MyMeteor

News: Meteor Mobile Are Frightened of Little People!

Dear All,

I've had a problem with Meteor Mobile now for a long time, namely their web SMS service. After much complaining on the phone that got nowhere I put up a web page with all the problems.

It was at http://www.fachtnaroe.com/mymeteor/ (where you are now). It listed the problems, which are duplicated and updated below.

Now I've been written to by Meteor's legal team and told to Cease and Desist, I believe the phrase is, unless I take down the page. They even threaten a high-court injunction. Cool!

The story was told on http://www.digg.com/search?s=meteor+country+school+teacher&submit=Search§ion=news&type=both&area=all&sort=score - we're the one about "don't listen - LITIGATE"; and at http://www.deziddon.com/myMeteor.ie/419 and at http://www.enn.ie/blog/index.html?/archives/205-Meteor-hits-mobile-customer.html amongst other places.

Apparently my completely anti-Meteor site "may give rise to the wrong impression that the website is in someway endorsed by Meteor. This confusion may give rise to serious loss and damage to Meteors brand, goodwill and reputation"; I mean, how thick would you want to be?

Still, they say that "Meteor has expressly raised your concerns with its Advanced Product Development team for planned improvements and upgrades to the Webtext service this year" so where phone calls didn't work, a web page did! But "Advanced"? See how basic the issues are down below.

But then who's going to trust a phone company or a lawyer - or worse, both! Still, a promise is a start and I do believe the guy who previously phoned to 'threaten' me; after all, he was honest about the legal bit!

And their lawyers are good, real good:

  1. Both emails were (correctly :-) automatically marked as [SPAM] and dumped!
  2. One email was sent to the wrong people at the right address (uh?)
  3. They sent 2 emails: ergo, twice the billing!
  4. They confuse advertisors with owners (so bye, bye all advertising)
  5. They think Clonmel is in Co. Carlow. Oh boy. Explain that one to Tipperary Mineral Water. They've got a product that works!

Anyway, job done; bye, bye old site; welcome to the new!

If you are a Meteor Customer, the Web SMS service provided by mymeteor is seriously sub-standard.

  1. I like to organise my contacts tidily, like this:
    • Murphy, James
    But the Phonebook no longer accepts that comma after Murphy! It did once, but not any more. Why?
  2. What about my friend Paddy O'Reilly? The Phonebook doesn't accept the apostrophe! So much for Irish names being properly stored. Why?
  3. In fact, the phone book won't accept any of these characters:
    • &$#\"%+/\\*()^!|~`\'=[]{}@;:<>?.,
    Why?
  4. In the Phonebook you cannot edit an entry. You must delete it and then re-enter it if you make a mistake. Life's too short - there's no edit button? Why?
  5. Why can't I make a group reliably? I test and fail; then a week later test and succeed and think: "great, it's working", delete the test group and then can't make another real one. This is a nonsense feature and the option should out of binary decency be hidden until they can get it right. It never works as it should. In uppercase, lowercase or with any number of people, I can't make a group predictably? Why?
  6. Anyway, as expected, I couldn't edit the group! Why?

Less important from here...

  1. If I can't set up a group I can't send a "Group Web Text". A Group Web Text as presented on the website clearly means 1 text to a group. Generous: but that's what they say. After which I should be able to send another 299 messages (single or group ones) that month. Now Meteor are saying that each member of the group counts as one text.
    To get my texts sent on the 13th last I had to send my text to everyone in my phone book manually - I had 23 texts left for the month. Meteor are claiming this will be the result of a Group Web Text anyway. Not Fair! Why?
  2. If I'm wrong about my interpretation of the "Group Web Text" then the question arises. Who are Meteor to allow me to only send 30 such texts in a month as long as I stay within my 300 text limit? What purpose would this serve, so again, Why?
  3. Bulk importing of names and numbers was my first complaint to Meteor. I do a favour of sending a text about twice a year for a national organisation, where I pay for their texts. No money changes hands - not a commercial 'favour'. When I moved from O2 I brought the numbers on the list with me and expected to be able to bulk import them - just like with O2 and away I'd go.

