadway musical scene (I don’t) you probably won’t know most of the names in this movie.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Rent is a modernized version of Puccini’s opera La Boheme. The characters are all young 20-somethings in New York, most of them with AIDS. Through the course of the story you find out how most of them got it - some through drugs, some through promiscuous sex - and you get a very graphic picture of what it can do to you. Only one main character, the cross-dressing Angel, dies in the story. His last days are portrayed in great detail as he slowly fades in his hospital bed. Several members of Life Support, the AIDS support group, simply disappear in one of the film montages. We also see what drugs can do to a person through MiMi the junkie-dancer as she suffers severe withdrawal, returns to her life of heroin and ends up freezing on the street in a New York winter. I’ve heard more than a few people say that Rent glorifies drugs and sex but I have to disagree - the consequences are displayed very graphically. Yes, in some ways it’s a tragedy, but it’s so much more. There’s a reason this show won a Tony, a Pulitzer and a dozen other prizes. Go see it. Now.

Turkey day is over for most of you, I hope you’re stuffed! I had one side of the family over to my house yesterday and I’m heading off to visit the in-laws tomorrow. This whole multiple-holidays thing is NOT good for my diet.

And finally…I’m done with my Christmas shopping! Karla and I spent the afternoon at the mall on Wednesday, crossing things off the list. We have a few little accessory items that we’ll pick up at the grocery store but all of the big stuff is DONE. No day-after-Thanksgiving sales for me. I may not set foot in the mall again this year, and I won’t complain if that’s the case.

Merry Christmas!

So…I’ve been home for a while. Several weeks, actually. If you’ve been biting your nails waiting to see when they would finally let me go I apologize. I just haven’t had a chance to update my blog.

To my friends and family members who only signed up because I was deployed, thanks for reading - future updates to this blog may be very boring to you. I won’t be offended if you un-subscribe.

Several people have asked me if I’m reconsidering my commitment to the Guard in light of this hurricane deployment. I still have over three years left on my current contract (it’s up in April 2009) before I really have to answer that question. We’ll see what happens in those next three years. I wasn’t all that excited about leaving my home, my family and my business for an indefinite amount of time, but I knew that was a possibility when I signed on the dotted line in the first place. I’m much happier in the Air Guard than I was in the Army Reserves. Playing in the band is a pretty easy gig most of the time. The deployment risk is very low, and I have a good time with it…I can quite honestly see myself putting in a couple of decades with the band. Retirement from the military reserves is a pretty sweet deal - not as good as active duty retirement, but it can still be a healthy monthly check. We’ve got people in the band who are in their 50s and still playing, building up those retirement points.

I don’t think this hurricane deployment will be an annual thing. It’s not every year that a major hurricane makes it all the way to Texas. If I were in the Florida guard, or even Georgia or Mississippi, I would be more worried. The Army guard has been taking care of natural disaster relief for decades and will continue to do so. It’s my opinion that the Air Guard was only called up because the Army was overtaxed already from deployments to the desert and Louisiana. I’m not expecting an annual trip to the Gulf Coast. If it turns into that I may have some thinking to do…but again, I have three years to watch and think.

That aside, back to business. This is where it gets boring.

I’ve been working a lot lately on importing osCommerce transactions into QuickBooks. I’ve been doing this with Denton Music Store for a long time now. It saves me hours in invoicing - all of the information is there in osCommerce already, trying to transcribe it manually is time consuming and just asking for errors. Intuit provides the IIF file format for that specific purpose. It’s tricky, though…making everything come through is sometimes difficult. Small differences in the way tax is calculated can result in rounding errors, throwing the transaction off balance by 1c - QuickBooks chokes on that. Discount calculations are a bear to figure out. I personally wrote very little of the code that does those calculations in osCommerce, so I’ve had to track it all down to make it match the way that QuickBooks does things. Every time I think I have it working I get another email from my client that it’s broken…some combination of taxes and discounts that I didn’t check. Someday I’ll get that figured out.

