Here’s my latest adventure with Ipower.  Chat conversation.  Note it took them a while to answer and the repeating comment came up about every 2-3 minutes.

The long and short of this one is that I host my websites on my own server (leased from InMotion Hosting).  So when I buy/register a domain from IPower, I have to go reset the DNS settings to point towards my inmotion hosting server.

About 1 out of 4 domains I get for myself or for my customers has something that goes wrong with it and I have to contact support to get the password username or something fixed.

Ipower uses TuCows for domain registrations so I have to go there to redirect the domain Name DNS.

So I register with Ipower, Ipower registers with Tucows, I get a hosed up domain from Ipower, figure it out when I can’t log in to Tucows, go back to Ipower to get it fixed, they fix it with Tucows, send it to me, I then repoint the DNS at Tucows to aim at Inmotion hosting and then all is well with the world.

The customer support sessions take a long time though and drive me nuts.

Mostly I get the sense that the chat reps are chatting with about 10-20 other customers at the same time, so when I explain something to them they do not always pay attention.  I feel like they would rather just give me some free advertising pens and hope that I go away so they can get to the multitude of other customers.

 

Thank you for contacting support. We are currently experiencing a network outage at our support location. Please expect a delay in our response as we are currently operating with minimal staffing using our back up lines. The local IT team is working to fix the issue. Please contact us later or continue to hold; we’ll be with you as quickly as we can.We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. Thank you.

We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.

We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.

We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.

We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.

We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.

We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.

We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.

You are now chatting with ‘Customer Rep’s name withheld’

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Hi Yours Truly . I apologize for the wait time. My name is Customer Rep, how are you today?

Yours Truly: good how about you? I need help with one of my domains

Customer Rep’s name withheld: I’m great, thank you. How can I help you today?

Yours Truly: (fyi Ihave a little under 100 domains with iPower)

Yours Truly: I can not access vdeck nor tucows with GreatNewWebsite.com

Customer Rep’s name withheld: To protect your account from unauthorized changes, can you please verify for me the answer to the Security Question:

Yours Truly: the account info I have is not working

Yours Truly: what’s the security question?

Customer Rep’s name withheld: I have noticed that you have not set the Security Answer in your account. In order to set the Security Question, please follow the steps given below:

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 1. Log into vDeck using the account username and password.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 2. Click on the link ‘Set Security Question’ under the Account Information section.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 3. Click the ‘New Profile’ radio button.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 4. Enter First Name, Last Name, and set the security question and answer.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 5. Finally click on ‘Save’ button.

Yours Truly: well that’s the thing.

Yours Truly: I can not log in to vdeck because the account information doesn’t work, so I can’t set up a security question either.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Do you have access to the account Administrative contact e-mail address myemailaddress@something.com?

Yours Truly: hang on the forgotten password thing just came to me. I’m in Vdeck, let me set my security question then we can figure out tucows

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Okay.

Yours Truly: ok, I now have a security question and answer, but need tucows fixed

Customer Rep’s name withheld: What is your mother’s maiden name?

Yours Truly: ********

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Thank you for the authentication.

Yours Truly: np

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Can you please let me know what exactly the issue in the domain is?

Yours Truly: The account information does not work when I attempt to login to https://manage.opensrs.net/

Yours Truly: ergo tucows

Yours Truly: I need to set up the DNS there

Yours Truly: to point to my server

Yours Truly: here’s tucows message

Yours Truly: Error: Invalid username/password combination for heathenology.com. For support regarding heathenology.com, please contact your reseller, iPowerWeb via the following: iPowerWeb, hostmaster@ipowerweb.com 888 511 4678 602-307-5438 (fax) http://IPOWER.com This company may be contacted for domain login/passwords, DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support questions.

Yours Truly: This happens on about 30 percent of the domains that I get from Ipower

Yours Truly: before and after the conversion to the new vdeck

Yours Truly: usually it requires you to reset the password at tucows

Customer Rep’s name withheld: In order to change the domain name server information, please follow these steps:

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 1) Go to https://manage.opensrs.net

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 2) Enter the domain name.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 3) Enter the domain username and password.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 4) Click on ‘Manage Domain’.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 5) Click on ‘Manage Name Servers’

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 6) Change the name server information.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: 7) Finally, click on ‘Save Configuration.

Yours Truly: yeah I know all that

Yours Truly: The username and password that Ipower gave me do not work there

Yours Truly: Hence the need for the reset

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Okay.

Yours Truly: let me know what you need next

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Okay.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: I will send the domain login information for the domain so that you can access the domain in https://manage.opensrs.net .

Yours Truly: OK, when can I expect that? (I apologize its a required question)

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Yes.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: I have sent it to YoursTrulyEmail@something.com.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Can you please check it?

Yours Truly: yep checking now

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Okay.

Yours Truly: got it, checked it and it works. Just to confirm that is only for manage.opensrs.net correct? (Not for vdeck)

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Yes, correct.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Could you please let us know, if you have contacted us earlier via e-mail with regards to the same issue?

Yours Truly: not in regards to this domain. I have had this same type of problem about 20-30 times over the last couple years with other domains

Yours Truly: Sometimes in addition to the manage.opensrs.net login information not working I have also seen vdeck accounts that were never set up and domains that weren’t actually registered even though I was charged for the transaction successfully, and received the account set up information.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Can you please provide the domain name so that I can investigate on this?

Yours Truly: just a sec

Yours Truly: http://CustomersWebsite1.net/

Yours Truly: http:// CustomersWebsite1.org/

Yours Truly: http:// CustomersWebsite1.us/

Yours Truly: http:// CustomersWebsite1.biz/

Yours Truly: http:// CustomersWebsite1t.info/

Yours Truly: http:// CustomersWebsite1.org/

Yours Truly: Those were some of the worst and may still be broken

Yours Truly: There were a lot more but it would take me a while to get the list together.

Yours Truly: If you have a way to look back through my old support tickets I’m sure its there somewhere.

Customer Rep’s name withheld: Can you please hold while I look into this for you? I should have some more information regarding your issue in 2-4 minutes.

Yours Truly: sure

There may be a problem communicating with Customer Rep’s name withheld. Please wait while your chat is transferred to another operator.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 9:09 pm and is filed under Customer Support, iPower. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.