How to Lose a Customer by Dell

Dell Receipt

Throughout the years, I have had three or four Dell desktop computers and have never had a problem with their technology. Last year I bought my daughter a laptop from Dell. 

A couple of days ago I ordered a new laptop worth $1258 dollars. I placed the order online and used my credit card to pay for the purchase. As part of the credit card processing activity, my bank sent me an SMS message with a code that I had to enter online before the payment would be authorised.

The payment was authorised which meant that Dell had my money. I received an official Dell email telling me that they had received my order and a confirmation would follow soon.

The next day I received an email from Dell that had all the hallmarks of attempted fraud. Although it quoted my correct name, order number etc, it was poorly formatted and looked amateurish. My first thought was that fraudsters had intercepted my order or otherwise obtained details of my purchase.

The email asked me to provide an alternative email address and verify my residential address. This seemed strange since I had already provided those details. 

I replied to the email stating that I had already provided the details and had no intention of providing them again as I deemed it unnecessary when Dell had already been paid.

I received another email asking for the same details and advising me that I could cancel my credit card order and send money via a bank transfer. This made me even more suspicious.

The author of the email advised me that they required verification because I was using a "free email address".

To my knowledge half the world uses free email addresses. They had my money, my phone number, my residential address and my email address. What more could they want?

Because I expected this was an attempt to defraud me or Dell, I cancelled my order and ensured the $1258 was refunded.

If it was an attempt at fraud by a third party, then obviously it's no fault of Dell's, however, if it wasn't a fraud attempt, it demonstrates what would be best called a piss poor business practice.

The concept of a customer for life doesn't enter my thoughts now that I think of Dell. They've lost me forever.

Robin

What I love about Gmail

Photo by Kon Karampelas

There are hundreds of email clients and a few big names ones like Outlook, Mail, Yahoo, Gmail, and the 32 described here, probably the tip of a large iceberg.

There are also numerous subscription email clients like ProtonMail that also have free (limited) versions. 

Many of them are no doubt excellent but if you've been using the same client for years, perhaps it's time to review whether it is doing exactly what you want. Or perhaps you want an alternative email account for a business, sports club or another specific purpose.

For example, you may want a "conservative" account for business purposes and a less conservative account for general communication. When I was involved in recruitment for an Australian Government agency, you'd be surprised at the number of email addresses that applicants submitted that were really inappropriate eg, "hotrodjamie@something.com" or "pleasurepuss@something.com".

It's not a good look when you're applying for a job!

Why I love Gmail

I've tried numerous email clients throughout the years and I love Gmail because it's:

1. easy to load and use
2. available on all my devices
3. available to use offline
4. capable of using encryption for all messages
5. capable of providing rules for filtering
6. able to send "out of office" messages
7. has a confidential mode
8. allows multiple addresses to be used receiving and sending email
9. is free with plenty of storage
10. able to download and distribute large attachments

There are several features you may not know about, so I'll briefly explain those.

Encryption

Some email clients provide it, some don't.

Encryption means that between you and your recipient, your message is encrypted and if intercepted by a third party, cannot be read. These days, this should be a necessity.

Confidential Mode

This is another great capability designed to improve security and privacy.

With confidential mode you can:

Prevent your messages being forwarded, copied, printed or downloaded, set an expiry date and require a passcode to access. The code can even be sent to a recipient via SMS.

These features are recommended when sending information that is sensitive. For example, if I sent my bank account details to someone, I can use confidential mode.

The expiry feature means that a day or two after I send it, nobody else will be able to access it.

With ordinary email, although it's encrypted during transit, while it sits in your email sent box and your recipient's inbox, it's vulnerable to being viewed by someone else using your device or who may have hacked into your device.

It's an excellent feature and one you shouldn't live without.

Multiple Addresses

There are two parts to this topic. One is about your email address that can use a suffix and the other about the different incoming and outgoing addresses you can use.

First - Gmail provides a capacity to add a suffix to your existing address eg, say your address is charlie@gmail.com. You decide to sign up to a subscription with G-Man Magazine. Instead of using your charlie@gmail.com address as is, you could use charlie+gman@gmail.com.

Adding the suffix provides several benefits. You can use as many as you want for different people and organisations and when you receive them use a Rule to Filter them into a specific Folder. 

If you find a specific address you have allocated is spamming you, you can set up a Rule to Delete the messages when they arrive. You can also contact the organisation to which you provided your address and inform them about the spam.

There are several other alternative characters and options you can use. If you want to explore it further, look in the Gmail Help section.

