🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Pine.SUN.3.94.970411172430.25247F-100000@darkfire.iccs.digex.net>,
Jeff Havens  <havens@darkfire.iccs.digex.net> wrote:
>
>Gentlemen and Ladies:
>
>I have seen the postings coming across on this newsgroup in regards to the
>"IMPORTANT NOTICE" email sent from dial-up@digex.net.  I would like to
>clarify a couple of points being made here.
>
>First, if you found the tone offensive, I do apologize.  However, please

If you found the tone offensive?  I really don't think that we were
being overly sensitive here.  The correct response is:

"We apologize for the tone of our email..."

>understand that this email was not written with an individual in mind.  It
>was written with the idea that it was not to be ignored, which has been
>the case in the past with other postings done in mass.  Yes, like all
>business we do have customers that are deliquent and do not care.  And,

This is hardly an excuse to threaten paying customers with collection
agencies.  If you have deliquent customers then send specific
notification to them.  This is not a hard thing as almost all
businesses send bills then when they are past due send nastygrams.

They generally do not presume that all of their customers are going to
ignore them or not pay.  This is called "customer awareness" and
"common courtesy".

>unlike what has been assumed on this newsgroup in the past, we DO care
>about the dial-up end of business.  My proof in that is the staff we have
>here in DST/TSG/ICCS/Helpdesk(choose your favorite name)--we have more
>people who are STAYING in this department, rather than using it as a
>stepping stone to other departments.  I have outlasted the last 5
>Administrators of the Office Mailbox, and have no intentions of leaving
>anytime soon.  

After your last correspondence this is hardly incentive to stay with
Digex.  In any case, I suppose that reducing your turnover rate is a
Good Thing (TM).

>To answer the question of why we are requesting information from yearly
>accounts as well as monthly accounts, there are two reasons for this:
>
>1)	We want the Billing System here to have accurate information.
>	We have been behind in updating information of this type, so that 
>	is why it may seem a bit of a surprise that you have recieved
>	this email.

Your being behind is not the problem of your customers.  You need the
information?  Fine, a simple request would have been sufficient.
If you did not get responses you could send a second request and then
billed by mail if necessary.

>2)	Disk Charges--We are planning very soon to reinstate disk charges
>	as per the contract you all agreed to.  (Before anyone flips over
>	this, I have been assured that ALL customers will recieve a 30-DAY
>	NOTICE before we reimplement the corrected software that 
>	calculates disk charges).  In order for this to work properly, we
>	do need to have ALL customers updated, without exception.  
>
>Now for the other side:  Although many of you found the idea of the April
>25th suspension deadline offensive, it is a date that we are committed to.
>If a cancellation should occur to a yearly account, a refund of the months
>unused will be returned.  If there are any questions about this policy,
>you are more than welcome to call in and speak to myself, another team
>lead, or the Manager.  There are other measures that have not been in

I often skip reading mail a couple of weeks.  I had been thinking of
going from month to month to a yearly contract to save a little money
but what you're telling me here is even if I had a yearly contract you
would have cancelled me anyway.

This isn't just rude, this is stupid.

>place that we are starting, such as immediate notification of rejected
>charges and termination of accounts that do not rectify thier balance with
>DIGEX.  If you are a good customer, then there is nothing to worry about,
>since none of these measures will affect you financially or affect your
>ability to use DIGEX.  If you are not a good customer, the only thing that
>there is to say is that the free ride is coming to a sudden halt.

Why don't you clarify for us how a yearly customer with no disk
charges but gets their accounts suspended is a) not a good customer or
b) not affected.

>Finally, it is not the point of DIGEX to use this issue or any other
>billing issues in the future as an attempt to "Get rid of customers".
>Your patronage does matter, and we feel that it is not much to ask of good
>customers to keep accurate information.  If you have any problems, send me
>mail to "office@digex.net" or "dial-up@digex.net".  I will discuss any
>concerns with you off-line of newsgroups only, since the information that
>I will discuss with you will be considered confidential and not meant for
>this type of venue.

Sorry but discussion of your policy is meant for this venue.  In fact
I've cross posted it to dc.general.  If this is how you treat long
standing customers maybe people ought to know about it.

Frankly, I was going to simply forget about this but your response
only annoyed me more.  You may get one more month of payment from me
but I think that you've finally managed to overcome inertia and get
me to switch ISPs.  I hear that Bell Atlantic is running a ISDN special
offer.

At least you get my static IP address back.

>--Jeff
> 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Jeffrey A. Havens                          -  D I G E X 
>Team Leader, Dial-up Support Team (DST)    -  (888) 20-DIGEX Ext. 5074
>One Digex Plaza, Beltsville MD  20705	   -  (301) 847-5000/5074
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nigel Tzeng

5+ year Digex customer...soon to be someone else's customer.