I’m also working on a manual order entry module using AJAX - that’s the big new buzzword in the web development business. AJAX allows me to pull information from the database without reloading the page, using a combination of javascript and XML. It’s fun to work with, but it gets really complex. I’m trying to use as much of the osCommerce code as possible to make sure all of the calculations work out the same way. This project is quite a bit overdue, but I’m hoping to finish it soon…so I should probably quite blogging and start coding.

I’ve lost count of the days, but today is Sunday. For the most part it’s just another day - weekends don’t exist around here. I did get a chance to go to church this morning. More on that later.

The news since the last time I posted:

-We have AC! Of course, the Air Force can’t use the standard acronym. It’s an ECU - Environmental Control Unit. It takes a massive generator to power it, but it blows cold air. The first night they set that up, the output was right by my bed. I woke up cold in the middle of the night. It was glorious.

-We moved! The complex we’re in has a high school and a junior high. We were sleeping in the junior high gym, and the other gym with the cots and the vandalism was the high school gym. We’re now in a third gym, which is the “coliseum” of sorts. We have one basketball court to ourselves in a room with three full-size courts and two sets of bleachers. The air conditioner is working, we have generators running some lights (and my laptop) and we’re running more extension cords all over the place. This gym is much nicer. Unlike the other place I’m not scared of the shower and all the toilets work (even the ladies’ room!). The cellphone signal is better so I don’t have to sit outside to get a connection.

-More stuff! Some Army folks came by and dropped off a van, some fans, another generator and all kinds of other toys. After a trip to Wal-Mart for some extension cords we’re getting everything put together.

-Pictures! I took some photos around town of the damage we’ve seen, the work we’ve been doing and the people helping us out. You can see them here.

The trees are getting cleared and the power lines are going back up. Slowly but surely they’re working toward restoring power. I’ve seen convoys of bucket trucks moving around town. With all the driving I do I get to see a lot of trucks from all over the place - Ohio, California, South Carolina, Maine, Massachusetts…that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. There are ambulances, fire trucks, power companies and everything else we need from all over the state and the country.

We’ve had a few hot meals lately, thanks to the First Baptist Church and the Sheriff’s office. Lots of people are donating food, so we have a whole buffet set up at our gym. I haven’t eaten an MRE in at least 24 hours.

This morning I had a chance to go to church. Small town Texas is fun. We drove to Chester and attended the Caney Creek Baptist Church. There was no power, so we met in the fellowship hall where the windows could be opened. That was the shortest church service I’ve ever attended. After the meeting was a potluck lunch - even with now power, those ladies cooked up some mean gumbo and some kind of creamy pineapple pie. That’s the best meal I’ve had since I left.

We’ve settled into a routine here. We have four teams working the two food points, an afternoon and evening shift for each. The fuel pump people have their shifts all set up, and a few stay at the headquarters all day to answer phones. I’m in charge of getting everyone where they need to be in the BlueBird. I’m also the first call for the commander when he needs to get somewhere.

Wal-Mart is the highlight of the day for most folks. It’s got AC and all kinds of fun stuff. I’m a bit bored of it, but I take two or three different groups there each day. I’m Wal-Mart-ed out. They’re trying to keep everything stocked but having a heck of a time with in-demand items like flashlights, batteries and cigarettes. I’m not absolutely sure but it seems like the prices are lower than they were back home - maybe that’s just the going rate in east Texas, but maybe they’re discounting more to help people out.

There’s not a date yet on when we’re moving out. The quicker the better, as far as I’m concerned. There are worse places I could be than Woodville, Texas, but home is calling to me.

If you’re reading this blog, hopefully this is not the first time you’ve heard - my National Guard unit has been deployed to help with the hurricane relief. In the interest of operational security I can’t give too many details about exactly where I am and who’s with me. Many people have asked me to keep them informed, however, and I can’t call everyone. There’s not enough time in the day or battery in my phone to make that happen. As often as I can I’ll post here and you can read about my adventures. There’s a box on the right where you can subscribe and receive an email for each post I make.

Today is day 9 of my deployment. Here’s a timeline of where I’ve been and what I’ve done:

Day 0
I got the phone call at 7 PM - “Report to the base at noon tomorrow.” I knew it was coming but I was expecting more than 17 hours advance warning. I was up until about 4 AM packing and getting things ready to go. I spent quite a bit of cash at WalMart to by things I would need - a cheap watch, some batteries, a flashlight, etc. I also bought a wifi card for my old laptop in the hopes that I would have internet access somewhere.

