When Red Flags Look White: Wired Covers Financial Fraud Close to Home

 

Journalist Becca Andrews wrote in Wired recently about financial fraud perpetrated against her mother. 

Financial institutions have measures in place to detect and deter these attempts, but even the most savvy consumers can be tricked -- either by very clever phishing, phone calls, or by distractions from concurrent activities. 

This story suggests that not enough is being done.

Twitter 'Can't Follow' Block Continues (Case History blog post)

 Is it months?  Possibly years, and still and I cannot get this error fixed.

The underlying problem? For ordinary Twitter accounts, you don't follow accounts which don't follow you back. So after a threshold (5000 accounts for Twitter), you will have a harder time getting follows. And the ratio is unadvertised, so you won't know the target you're aiming for.

Case History

• Case# 0240624862
• Case# 0220594912
• Case# 0222268402
• Case# 0226607166
• Case# 0241424467 

FAQ Twitter's Follow Limit FAQ (not relevant to this bug)

Twitter Support Update 
2021-12-17

Thanks for reaching out! We are sorry that you have been dealing with Following issues on your account. We’ve provided as much information as we can about this particular issue, but we know sometimes things on Twitter are frustrating, and we appreciate that you reached out and provided us with feedback.

We took a look, and we have more info for why your account can't Follow more accounts currently.

Your account has hit a Follow ratio limit. Once an account is following 5,000 accounts, additional follow attempts are limited by account-specific ratios. Gaining more Followers should allow you to Follow more people.

We hope this helps, please let us know if you have any further questions.

Thanks, 

***Name deleted***

Twitter Support

Twitter Support for Long-Running Inability to Follow

Twitter doesn't share its data with you.  For instance, if you have a marketing campaign, and you'd like to know when a high impact influencer followed you, this data point isn't provided -- at least AFAIK.

I have a different motivation for having that data.  I would like to demonstrate the months / probably years -- that have passed since I have been able to follow anyone with @knowlengr. 

It was September when I last checked on the status of this request to fix what the CSR indicated was "a bug," and there's been no change and no update.

Out of desperation, because now I need to use this long-held Twitter account to reach out to journalists for a book project, I hope to get support attention by reposting the last message, provided below.

Credit Karma User Reviews

Sample Customer Review from Credit Karma

The web site Credit Karma hosts various lending-related content, including service reviews. These reviews are hosted in the familiar style of Amazon's product reviews, including "Most Helpful Favorable," and "Most Helpful Critical" as well as enough volume for the reviews to seem credible. Since Amazon -- for now -- doesn't host financial service reviews, borrowers and other parties to financial transactions might benefit from reviewing the reviews.

Tip: Service quality managers would do well to follow not only the reviews of their own services, but the reviews of competitive services. Weak hand-offs between web sites and customer service, confusing workflow, unexplained delays, and problems with web site navigation are common complaints.

NYT: Sorry, Out of Paper this Weekend

 

This weekend the New York Times did not appear in the front yard at its appointed time. When it did arrive, four hours later than usual, it was thin and was accompanied by the note reproduced above. Here's the text of that message:

We regret to inform you that due to production shortages we were unable to deliver the following section of your NYT this morning. If we are able to obtain a replacement copy of this section, we will be more than happy to deliver it to you. Because you are a valued subscriber whose satisfaction is of the utmost import [sic] to us, we feel obliged to offer our apology for this inconvenience. If you should have any further questions, please call our customer service.  Sincerely, The New York Times Company Circulation Fulfillment Department. 

What appeared with the Sunday delivery was two copies of the Art and Leisure section, two copies of the magazine, but the other missing sections were not provided (or available?). See below.

I phoned customer service.

The agent was able to place a credit for the two missed papers (Saturday and Sunday), but had no further information as to cause from the Production side of the house.

Question: Since the Company knew it could not deliver an intact paper, why was a credit not offered immediately?

Question: The NYT has a full staff of editors and writers. Who is responsible for the clumsily worded "we feel obliged to offer our apology"?  "Obliged"?

Question: Was the problem caused by a supply chain failure?  Software problem?  Data problem?  It's not mandatory that customers are informed of the problem, but it is helpful.

Reference: P. Ruth, "Re-examining narrativity: small stories in status updates," Talk and Text, vol. 30, pp. 423+, 2010. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/text.2010.021

Help at Instagram: Anything but Instant

Screenshot of WikiHow Help Page on Getting Help from Instagram

A customer was having difficulty setting up an account at Instagram and asked for help. Upon researching why the customer's account was listed as "not active," it became clear that Instagram was at great pains to avoid having to help.

When it takes a third party content provider to navigate a help system, there's something wrong. In this case, WikiHow capitalized on the unhelpful help at Instagram. The help "funnel" at Instagram excludes most of the usual channels: Twitter, email, phone. 

I would be interesting to know how much the absence of a call center (offshore or otherwise) is helping to prop up the Facebook share price.

Clear winner here? Not the Instagram community, since WikiHow doesn't provide any new information; the contributors at WikiHow simply condensed and rearranged the already unhelpful information at Instagram. The clear winner here is WikiHow's pageviews.

You are Number 31: Managing Call Center Chat Capacity

Chat can be an efficient channel to handle a customer service problem. But call center managers should probably not offer them when there is no capacity for handling anticipated volume. This recent experience on the New York Verizon queue shows what can happen. The wait time, surprisingly, wasn't terrible -- about 30 minutes -- but I suspect many customers would not have been willing to wait for a 31-person queue to subside.