The second option relates to alternative email addresses you might have. You can do this:

1. Set up another Gmail account and redirect it to your charlie@gmail.com inbox. My wife and I use this setup. We have a formal address we use for business matters such as dealing with banks, insurance companies etc. I explain how it works below
2. Receive email from alternative email client accounts in your Gmail inbox and send replies using that account's email address and not your Gmail address

Case Study A

Belinda and Charlie DOE are a couple. They share a common email account for their combined business and family affairs and have separate accounts for themselves to use with friends.

Their common "formal" email address is: bandcdoe@gmail.com

Belinda's personal email address is: belinda@gmail.com

Charlie's personal email address is: charlie@gmail.com

They have set up their respective personal accounts ie, belinda and charlie to receive everything sent to bandcdoe@gmail.com. Every formal email that involves their family goes to each of the inboxes so both Belinda and Charlie know what is happening. They never have to check the bandcdoe account because it has been set up to forward every incoming message to both of them.

When either party replies from their personal accounts, the recipient will see that it came from the joint formal address. However, if one partner sends an email from the formal address and wants the other partner to know, they need to CC or BCC them at their personal account.

Case Study B

Belinda has a cosmetics company called BC Cosmetics. She uses a Microsoft Outlook account for all company correspondence. Her address is info-bcc@outlook.com.

Belinda decides she doesn't want to open her Outlook account every day to check her email, so she has set up Gmail to receive email sent from her Outlook account in her personal belinda@gmail.com account. 

She's also set up Gmail so that when she replies or sends a message from BC Cosmetics via her Gmail account it appears to have been sent from her Outlook account.

Conclusion

Using the features provided by Gmail can make your communications efficient and uncomplicated. I've been using Gmail since it first appeared and have not come close to filling the free 15 GB storage capacity it offers.

Another serious consideration is the encrypted email. According to Australia's Scamwatch businesses are being scammed when, "Scammers intercept legitimate invoices and change the details to include fraudulent payment information. The recipient will pay the invoice as normal and not realise they have been scammed.”

You cannot afford to use email that doesn't encrypt before sending.

We're told it's a good thing and the way forward

I could write a lot about this, but I think the video makes the point succinctly and correctly.

I trust you will find it informative.

Acknowledgement: Mr Lovely Porridge

So, you think a Pint of beer is a Pint?

Apart from having a "sip" of my dad's beer when I was very young, I had my first full can of Emu Bitter (Western Australia) when I was 16. Then I never touched a drop until I was 18 and moved to New South Wales (NSW) with the Air Force.

In those days most States and Territories allowed alcoholic drinks to residents 21 or older. I'd lived in the Northern Territory, so I never drank while underage.

The "age of consent" was 21 then, but changed to 18 and NSW was the first to adapt and change its legislation to allow 18 year-olds to drink.

A "Middy" of beer, 10oz was $0.10c on the RAAF Base and a little more in local towns. I took to it like a duck to water.

Years later, after I had married and was a father of two children, I decided I needed to set an example of sobriety and not drink driving. I morphed into what I call, a "responsible drinker". Also known as a "social drinker".

The days of binges followed by a wasted day while I recovered were over. In any case, what once took me one day to recover now took two. Middle age had caught up with me.

Long drinking sessions were fewer as the years passed and eventually, I got to the stage where I never woke up with a hangover. Halleluyah!

After work on Friday evenings, I'd head to a pub for a few beers with my work colleagues or golf buddy. In those days, my first beer was a Pint which would be followed by several Schooners.

That was mostly in the Territory where a Pint is a Pint and a Schooner is a Schooner. A Territory Pint is 570 ml, rounded from 568 ml which is the size of a standard Imperial pint.

When I moved to South Australia in 2018 I was to suffer "quantum shock".

I ordered a Pint and it looked a tad small. I asked the lovely barmaid about it and she said it was a "South Australian pint". When I enquired further, I discovered that the:

1. Standard Pint in all other states and territories is 570 ml
2. SA "pint" is in fact 425 ml, the same size as a Territory schooner
3. SA schooner is 285 ml, the same as a middy (half pint) in NSW

I don't know what the comparative prices are across the country, they vary between hotel and hotel, but I've had to get accustomed to ordering a pint and being satisfied with what I have always thought of as a schooner.

Whether we're being ripped off in terms of cost per ml in SA I don't know, but it sure feels like it. Maybe I need to do some further research.

Maybe I should be brewing my own.