Day 1
I spent most of this day sitting through briefings about what to expect, how the finances would work, etc. The most common answer I heard was “I don’t know.” I did get to go home this evening to spend one last night with my wife before heading out.

Day 2
This is the day we finally left. We spent a good part of the day checking out equipment (firearms, sleeping bags, etc) to take with us. We finally left about two hours behind schedule, destination San Antonio. On the way down we had a truck blow a tire. It turns out we had loaded about 5 tons of gear onto a 2.5 ton truck…wonder why the tire blew? That took about two hours to repair. We arrived in San Antonio very early the next morning, checked in our weapons and set up in the barracks.

Day 3
Today should have been a day off. We were on the road for about 8 hours the day before, in addition to several hours before that handling equipment and briefings. In all, about 19 hours. This day we slept in, at a late breakfast and prepared to lounge around and watch the news. No such luck.

Shortly before lunch I was told to fuel the bus and prepare for departure. It was several hours before we actually went anywhere, but we spent a lot of that time in the heat outside. We had to check out our weapons again, wait for the truck to get all new tires and load our bags onto another truck. Our bags would meet us at our destination.

We arrived at Texas A&M very late that night. The Aggies were very gracious and gave us their rec center to stay in. We spent the first night on the gym floor.

Day 4
Wakeup was at 7, we packed up and loaded bags into the truck to get ready for our imminent departure. After a breakfast of MRE (yum yum) we prepared to prepare and stood by to stand by. Full-on stand around mode. Most of my unit sat inside the rec center and watched the weather channel. I was called to the bus several times to move it out of somebody’s way, eventually I decided just to sit on the bus. We had far too much heavy equipment in that parking lot, more than it was designed for, and the whole place was a big rodeo. We lined up a convoy of equipment, buses and other vehicles to move out. Where and when was unknown. At one point we scrounged together from several different sources a laptop, a power inverter, some nice powered speakers and a DVD of “Men of Honor.” Welcome to the BlueBird movie theater.

Eventually we were told that we would not go anywhere this day. My superiors decided that we were going out to dinner and a movie so I fired up the bus - El Chico for dinner, and then Transporter 2 at the theater. Good food and good entertainment - better than the first Transporter.

We set up cots upstairs in the rec center and went to sleep.

Day 5
Once again, we packed everything in the truck for our very quick departure. I stayed in the lobby watching news for most of the day, munching on MREs. The rumors were flying - “We’re going home” - “We’re going to New Orleans” - “They need us in Beaumont” - none of these came about. I’m sure they did need us in Beaumont but nobody could find an assignment for us, so we stayed again. We unloaded our gear and set it up in an exercise room upstairs.

This night we had some downtime. There was no fear of leaving with a 5-minute notice and we were allowed to be out of uniform as long as we stayed in the building. I was ecstatic to get into some shorts and a t-shirt and go for a run around the track. I even got a game of raquetball going with one of the other guys in my unit. We also had a chance to do laundry, but had to be back in the building by 10. I convinced the other bus driver to do my laundry for me in exchange for $5 and a packet of laundry soap.

Unfortunately, I forgot that my cellphone was in my laundry bag. When I planned to go to the laundromat I was going to make some phone calls, so I dropped my phone and a novel in the laundry bag. I forgot about it when I handed my laundry off and my cellphone got washed. I got it back and the screen was completely blank. I figured it was completely shot and I put it in the bottom of my duffel bag. This was my only link to home so I was more than slightly ticked at myself.

At some point on this day the A&M staff decided a bunch of soldiers with live weapons and ammunition in the rec center was not the image they wanted to present to their student body - in the words of one sergeant, “It’s like the rec center is under siege!” We locked away all weapons and ammunition in a locked box, in a locked truck, next to a dozen other military trucks. Even with those precautions we had to have armed guards rotating through hourly shifts. It’s not fun to interrupt your sleep for an hour of guard duty, but there are certainly worse things to do.

