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 marcelin
join:2003-10-08
Santa Cruz, CA
| Great weekend response! I witnessed my first DSL outage today, Saturday -- and Cruzio came through.
From one minute to the next, I was unable to access Web sites. I tried to retrieve my e-mail, and was still able to do that.
I restarted my ADSL modem and my router, without problems. Cruzio's DHCP server assigned an IP address as usual. Obviously I was not having a connectivity problem.
I poked around a bit on one of my Linux systems. I happened to try nslookup, a tool for translating host names (e.g. www.apple.com) into IP address (e.g. 192.168.1.1). I tested several of Cruzio's name servers, and all were resolving names within the cruzio.com domain, but timing out or returning "SERVFAIL" when I tried to look up names on the wider Intert (e.g. www.apple.com). Now I was sure that the problem lay with Cruzio, not with me.
I called in and listened to the network status message, which had last been updated this morning. After listening to some clear (and sensible) advice about when to escalate a problem, I left a message on Cruzio's emergency paging system.
I called back 15 minutes later and there was a new status message: DSL customerS (plural) were having problems, and Cruzio expected to restore service soon.
I called back 10 minutes later and a new message indicated that the problem had been fixed. I restarted my ADSL modem and my router for good measure, and everything was fine.
Having served on a technical support staff (for a supercomputer center!), I must say that Cruzio has its stuff together:
1. There is a way for customers to report emergencies after hours.
2. There is a clear definition of what constitutes and emergency.
3. Someone pays attention after-hours.
4. The status message is updated when someone begins working on the problem, and again when the problem is fixed.
The only improvement I could wish for is automatic problem reporting. If it were my company, I'd set up a remote computer with one of my own DSL lines and with a backup form of connectivity (e.g. separate telephone line with ordinary 56K modem). The system would run scripts throughout the day, constantly trying to access Web sites, send e-mail, and retrieve e-mail. It would report any failures via the backup network connection.
I suppose I could wish for no outages at all, too. But nobody's perfect! | |
| marcelin
join:2003-10-08
Santa Cruz, CA
|  Surprise price increase, billing problems
Also, Cruzio said that a charge to my credit card was declined. I checked with the card company this morning, and of course the card is fine, with plenty of available credit and no fraud alerts. The card company's records show that no charge was attempted, let alone declined. | |
| | TheZarrMan
join:2001-04-23
Santa Cruz, CA
| Re: Surprise price increase, billing problems I had a similar experience, called Cruzio and they corrected the problem. It was also in their newsletter that they were switching billing systems and asked us to be patient. (I was.) They never disconnected me or billed my credit card for the wrong amount. Their billing department was doing every thing manually to assure that there were almost no faulty billing, well almost, anyway.
They still rock.
Tom Zarr
Universal Computer Services
Santa Cruz Ca
831-462-0741 | |
| 
Chris Neklason
@cruzio.com
|  A note from Cruzio
We have, however, deployed a new billing system, with the inevitable glitches which come from moving 10,000 customers from one system to the other. In this particular case, sales tax was incorrectly applied to this customer's bill. It was credited back the next day when the glitch was discovered.
Along with switching billing systems, we also switched credit card systems. The new credit card company requires a slightly different set of customer info, and declines credit cards based on a mismatch of outdated info in our customer database and that which is recorded at the credit card company. We're contacting those customers to update their cc info.
| |
| marcelin
join:2003-10-08
Santa Cruz, CA
2 edits | More errors: triple charge + advance charge
June billing: I contacted my credit card company again. There are 3 authorizations (transactions authorized but not yet posted) for Cruzio on my credit card account, one for $36.76 on May 31, one for $32.77 on June 1, and another for $32.77 on June 2.
July billing: By the invoice I received today, Cruzio has established a June 20 deadline for my July charges. Now I am being billed in advance, and with overlap, since the June billing date was May 31.
How we got here:
(a) On May 31 Cruzio invoiced me for $36.76, a $3.99 increase in the middle of my first year. The e-mail invoice showed that the credit card charge had been declined, and said I had until June 10 to pay.
(b) I contacted my credit card company on June 1. There was no record of a declined charge, and my account was in good standing.
(c) I left a message for Cruzio on June 1, asking them why I had been overcharged; why they claimed that the credit card transacation had been declined; and to re-run the charge, for the correct amount.
(d) I received a voice message from James at Cruzio on June 1. I returned the call on June 2. I spoke with Michael. He explained that there had been problems with the new billing system. He asked what my credit card billing address was, and claimed that the new system was now checking that, whereas the old system hadn't. I looked at the May 31 invoice and saw that Cruzio had substituted my service address for my credit card billing address. Michael fixed that. He said that the new billing system had inadvertently overcharged the sales tax, that this would be fixed, and that my credit card would be re-billed the same evening. I asked to be contacted immediately if there were further problems, and he said that I would receive an e-mail the next day if the credit card charge was declined.
(e) Not having seen any charges on my credit card account, and not having received any e-mail from Cruzio, I called on June 9, one day before the payment deadline. I spoke with Michael again. He mentioned that so many people had been affected by the new billing system that Cruzio had changed the deadline from June 10 to June 12 and that Cruzio was planning to re-run all the credit card charges on June 12.
