The first rule of the Virgin Media forum moderators...

Apr 282011
…is don’t talk about the Virgin Media forum moderators.

Updated 30th April 2011 and followed up in the second and third rules of the Virgin Media forum moderators…, and you can blog about it all you like – we’ll allow you to do that.

At this moment, I have an unfinished post regarding my ISP, Virgin Media, and a newly introduced traffic management policy – which only applies to upstream traffic for two protocols, NNTP (usenet, newsgroups) and P2P (peer to peer, file sharing). I’m holding back on finishing that off, for the moment, to give them time to answer some questions I’ve raised in public, on their forums – questions that, in truth, I don’t think are going to be answered.

There does seem to be a policy on the forums pertaining to their broadband and internet services whereby the forum team refrain from responding to a thread until several days after the last person has posted – the logic apparently being that other members of the community might provide an answer to anything raised, so the forum team only needs to bother if an issue is apparently unresolved. To some extent this makes sense but, to a disgruntled customer who is experiencing problems with some aspect of their service, it can be extremely frustrating, and the temptation must be there to follow-up a query, expressing annoyance that the issue isn’t being dealt with – which, unless the forum team take notice of what’s being posted, potentially delays their response.

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Potential security issue on Amazon's website (updated 11/4/2011 - twice)

Apr 082011
An example payment method still on my 'old' Amazon account

Over the course of the last few days I’ve discovered what appears to be – or possibly to have been – a fairly notable potential security hole in the Amazon UK website (and possibly others, but I only use the UK site on a regular basis). I will go into detail below about the nature of the security hole and how I discovered it – but first I want to point out that I’ve been trying to cause the problem to manifest itself again today, and failing. This might mean that the problem – which appears to have been triggered on my own Amazon account in August 2010 – has already been fixed. It might also mean, however, that I simply haven’t been able to establish all the variables that caused it to happen.

In other words, the problem I am about to describe might already be fixed, or it might not. I have no way of knowing one way or the other.

I was planning to wait before publishing this, but I’ve decided to proceed because I am somewhat less than happy with Amazon’s response to my emails on the subject – details at the very end of this post. Continue reading »

When spam and credit checks go hand in hand

Jan 132011

When do spam and credit checks go hand in hand? Easy: When the spam is from an otherwise legitimate mail order company, and their unsubscribe link takes you through an account sign up process before you can actually unsubscribe – an account sign up process which includes a credit check because, after all, by signing up you are applying for a credit account with them.

The company concerned is Very, a catalogue company which is a Shop Direct Ltd brand along with Littlewoods and a few others. Recently, I started receiving marketing emails from Very which, as far as I am concerned, are unsolicited, making them unequivocally spam. Being a fairly well known, legitimate company, though, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and tried unsubscribing by following the link in their emails. However, I discovered that in order to do so it is necessary to apply for an account with them, for which a credit check is required.

A more detailed outline of events, including a brief history that shows how they got my email address, follows.

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Additions Direct: The story begins

Sep 302010

I discovered today that I have an account with a company called Additions Direct and, although I don’t owe them any money, there is only £971 of the £1,000 credit limit available. This is because there is an unfulfilled order on the account – for an “X Factor Waistband Amplifier” which, at £25 (and looking like something utterly dreadful), is yet to be shipped – plus £3.95 delivery.

Except that I don’t have an account with them, having not used this company to purchase anything, and having not set up any such account.

Oh dear.

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