Day 6
Here we are at A&M still.

My unit’s leadership decided that loading everything on the truck each night was not the most intelligent thing we could do. It was possible that the entire task force could be sent on a mission, but it was more likely that individual units would be sent out to separate locations. We loaded our bags onto our buses instead to be ready for immediate departure. Again we sat at the rec center all day, but there was a bit of excitement with the bus - mechanical difficulties threatened to keep us stationary regardless of mission. We had another bus with us but could not safely put our entire unit on the one bus. After several hours and several mechanics the bus was up and running again just in time to go back to the dining hall for dinner.

That night we moved across the street to a different building so the students could have their rec center back. We were told to leave our bags in the room but pack them as if we’re leaving. I was given some freedom to take people where the needed to go in town to run errands, as long as I had a cellphone and was no more than 30 minutes away in case we had to leave in a hurry. I got out to the Sprint store to try and get a new phone.

I had been at the Sprint store long enough to get close to the top of the list when the call came. We didn’t know where, but we knew we were going and we were going NOW. No time to wait for my new phone. We drove for a few hours to a small east Texas town near Beaumont. You won’t read about it on the news as there are no major oil refineries or anything of that nature here, but according to the city limit sign there are 2415 people living here and they’re all in need of help.
Originally the plan was to stay in an old abandoned Wal-Mart building. When we opened the doors we were assaulted by the smell of mold, mildew and rot. Rats scurried across the floor and the walls were visibly molded even in the dark. The First Sergeant worked hard at finding us a better place to stay.

There’s no municipal power here, too many lines are down. We have generators and so do a few other places in town. There is no AC or hot water. We’re sleeping in a high school gymnasium and showering in their locker room. There are these little black bugs flying around all over the place - they don’t bite or sting and they usually stay outdoors, but they’re still annoying. It’s hot and sweaty but it could be a whole lot worse.

Day 7
Finally, after a week away from home, we have something to do!

We have people answering the phone in the emergency operations headquarters. Some of our men are manning the generator that’s powering that building. We’re manning two different food distribution points in the area, passing out packaged food and bottled water to the locals. These people are very happy to see us and very thankful for the supplies.

Day 8
More of the same.

Across the football field is another gymnasium. Apparently they had some evacuees staying there for a while, we were told to go get whatever equipment was available there that we could use as the evacuees had all been taken elsewhere. I’m amazed at how people tear abuse the things that are given to them.

We were told not to go alone to this building, as it had been vandalized multiple times and there was no telling who might be in there. We were also told to carry weapons for the same reason. I walked around with a flashlight searching for some essentials - cots, cleaning supplies, a plunger for the toilet that keeps stopping up, etc. I found all of those things but I also found evidence of some real disrespect to the facility and the people providing it.

Several places were spray-painted with people’s names in big black letters. Despite all of the toilets that functioned perfectly well, I counted at least five piles of human feces in various places. Some were hidden around the corner in the locker room (someone had broken the door down to get in), some were in the urinals in the men’s room, some were on the floor in the shower in the ladies’. That’s just really absurd.

Despite the available dumpsters just a short walk out the door the trash cans were overflowing with food which had since spoiled in the heat and smelled terrible. Mirrors were cracked, Coke machines broken into, doors and locks shattered. Why do people do this?

I realize that boredom can make people go crazy, but that’s just ridiculous. I’ve got to say that’s really absurd.

I do have to say that the local authorities have that in check now. We have not seen any unauthorized activity over there since we’ve been here.

Day 9
So that brings me to today.

After borrowing a phone to call home last night, I decided I really needed a phone. I need that connection to my wife. There’s no Sprint store or Radio Shack in town, and the local cellphone shop is still boarded up. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but try my phone (yes, the one that was washed). Maybe after this many days it’s dried out.

I laid hands on the phone and prayed over it. I considered anointing it with oil but decided that would be a bit much. I plugged it in, and it looked okay! There’s not much signal inside this big metal building so I tried to take it outside, but there was not enough charge. I left it sitting for a while.

After a few hours I picked it back up, said a prayer and took it outside. I tried calling customer service and it connected! Praise Jesus!