(f) I just received another e-mail invoice from Cruzio. It is dated June 10. It shows a correction to the May 31 invoice. It also shows declined credit card transactions for $32.77 on June 1 and June 2. It also shows a new, pre-billed charge for the month of July, due on June 20th!
Observations:
- The people at Cruzio are confused about their new billing system.
- The new billing system is successfully requesting credit card authorizations, but never charging the card. Compare what happens when you check in to a hotel: the hotel obtains an authorization for the entire cost of your stay, but only charges the card on check-out day.
What I want:
- Cruzio should release the three authorizations ($36.76 on May 31, $32.77 on June 1 and $32.77 on June 2).
- Cruzio should authorize, and immediately charge, $32.77 to my credit card for the June charge.
- Cruzio should suspend the July charge and not apply it until June 30, i.e., one month after the June charge was applied.
What I will do:
If these corrections are not made, I will contact the Silicon Valley Better Business Bureau and the California Department of Consumer Affairs next Monday. The issues would be: merchant attempted to overbill me for June; merchant obtained three authorizations for one charge; merchant falsely claimed that my credit card had been declined; merchant pre-billed me for July. | |
| |
Trouble Sucks
@direcpceu.com
| Re: More errors: triple charge + advance charge You are following the correct course of action on this. There is no reason for a company to switch a functional credit card billing system over to a non-tested billing system that said company has no knowledge of. Even if it was tested they obviously didn't test it enough.
Being in Germany I am forced to deal with Duetche Telecom, or as you in the states know it T-Online. They try to charge Americans more than Germans, and I have proof and will pursue this on my own. I already recovered my money at least.
DO NOT ever let a company give you promises or the "sorry we are having problems with our NEW software" excuse. Poor system administration is INEXCUSABLE and should not be tollerated. | |
| | cruzio_cfo
join:2004-06-10
Santa Cruz, CA
| Hi,
I'm the CFO of Cruzio, trying to steer our billing department through adapting to a new, improved billing system.
I won't go into the detailed explanation behind each of the items our customer has mentioned above; we will contact him personally to go over these. We take these problems very seriously.
The long and the short of it is, we are sorry. We knew we'd have some problems. We sent out a newsletter a few weeks before the change saying, basically, "hold on to your hats." But we didn't know exactly what would go awry (if we'd known, we'd have mended it before launching the system.)
We have fixed every account that we know was billed incorrectly, and we are combing through all the accounts looking for anomalies.
We have not raised prices.
The cases where we accidentally overbilled were less than $4 per person and those were immediately credited.
We are listening to and following up on all the complaints and suggestions, so thank you for letting us know the details of your situation. (Yes! We like hearing about our mistakes... it's much better than not knowing.)
In another few weeks we hope everything will be running smoothly. If you've ever tried to change a billing system in a working company, especially one with over 9,000 customers, you know it's like trying to change the tires on a moving car. Not an easy job. But we have a great staff and we are working hard to get things straight. We think you'll be happy with your bill (well, as happy as you CAN be with a bill) again next month.
Thanks,
--Peggy Dolgenos
CFO, Cruzio | |
| marcelin
join:2003-10-08
Santa Cruz, CA
1 edit | Some reliability problems...and other updates Updates for September 7, 2005:
I have experienced reliability problems the past two nights. On September 7, 2005, I reported a problem using the after-hours paging system (after listening to about 5 minutes of blabber, designed to make me feel guilty about reporting a problem after-hours). Cruzio announced on its Web site that "As of about 7:30ish PM 9/7/2005 some DSL customers are unable to acquire an IP address from our address server." However, the outage was never announced on the network status phone line. Network status updates aren't of much use if you have to be online to get them! The problem was corrected later in the evening, but then reoccurred a few hours later. Service went back to normal later in the night, but no status update was posted online, let alone to the phone system.
As visitors to DSLReports.com well know, DSL is not by nature a 100% reliable service. The reliability problems I've noticed with Cruzio these past two nights are probably not unusual for the industry. However, when a company like Cruzio makes available a network status Web page and phone line, it helps if these are updated quickly and consistently.
I am also disappointed that Cruzio, which had announced that existing ($33/month) contract customers could start new contracts ($23/month) at any time, delayed my price reduction for almost a month. The announcements were always vague about lead time, and it turns out that even if you sign up a few days before the start of the month, you have to wait until the next month to get the price reduction.
Finally, I am frustrated that Cruzio used my e-mail address to send me messages encouraging me to write to the FCC in support of Cruzio's regulatory agenda. Though I happen to agree with the agenda, I prefer it when businesses separate routine customer communications from political messages and require customers to opt-in if they want the political messages.
Paul Marcelin-Sampson
Santa Cruz, California, USA | |
|
frostthescottishguy
@cruzio.com | backup dialup worth noting that cruzio now does have backup dialup support nationwide
We'll do modem configs anytime in-store for free too, or work with you on the phone to get it configured.
~disclaimer~ I work for cruzio in tech support | |
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