Incredible Connection - A comedy of errors from beginning to end, failure to delivey as promised.

Since both the public and incredible connection staff may read this post, I'll post the gist and then the story for those who may want the detail.

The gist: They have not managed to achieve what they set out to do, which is to sell and deliver a computer in a given timeframe. I'll definitely avoid using "Incredible Connection" for anything again because the experience was unpleasant. Their staff are impolite and unhelpful and condescending. Their processes archaic and not purpose appropriate. Their advertising practice, if not ***********, is *********. Delivery information, and communication generally, isn't sufficient or accurate.

The story with detail: I bought a custom-built PC from IC. Through their online shopfront/sales channel. The item was only made available online by IC; they did not make it possible to go to a store and buy the same equipment. One of the attributes of the transaction was that they would deliver the equipment within fourteen days. Or should I say, while you're deciding to make the purchase and, saliently, before you have made payment the online store says "Availability: Delivery within fourteen days". But once you have made payment and it's too late to do anything about it, the Delivery tracking information says "Delivery within fourteen working days". The difference in delivery time is a week. If I had been buying a PC for a staff member starting in two weeks, I would have been sitting with an utterly unproductive staff member for a week, I wasn't, but it's not a decision I would willing let Incredible connection make on my behalf.

If this faux pas isn't due to incompetence, it's most undoubtedly ********* and qualifies as a "Bait and Switch" manoeuvre. It qualifies because I might have decided to buy elsewhere if I had known this up front. I almost certainly would have gone back to Matrix, had incredible connection been upfront about this limitation.

IC make available the ability to create an account (of the internet type, not the credit type) which enables their customers to have them store certain information in their systems. Names, Contact details and previous purchases. The account capability allows one to track a specific order when applicable.

I followed the process to create my account using my e-mail address as an account name/username as dictated when I placed the order online. After thirteen days, not having heard so much as a peep from IC, I decided to log in to track the order. I found I couldn't log in, the reason given was that either my username or password was incorrect. The website Since I chose to store the username and password combination for the site using my browser, I was reasonably confident that the details were correct. I pressed the escape key only to be presented with my account and order details by the site. While there's a good chance that I was only able to see my account details because I had successfully logged in, despite the error message, there certainly was no evidence or any way of knowing that this is what had happened. Still needing to track my order I clicked the "Track Order" link and, in the form which the site generates, was presented with somebody else's information in the form of their e-mail address. The form exists to provide some "authentication." If one inputs the order number and the e-mail address one can get more information. I didn't start adding numbers to my order number to try to figure out this other person's order number, but I did have an e-mail address I would have been able to use since it was known by the IC systems.

Knowing that e-mail addresses are defined in the POPI act as personal information and that the events already qualified as a POPI Infringement. I tried to contact IC Support, both to sort out the account issues which only affect me, and to let them know about the privacy law infringement which could potentially affect many people. In IT Security, this would almost certainly be called a breach, exposure of personal data.

It was late, and I didn't want to wake my household, so I tried to submit a support request/ticket online, rather than making a phone call. This form also did not work, I submitted a full report on what had happened and was somewhat annoyed when the form failed. Any attempt to submit a support request simply returned an error message letting me know that the effort had failed. I suspected that this may have been in a similar condition to the login form on the website. And that the information had actually been submitted but that the site produced and error anyway. I used a search engine to look up some alternative and found that IC has a customer interface on Facebook. I used the facebook messaging system to try to contact them but found that while IC offers a 24 Hour shopfront service through the online shop, they don't actually provide a 24-hour service. I submitted something closely approximating "Hi, I'm trying to buy things online from Incredible, but can't log in. The contact us form on the website gives me an error when I try to use that. How do I get support for Incredible Website issues?" I phrased my question this way because I was unsure that Facebook was the correct interface (Since IC offer a Contact us form and a support number to call).

The automated messaging provided by facebook and not IC themselves returned the canned message filled in by whoever had set up the IC FB page.

It read "Hi Andre, thanks for your message. We are not here right now, but we'll get back to you soon! Please note our working hours are 08:00 – 20:00 on weekdays, and 09:00 – 13:00 on weekends and public holidays."

I was expecting a response when the FB page once again manned, perhaps around 8:30 or 9:00. At 9:00, I submitted my question again through the magic of "copy-paste", so it said precisely the same thing. A few hours later, sometime after eleven in the morning, a blunt and unrelated response came back "What product are you trying to purchase?". No Hello, no confirmation of what the issue was and not an answer to the question "How do I get support for website issues" — only a personal question about what I was trying to buy.

The person manning the FB gave me no explanation of the rationale for the question. So I asked. "Hi, I might be misunderstanding what you mean, but how is that an answer to the question, "how do I get support for Website issues ?". If you must know, it might be a mouse, or some mousepads, possibly a UPS, possibly a monitor, I needed some printer cartridges too. I haven't decided yet, but since login doesn't work (And exposes somebody else's private information) I'm not going to fill a cart only to find out I've wasted my time."

