I’ve had more than my fair share of problems with hosting companies over the years. Nothing will ever quite compare the morons at Fasthosts, who I have never used since in any capacity (for any company I have worked for) after they switched off one of my websites on a Friday afternoon and sodded off home for the weekend. But that rant is for another time, today I’d like to talk about 123-Reg – who I use for domain registrations.

I wanted to update my card details this month, a task which should have been fairly straight forward – except when I tried the form didn’t work, insisting there was something wrong with the card. After trying several times I contacted their customer support department where, had I known how utterly retarded they were, I wouldn’t have bothered. Here was my first message:

Account Owner
02/03/2010 17:07:54

I have tried several times to update my credit card details only to be told there is a problem with them. I know there is not because I use the card quite a lot, it’s a business card. I’m getting quite fed up with it and I have domains due in April.

Please sort this out because it’s very annoying.

What is also annoying is that when I went to submit this form it asked me for the ‘domain’… it’s not about a domain, it’s a billing question. No wonder your forms aren’t working properly, they haven’t been coded correctly.

So – not only did the credit card form not work, the support form insisted I reference a specific domain name when it clearly wasn’t about a domain. Some simple user testing wouldn’t go amiss on their website. I received a response from ‘Nick’.

Support Agent
Nick
02/03/2010 17:30:58

Dear Darren,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 02nd March 2010.

I can confirm that the error message for your transaction is appearing because the billing address entered in your payment process does not match the address that your bank account is registered to. Please ensure that this matches when trying to make the payment again. Please note that stringent security checks are put in place on our payment processes for fraud prevention purposes. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Nick
123-reg

This was annoying – because their ‘address’ field consisted of a series of text boxes with address line 1, address line 2 etc on them – no real indication as to what fields were required. I attempted to clarify this with Nick.

Account Owner
02/03/2010 17:41:08

Thanks for the update

Could you point me in the right direction of what the fields ‘Address line 1:’ etc are supposed to refer to seeing as it needs to be an exact match with what is stored with the bank? Perhaps City, County etc might be a better label for the fields so that we know what part of the address is supposed to go in which field?

A simple question, but sadly it was picked up by an even simpler person, called Kristy. This is what I really hate about customer service people – sometimes they don’t even read the question and just submit the stock answer. I may as well have clicked on a random link in the FAQ for the help this bint was:

Support Agent
Kristy
03/03/2010 12:11:55

Dear Darren,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 02nd March 2010.

If your account email address is wrong or your details need updating you can change these by doing the following.

1) Login to your 123-reg control panel.
2) Scroll down to the section titled ‘Account management’.
3) Click ‘Update personal information’.

All fields need to match the exact billing address of the card/

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Kristy
123-reg

That angered me, as you can probably imagine…

Account Owner
03/03/2010 12:45:53

You didn’t read the question did you?

Please read the question before replying…

This time Lewis picked up the batten, and at least he gave it a good effort.

Support Agent
Lewis
03/03/2010 14:22:37

Dear Darren,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 03rd March 2010.

When the card details are processed we check the first line of address and the postcode.

I have checked your account and no postcode is listed. Ensure the card billing address is registered to the address below.

*****
UK

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Lewis
123-reg

No postcode? Firstly, pretty sure I entered one and secondly it should be mandatory anyway? Checked the form again – after Lewis had ‘mentioned’ the postcode thing and yeah, my browser shows I definitely entered one.

Account Owner
03/03/2010 15:30:00

No Postcode is listed?

That’s funny because my browser history shows that I have entered one, and have entered one each time I have attempted to update the card details.

Maybe I’ll try again, maybe I’ll just give up and use another registrar. Haven’t decided yet. Full marks for actually reading the question though, that’s more than Kristy managed. Perhaps she’s having an off day?

Then, just to completely piss me off – another moron chimed in having completely ignored everything that had been written so far. This guy, Ray, was asking for a verbal volley.

Support Agent
Ray
05/03/2010 12:19:18

Dear Darren,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 03rd March 2010.

We check the address on your 123-reg user account and the address that the bank hold for your card.

If your account email address is wrong or your details need updating you can change these by doing the following.

1) Login to your 123-reg control panel.
2) Scroll down to the section titled ‘Account management’.
3) Click ‘Update personal information’.

From here you can change any of the details for your 123-reg account. Please note that any alterations made here will not change domain name registration details, they will simply update the 123-reg database.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Ray
123-reg

Ray got just what he asked for in my opinion…

Account Owner
05/03/2010 12:28:30

I’m amazed at the way you guys just copy and paste your stock responses into this system without reading a single word of the original question. I give up. Truly. I’ve known some bad customer service in my time, NTL and BT being very high on the list, but at least they actually know what you’re asking before they ignore you. You guys aren’t even concerned with that.

Amazing, really. Full marks.

This got Kristy’s attention – and she decided to check that the issue had been resolved.

Support Agent
Kristy
08/03/2010 16:32:04

Dear Darren,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 05th March 2010.

Please can you confirm that you are still having an issue?

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Kristy
123-reg

After trying for what had to go down as the last time, the form worked. Perhaps one of their developers was made aware of the issue at long last?

Account Owner
08/03/2010 16:34:53

Magically it seems to work now. Correct something on the form did we? Looks to me as though the postcode field wasn’t labelled correctly last time.

And then Kristy mopped up, closing the support ticket.

Support Agent
Kristy
08/03/2010 16:45:12

Dear Darren,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 08th March 2010.

Sorry for the inconvenience this caused you.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Kristy
123-reg

Why couldn’t this have all been done first time round? Why did it take 3 different support agents to solve a very simple problem? I’ll know next time not to bother with 123-Reg’s support, they’re imbeciles.

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