I now have an activated, fully functional phone, with all of my information from my last sync to my laptop restored. I’ve got to write a letter to Palm and let them know about this. For anyone who’s thinking about buying a Treo I’ve got say this is greatness that it still works after a spin cycle. I’m using the internet connection through the phone to post this message. The screen looks a little funny but it still works.

At one point I pulled my phone out of my pocket and the screen was yellow. It wouldn’t respond to anything. There was a definite pucker factor from that, but after a soft reset it’s working again. If that’s the only long-term damage I’ll be very happy.

So that’s where I stand.

There have been some rumors about possibly relocating in the near future. Apparently the local county folks want us to stay, but some other folks want us to go help them. It’s politics all the way and we’ll see how it turns out. For the moment I’m quite happy sitting here next to the fan and waiting for my next assignment. I don’t know when I’ll be going home but I’m certainly looking forward to it - I want to see my wife again.

I’ve got to add some thank-yous in here:

Thanks to my wife for taking care of everything while I’m gone. You’re doing a great job. I’ll be home soon.

Thanks to Mike Chamberlin, my newest employee - after only a week of training, he’s taken on all kinds of responsibilities in my absence.

To my lifegroup and my church, for keeping me in their prayers. It helps more than you know.

A few choice quotes from our trip:
“It’s like the Beverley Hillbillies go to war!”
-Describing our overloaded truck

“In a small town with no electricity, it’s damn dark!”
-Our first night here

I guess that’s about it for now, I’m signing off.

My hosting business has been hit lately with a spate of fraud. Mr. K K, who lives at 1 K Street in K, Alabama, has tried several times to purchase hosting on my servers. Thanks to Blue Note’s policy of human-verifying each order these have not gotten past the initial signup and payment stage. However, each of these transactions takes a bit of time out of my already busy day, enough to annoy me and make me want to write this blog entry.

Mr. K K (probably not related to the KKK, but who knows?) has used a variety of PayPal accounts to pay for his hosting. Each time he’s used a different account, and each time I’ve had to go through to refund the payment and cancel the subscription. A few owners of these stolen accounts have been vigilant enough to report this before I have the opportunity to refund the payment, resulting in some unpleasant emails from PayPal and an accounting mess. This is even more work for me.

What this really comes down to is consumer responsibility. How does Mr. K have access to all these PayPal accounts?

There are a variety of ways to obtain a credit card number. You could steal a wallet. If you work in an establishment that takes credit cards, you can get the numbers there. When I waited tables I saw a waiter fired because he wrote down the name and number of every credit card he was given. I don’t know that he ever used that information, but he wasn’t just practicing handwriting. Someone could hack into an e-commerce website that stores credit card data (a practice I try to discourage) and get the card numbers that way. According to a recent series of ads, most identity theft involves taking things out of the mailbox or the trash - those balance transfer checks you threw away have a lot of information on them. Many of these things aren’t the fault of the credit card owner. You don’t know if the waiter writes down your number, you can’t really control whether or not you get mugged, these things I can understand. I have a great distate for the criminals who do these things, but I understand that they may be out of your control.

Your PayPal account? That’s entirely different.

To log in to your PayPal account you need a password. If someone has your PayPal password, there are only two possible reasons why:
#1 - PayPal screwed up.
#2 - you gave it to them.

#1 is what most people would want to think, if it was their PayPal account that just got hacked. Somehow, PayPal leaked your password. Maybe they got hacked. Some programmer screwed up the login script and sent people to the wrong account. Surely this couldn’t be YOUR fault, right? If PayPal gets hacked, it will be all over the geek news sites that I read daily. I haven’t heard anything about it - I doubt this is the case.

#2 covers a lot of territory. I doubt anyone called your house and said “hey, what’s your PayPal password?” I have enough faith in the American public to believe that this wouldn’t work, though studies have shown people will trade passwords for candy bars. There are plenty of other, sneakier ways. Most likely, this is evidence that phishing emails actually work. Some of them are very good at replicating paypal.com. Maybe the PayPal account belongs to the owner of the hacked computer, and the password was stored somewhere in clear text - not too bright. Weak passwords could also be at fault - if your PayPal password is “paypal” you’ve just given access to your account to anyone who wants to spend a bit of time trying. The same goes for “password,” “asdf” or “1234.” Password security is not that hard!