After seeing no response, two hours later, I sent "Hello?". At which point, the reply came quickly:

"You need to create an account to login. Login is required for purchases of Televisions for example. You can checkout as a guest. "

Had any qualifying questions been asked we would not have reached this point in a conversation. Bearing in mind that at this late stage of the conversation, I'm was still trying to have the question "Where should I be to get support for website issues?" answered. And was in genuine danger of assuming that I must have found the correct interface since the person on the other side seemed to be trying to help.

This time, having somewhat lost patience with the now eighteen-hour long process I thought to really grab the agent's attention and make the phrasing of the question undeniably clear. I asked "I have an account, login isn't working. Which is the problem I reported already. Don't be so patronising. Also, still not an answer to the question. Perhaps if I rephrase: the incredible connection website is making known personal information, as defined by the popi act, to unauthenticated individuals. It's doing this because of poor internal processes at IC. Who at ic should I make the problem known to before I report the breach and contravention of the popi act to mybroadband and IT web?"

To which the almost immediate reply was: "Kindly contact customer care on ***for technical assistance."

An answer which reconfirmed for me that IC was not capable of offering a 24-hour service, which wouldn't be a problem except that it's precisely what they're trying to do.

I called the number, given that it was now after three the next afternoon, I didn't think I would be waking anybody up by making the call.

The call was answered by an agent, but then the call was disconnected before I had a chance to explain what the problem was. I called back, and the call was answered by a different agent. I won't name the agent. I explained what the problem was. The agent didn't really understand what I was describing, and I thought that perhaps my explanation was not clear and to the point, given that there were two unrelated issues to report. The POPI Infringement and the problem with "login". I tried explaining again. I have an account on the IC website, and I can't log in because the username and password aren't recognised. Without a thought, the agent rep****: "Have you tried using a different browser or clearing your cache?". I said, if you can explain what the rationale is for me to clear my cache or use a different browser, I'll do it. He said, "Our technical people just say we should say that".

I said, " Do you have an account you can use to test?" He said, "Yeah I'll....oh...yeah that's not working". I couldn't resist and asked, "Have you tried clearing your cache or using a different browser?" He said he would let the guys know about the problems.

He also helped to "track the order" and let me know that he could see on the system that works had not begun yet on my order. The order was placed late on the 16th Nov, this was the 24th (A day before an actual 14 days had passed). I said, "on the site, you guys advertise that delivery will be within fourteen days", he immediately defended "That's fourteen working days". I said, "the site says fourteen days, not working". He became more defensive and said, "It's always fourteen working days". I said I'm not going to get into a fight with you about it. I told him, "I haven't got any notifications over the last weeks other than the one confirming the order". He said "Hang on a sec let me just check, is your e-mail address and he read out an e-mail address which was very nearly identical to min (barring the somewhat unexpected co.uk as opposed to co.za domain). I asked, "Is it possible that the e-mail address was captured incorrectly somewhere along the process ?" I had suspected something was amiss since the confirmation e-mail had arrived, and the username which is the e-mail address worked. I didn't suspect that I had made this type (Also I'm accustomed to not typing co.za). He said, yes, there's a manual capture process. I asked, "How manual is the process," He said, "Orders are captured manually and if you want something changed that has to be done manually too". This process is not suitable for something automated, like an online store.

The login problem still exists today, though now the POPI act infringement problem has been fixed. I can only log in if I go to the "Forgot password" form, click "Back" which gets "back" to a different login for to the one which sports the "Forgot password" link. Then after the first attempt which fails, I get to what looks like an identical login form but behaves differently and using the same username and password I'm able to log in.

Also, It's worth mentioning that when they say "Within fourteen days" they intend not to do anything more than the absolute minimum requirement. While it's possible to assemble and deliver a PC within a few days, even if you aren't carrying stock and need to collect some from Mustek or Axiz or some other supplier, IC hasn't. Within 14 (working) days, in this case, has meant at the last possible moment that qualifies IC not to have us say they didn't make the absolute minimum effort to comply with the expectations they set.

The delivery process is outsourced to a delivery company. The IC website allows for tracking. Still, the tracking information given on the IC website doesn't correlate with that made available by the delivery company. In this case, IC says "Parcel is with courier", but the courier says "No such parcel number exists in our DB". Which obviously makes planning impossible. The courier related information given by the IC website isn't particularly meaningful to me, or I imagine people who don't work for IC or possibly the courier company. What we all want to know is "What time must I be where to take delivery?" If not a precise time, then a range (At some time during a particular day is not a range, between 14:00 and 16:00 is a range).

And the story continues. Incredible hadn't delivered at 18:00 on the day they sent the text message saying that they would deliver by 17:00. It seems the information which the courier had was correct. I called Incredible connection support and their attitude was "We're very sorry but you can take it or leave it"

Buying something from somebody shouldn't be this fraught with problems and unpleasantness.