    But no; that wasn't possible.

    I phoned 1905 and explained what I wanted to do. I even gave them the necessary information to pass on to their IT department in case they didn't know how to do this (you can see why I had doubts!). Since then: nothing. Oh! Wait. Not quite true. Apart from no improvement on my first request I found all the other stupid problems above.

    All I wanted was much the same common functions provided by other companies websites; still no sign of it. Why?

  4. In the Phonebook the entries are not in Alphabetical Order. The entries are grouped by the first letter but not sorted by the second or subsequent letters. They teach sorting in first-year college! It's only a small thing, but Why?

Guess I won't have to use that icky orange colour scheme again. Now that's a positive development. End of the 12 months contract, I'm going back to "Kings of Reception" O2, or maybe joining Vodafone or 3. And I'll tell everyone I meet to avoid Meteor like the plague they are. Ahh. Happy days are coming!

To get back to the home site of Fachtna Roe (the educational website) click here: http://www.fachtnaroe.com.

Then again, what do others think?

  1. Yet again I am left ADDLED from the ****ing stupid meteor.ie website. I attempted to signup for the Phone a Friend for Free promotion and received system errors and other coldfusion code errors. Whoever the developers are for meteor.ie need a swift kick up the arsehole.
  2. Meteor need to update this website!!
    Lots of people are getting annoyed with the meteor website so much so that there is a campaign to try to inform meteor of their problems Vist http://www.fachtnaroe.com/mymeteor/ join the campaign! bug meteor until they do something
  3. I hear the O2 web site works much better.
  4. Flaky
    Yes I've also noticed the website is up and down all the time over the last few weeks. I webtext using JSMS and if the Meteor site messes up then texts might not get sent. They need to sort this out fast.
  5. The website says im set up to ring the chosen friend for free. But I still get charged for it. Tried ringing customer care sick of waiting (was on hold and its saturday night).
  6. I've had trouble with the Meteor webtext lately, namely trouble loading the phonebook.
  7. Mr Roe does have a point about apostrophes. They exist as part of many Irish names and systems should be able to deal with them.
  8. Last time I complained about the webtext it was fixed a few days later and a rep called me afterwards to follow up. Perhaps standards are slipping?
  9. Yes, he may have valid points about these being seemingly easy to implement - it's the way he's going about it that's pissed me off anyway.
  10. ah i see. i'm pretty sure she's out of luck i'm afraid. maybe ring them again because meteor aren't known for giving the right answer right away
  11. I think he has a very good point, despite being attacked and banned here on Boards for "spamming". He has contacted the company several times to address a problem which comes down to the basics of web development - stuff a first year programmer would have learned! The company choose to ignore him, and his problem. In the end he was left with no choice but to setup a website similar to Meteor (which is probably the only area where they will get him under the law) stating all the factual problems with the site.

    The fact that the company is providing a poor designed website (I always wondered why Customer Service were allowed know your pin, espicaly in the contact us page), fails to listen to its customers wishes (and I believe he isnt the only one asking) and now they are taking legal action against him shows a poor web developer and poor customer relations.

    The company deserves the bad publicity imo.

  12. I personally haven't had a problem with the SMS website but I'm not mass texting people I don't know. Maybe if I did I'd have the same problems.
  13. The spamming was a newbie mistake that he apologised for. Did anyone give him credit for making an apologising? How many posters to the forum are linked to meteor. Some good points were cut to pieces by the same guys even though the points were spot on. You do need apostriophes for Irish names like O'Reilly no m,atter whan the board-bullies say. Mymeteor sucks in parts and thats a fact: face it.
  14. This thread is going way out of hand. I've had a load of reported posts about it.

    I'm going to lock it.

    Feel free to start a new one about the actual Meteor website, but leave out the stuff about the spammed website, etc.

To get back to the home site of Fachtna Roe (the educational website) click here: http://www.fachtnaroe.com.