Regardless of the cause, why should the merchant be punished for something that’s not his fault? When someone’s PayPal account is hacked and used to send me money, I have to take the time to refund the payment or deal with the chargeback if the account owner finds it before I do. If this is the fault of either PayPal or the consumer, why do I have to deal with it? Shouldn’t the guilty party be the one to bear the burden? If PayPal screwed up, they have no right to take the money back from me. Theoretically, anyone who has my PayPal login information is acting on my behalf when they make PayPal transactions. Certain employees have that information so that they can do the accounting and help with customer service. If they make a purchase, it’s my responsibility to pay for that purchase and handle punishing my employee for unauthorized use of my account. It’s not the merchant’s responsibility to refund my money because I gave away the keys.

Send some of the burden back to the consumer and I guarantee we’ll see less fraud. If any of those unfortunate PayPal account owners had to pay for the money that was spent in their name, they would start to take password security more seriously and be careful about the emails they click on. That can only be a benefit.

How much is a 4-year-old laptop worth? On eBay, maybe $100. In Richmond, Virginia, $50 and a broken arm.

The Richmond school district decided to sell off 1000 old, unused laptops to county residents for $50 each. Not a bad price - until the guy in front of you picks up the folding chair. According to eyewitness reports one woman wet herself to keep her place in line. Some little girl lost her stroller in the stampede, and other witnesses described an elderly man being thrown to the ground and someone driving their car through the mob. I can only imagine the chaos.

Read the whole story on CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/16/computer.frenzy.ap/index.html

I have to write this information for two or three different clients each month, so here it is all in one place. I chose to put it on my blog so that others can write comments if they have anything useful to say.

PayPal is a pain in the neck. It’s difficult to integrate into a website and have everything work properly. I’ve spent many hours with one of my recent clients trying to get PayPal to function and charge the proper sales tax, I think the heartburn from that has convinced her to upgrade. On top of the technical difficulties, a site that accepts ONLY PayPal just screams “AMATEUR!”

So where do you go? It’s time to get your own merchant account. If you live in a state with open records (I think that’s all of them) you’ll get inundated with sales calls and letters as soon as you register your business. I’ve filed several DBAs and each of them resulted in a flood of mail. Most (but not all) of these will be absurdly expensive. Do your research and find the one that fits your business. What fits MY business won’t necessarily fit yours as we’ll soon see.

HOW IT WORKS

With PayPal, all received payments are sent to your PayPal account where you must manually go do something with the money (send to your bank account, pay someone else, etc). Transaction fees are deducted when the transaction is processed.

Compare that to a merchant account. All of the day’s transactions are combined in a batch. When the batch is run (normally each night) the total amount is sent directly to your bank account. The EFT system can take a few days and could be slowed down by weekends or holidays, but in general deposits hit my bank account in 2-3 business days. At the end of the month your total fees are deducted from your checking account.

FEES
Processing credit cards can be expensive. You may not really think about it with PayPal since the fees come out of each transaction. However, add it all up at the end of the month - it’s not cheap. With a merchant account you can expect to pay a variety of fees:

1. Monthly statement/service fee - it doesn’t really cost that much to print and mail a statement, so many companies now call this a “service fee.” Expect to pay between $5 and $10. This is the biggest MONETARY difference between PayPal/WorldPay/2CheckOut and a merchant account.
2. Annual fees - watch out for providers who charge an annual fee on top of the monthly fee. One or the other is to be expected, but some providers do not mention the annual fee until it comes out of your checking account. Read that contract carefully!
3. Gateway fees - a monthly charge for using a gateway such as authorize.net (for online businesses only)
4. Equipment purchase/rental - your credit card machine. If your business is all online you don’t need one (use a gateway instead). Be careful of those leases, you could end up paying far too much for that machine. Don’t buy a machine from your merchant account provider. You’ll find much better prices elsewhere (try eBay).
5. Discount rate - a percentage of each transaction. Currently hovering between 2 and 2.4% for online or otherwise “high risk” businesses, much lower for physical stores.
6. Per-transaction fees - a small fee charged on every transaction. Expect between 10c and 35c.
7. Monthly Minimums - a minimum amount that your fees must reach each month. Many processors require this, they can run from $15 to $25. If you find a processor without one your other fees will likely be very high. This is not the amount that your SALES must reach - a $25 sale will count less than $1 toward that minimum. The last time I did the math it was going to take between $500 and $600 to make the minimum in fees. If you’re worried about making this, be sure to ask if that per-transaction fee counts as part of the minimum.
8. Other fees - watch out! I’ve been charged $25 for switching the bank account where my deposits were sent. Beware the annual fee! Find out what makes a transaction non-qualified and how much the non-qualified fees are (some go as high as 5% discount rate). Consider the fraud screens.