What do you think? Where do you live and what size drinks to you consume?

Cochlear Implant Success!

Dale Henry

Our son has now had his cochlear implant for three months and the results are outstanding.

Born with a severe to profound hearing loss that was bilateral ie, one ear heard loud sounds, the other quieter sounds, he had struggled for years to communicate effectively in high noise environments eg, hotels.

He wore two hearing aids from the age of nine months, both of which gave him a very minimal level of hearing, but it was sufficient to enable him to communicate using lip-reading and the little bit he got from his hearing aids.

Fortunately, he was able to struggle through school gaining a good grounding in mathematics, computing, and English. 

But, over the years, the hearing in his right ear weakened, and eventually even with hearing aids, he couldn't hear.

His cochlear implant was fitted at the Royal Darwin Hospital ENT Department on 2 March 2020 and the outcome has been far better than anticipated. For a considerable time, he had not been able to communicate via telephone or mobile phone but several months after his implant, we can now talk on the mobile and use Facetime.

It's a wonderful outcome for which we are very grateful.

When you are hearing impaired and wear hearing aids, people expect you to be able to communicate normally as though the hearing aid resolves the problem. But unfortunately, that's not the case.

Hearing aids simply amplify sound. All sound. 

Our son's quality of life has now improved substantially because he can communicate almost normally, something we all take for granted.

To the designer of the cochlear implant, Cochlear Australia  and the Australian and Northern Territory Governments who made this implant possible, plus the medical and audiology staff, we say a heartfelt thankyou.

The Plague of Questionnaires

An actual questionnaire capture

Several times each week I receive emailed requests for feedback.

They come from the two banks, an internet service provider, energy supplier, and various other organisations with whom I have a business relationship. They also come from Australia Post with whom I do not have a relationship until someone sends me a letter or parcel.

As if there is only one person who writes customer satisfaction surveys in Australia, they are inevitably worded identically.

“Based on your experience today, how likely or unlikely are you to recommend Marty’s Widget Co to your friends and family?”

Well, for fuck’s sake, why do they think I’ll recommend anything to my friends and family?

My friends and family are well-educated, seemingly intelligent people who can make their own decisions about which companies to use for their products and services. I expect they have had accounts with banks for decades and don’t need me to tell them with whom they should bank or get an internet account.

When I banked a cheque recently, it took three minutes. I walked into the bank, the female teller asked what she could do for me. Once I had thought of the many possibilities, which weren’t what she had in mind, I responded that I wanted to deposit a cheque.

I passed it to her, slid my credit card into a machine and tapped in my pin number.

“Do you want a receipt?”

“No thank you.”

That was it. Whizbang - thank you M’am.

Then the next day a 20 question questionnaire arrives. I usually delete them, but on this occasion, I told the survey writers what I thought about their inane questions. 

Learning to be a Master Thermomix Chef

Dish too big!

For most of my life I've survived with minimal cooking skills. When my wife decided to buy a Thermomix TM6 I decided I needed to know how to use. No use having all this whizz-bang, internet-connected cooking stuff if you don't use it.

So, I started off looking at simple recipes. The first I created was a chili-con-carne. It went okay, but the quantity was a bit large for two. Not to worry, we're accustomed to making more than we need for one meal and freezing it for later meals when neither of us feels like cooking.

I needed help from my wife in relation to a couple of measurements and spices.

My second effort was a Shepherd's Pie and all went well until I had to put the pre-prepared mashed potato onto the mince and vegetable portion and found the dimensions of the casserole dish were too wide to cover with the potato mash available. Such is life.

Noted in my notebook: "Next time use a deeper casserole dish with less surface area on the top." Check.

It was an interesting exercise and the end result was a tasty shepherd's pie as good as I've tasted. There's enough tucked away for another meal too.

Since then I've cooked a buttered chicken meal and next is to learn how to cook a loaf of bread.

Naturally, while cooking of an evening, one has to have a liquid supplement. I chose a McGuigans Pinot Noir. McGuigans is one of my favourites. They cater for buyers in the top end with some expensive wines and people like me who buy cheaper wines.

Many of their less expensive wines have won multiple awards and are of top quality, so you can imagine how good their top of range wines are.

Although I live in the Barossa Valley, one of the largest wine-growing regions in Australia, I buy McGuigans produced in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. However, I'm not a traitor to the Barossa as McGuigans has interests in most, if not all of the South Australia wine growing regions including Clare, the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley.

If you haven't tried a McGuigans, I highly recommend it.

Stay well.