Is social media nothing more than a megaphone? When was the last time you responded to a posting?
Ok…10 days and three threats for cancellation. That’s what it took to get Skype to unblock my account after they had incorrectly blocked it in response to a problem I reported. Here’s the story:
Beginning August 21 I received a number of rapid sequence calls from a number originating from Algeria. Now since I don’t know anyone in Algeria I presumed initially it was an incorrect number. But after I received almost 30 calls in an hour I knew something else was afoot. That’s when I made the connection the calls were related to a web site hack I had dealt with the previous week.
Now, let me be clear…at no time was my Skype account compromised in any way. The problem stems from how Skype handles it’s billing of international calls. For each of these calls I received I was charged by Skype for the incoming call. It was a small amount but due to the number of calls it racked up. Here’s where it gets ugly. Once the amount of money I had allocated in my Skype account was used up, Skype automatically refilled my account with another withdrawal from my Paypal account. The more calls received, the more money taken. The first reaction is to block the calls, correct? Therein lies the problem. The calls were coming from a number of different originating phone numbers (more than 20 at my last count) making it almost impossible to block them all successfully. The only other option provided by Skype is to limit incoming calls to only those people on your contact list…a useless option when using Skype for business purposes.
I emailed Skype customer support to see what could be done about recovering the funds that had been lost through the obviously fraudulent calls. This is where the entire experience went bad. Their immediate reaction was to block my account. No incoming or outgoing calls were allowed. Granted that’s a good solution if you can get it unblocked. It took three days to get a response to my first request to unblock the account. The request was to reset my password (not the cause of the problem.) I did that and two days later I still had no access. It then proceeded to requesting Skype IDs, Paypal email addresses, Paypal transaction numbers. I’ve interacted with five different customer support people, none of which read the emails I sent and all of whom only responded with form letter emails.
The final resolution of this became quite simple. A blistering flame mail screaming about their horrendous customer service at least got an answer within 24 hours. A demand for account restoration was responded to with another request for information. The final email was quite simple. ”Restore the account or cancel it.”
Not surprisingly…I can get into my account now.
So here are some observations:
- Do not set your Skype account to automatically replenish
- Any funds you add to your Skype account should be considered lost money since they will make no effort to restore them if lost
- Whatever you do…customer service is your absolute last option
- If your account is blocked…expect to be without it for at least a few weeks
- Look into other options before considering Skype for anything beyond personal, convenience use
P.S. - I received an email from Skype with a survey on the quality of their customer service. Anxiously looking to complete it, I clicked on the link…the link’s broken. Why am I not surprised?
10 days to restore a Skype account… O M G.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
There’s enough blame to go around. We should all be outraged…not at the building…but at the violation of rights.