Normally your per-transaction fees and discount rates will be lower than PayPal’s rates, but you do have to pay a monthly charge. These rates vary widely from one provider to the next! Some will charge you a high monthly fee, but a low discount rate. Some barely mark up the discount but have a large statement fee or an annual fee. Many charge you an arm for one and a leg for the other. This is where you need to do some math if you want to really get the lowest price. Figure up your average ticket size and the number of sales you have in an average month. If you’re serious about the comparing, set yourself up a spreadsheet and put in all of the different offers you receive to find what suits you best.

CONTRACTS

To the best of my knowledge, it’s a requirement of Visa that everyone have a contract. I’ve never seen one for less than 2 years, 3 years is the most common.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

I’ve dealt with some great credit card processors. I’ve also dealt with some real stinkers. I’m currently under contract with two different processors who have both caused me a great deal of grief. I did my research and I got a good deal on credit card processing - but for the first few months I was on the phone every time the statement came in making them compare my contract with the amounts I was being charged. Make sure you read your contract, and make sure the statements come in correctly! If you call a company on the phone and they sound like slimeballs, go with your gut and take your business elsewhere. When my contracts are up I’ll be doing the research again, and I’ll gladly pay an extra $5/month on that statement if I don’t have to make the monthly phone call to correct the problem.

THE TECHNICAL SIDE
Since this is written for my clients with online stores, a short technical discussion is in order.

If you run a website, you need to use a gateway. Yes, it’s possible to simply capture someone’s card number and manually enter it into a machine. However, consider the benefits of a gateway:

1. Fraud screens - many gateways have extra checks that a terminal won’t.
2. Time - save time processing cards. When you use a gateway, the transaction is processed in real time. If the card is declined for whatever reason (address verification, typo in the card number, bad card) the customer finds out immediately and has a chance to fix it. The order is not placed until the card goes through. If you capture the card number and the card is declined you have to get ahold of the customer, get a new card number and try it again. Time is money! It won’t take long to spend $10 in time calling customers for bad credit cards.
3. Security - don’t store card numbers in your website! It’s a huge risk. If someone gets hold of those numbers you could be held liable for all kinds of mayhem. With a gateway nobody sees the card number except the customer and the computer.
4. Convenience - No need to file credit card slips and batch reports from your machine. No need to have a machine in the first place unless you also see customers face-to-face. All of the documentation comes in your email and you can look up transactions on the gateway’s website.

I think very highly of letting the gateway do the work. There are many out there to choose from, but I highly recommend authorize.net. I use them in my business and have set up many clients to use them. Integrating authorize.net with your website is easy, their interface is simple to use, and the price is right. I’ve worked with nearly every gateway for one client or another and none of them stack up.

BACKUPS

I’m sure you all know to keep backups of your data, but you need a backup for the gateway. All computer systems experience downtime, it’s a fact of life. Occasionally the gateways must go down for maintenance. Some have been hit with DOS attacks that took them completely offline. I highly recommend that anyone using a gateway have a backup system in place, even if it’s just as simple as capturing the card numbers and putting them in manually when the system is back up and running.

BLATANT ADVERTISING

Should you want to set up your website to accept credit cards using authorize.net, any other gateway or even manual processing, you can contact the good people at Blue Note Web Services and they’ll get you set up.