SocialOomph: Last Dozen Facebook Posts Fail, "Please Contact Facebook"

The symptom is similar to the experience reported with Social Oomph ("SO") Twitter earlier this year on Black Hat World. It's unclear from that thread how the issue was resolved.

I decided my issue was different.

I had more than two dozen contiguous posts to Facebook (mainly business pages) that failed over the past three weeks. All reported as successful through SO. The response from SO is a standard one (reproduced below).

The SO gateway to Facebook is much more convoluted than with Hootsuite or Sendible.  SO claims this makes it better - indeed to avoid problems like this one.  

Since the API tells SO the posts succeeded, a possibility is privacy settings in Facebook. And there was the tipoff: the Facebook app had remained in developer mode, which meant only the developer identity in Facebook could see the posts -- even though they had been issued. Yes, the error was mine in the app setup process. That said, the troubleshooting for this problem was unhelpful (i.e., non-existent).

When your list of tweets in SocialOomph say the tweet was published, then it means the tweet was successfully sent to the Facebook API and the API accepted it. The only condition where a tweet is marked Published is when the Facebook API said it received and accepted the tweet. 

If it is not in your timeline it means it got lost somewhere inside the Facebook system. It is either a temporary glitch in Facebook, or Facebook suppressed the updates.

The best will be to ask for help from Facebook support staff.

Mobile Deposits: Risks and Tips to Even the Playing Field with the Banks

In a previous post at PlzHold, two USAA (@usaa_help) customer service failures were cited. One of these was compounded by a related failure at Citibank (@askciti). Customers at other banks should take note. The gist of this problem is that a bank can wait literally months to reject the scanned image and then demand that you cover the check in five working days or less.

In addition to the convenience factor, mobile deposits are used by some branchless banks and single-facility credit unions which provide this service to customers located anywhere where a wireless service reaches.

It seemed like such a great idea.

If the convenience outweighs the risk for your situation, follow these tips:

1. Keep the original check. The bank may refuse the scanned image months after the deposit has been initially honored.
2. For large dollar value checks, don't use the mobile facility at all. The cascading effect of a dishonored check is not worth the convenience.
3. When offered, use the desktop version instead of the smartphone version. Verify the quality of the scan before sending the check to the bank (see OCR tips below.) Example: Chase Mobile for desktop. Not all banks offer this option, which is silly, since the smartphone scans are inferior.
4. If you have no local branch or ATM that accepts an old school document deposit, have the overnight deposit address for your bank handy so that you can ship the check via Fedex, Express Mail or UPS if the check is dishonored.
5. Keep your own scan of the check using a full-fledged scanner, not the cheapie in the smartphone. Be certain that the routing number, account number, date, signature and amount are all clearly scanned.
6. If the check is an important one, use the OCR feature of your scanner software to verify that the key check fields can be read electronically. This won't help with the eDeposit problem, but you will have verified that you have a readable electronic copy of the check.

Keep in mind that two banks are often involved. The originating bank can refuse the check months later, in as the PlzHold blog post, and your bank will simply follow suit.

For some, this change of banking document workflow is new. Cashed checks were scanned by most businesses for record-keeping purposes, but the scan quality was less important. Now the physical document itself must be kept. 

And you thought smartphone deposits were so high tech. 

USAA Customer Service Highly Rated -- When Weakly Tested

USAA "Why Join USAA?" Web Page Screenshot

In a statistically invalid sample of two, USAA customer service (@usaa_help, reached several times via call center) is zero for two for this customer of more than 20 years. 

Incident 1

In June of 2013, the USAA mobile application was used to make a checking deposit for more than $400. The phone scan worked, the app acknowledged the deposit, and the deposit appeared on the following month's statement. Perfect, right?

Then, almost three months later, USAA notified me that the check would not be honored. Here is the message, delivered via an almost-missed webmail notification (not by paper or text):

First USAA Message

This message is to notify you that the check deposited on 06/20/13 in the amount of $440.25 was not accepted by the issuing bank due to an image error. A new check must be mailed to us (or the original check as long as it is not voided) within five days to avoid a debit to your account.

I immediately phoned the call center to plead for more time. The banks (Citibank issued the original check) had taken nearly three months to identify the problem. Plus, I had a scan of the original check, while not the original, in which the routing number and account number were clearly visible. In addition, I replied to this USAA message requesting additional time to resolve the problem, since it would mean contacting a customer and asking them to cut another check, and to verify that the original one had not been deposited. This was the reply.

Second USAA Message

"Thank you for your message. Unfortunately, we are not able to accept the attached image. We do ask that you either mail the original or a replacement item (with a new check number) can be processed via our Deposit @ Mobile or Deposit @ Home services. If additional time is needed, please contact us after speaking with the check issuer to obtain a time line for a replacement to be made available."

The "attached image" was a copy of my scan of the check -- imperfect, but with the relevant information intact.

So what happened at the call center when I phoned? Both the original CSR and the supervisor to whom I escalated the call refused to extend the time provided to resolve this issue. I was polite -- as mentioned in the blog header, I have worked in a call center and have sympathy for agents -- but both stonewalled me and refused even to consult anyone in the Cash group to see if any separate arrangements could be made. Instead their unhelpful suggestions were, "Why don't you call your customer and tell them you need to have the check in a hurry?" and "Maybe you need to speak with Citibank. It's their check."

To be clear, all I wanted was additional time to cover the check. Despite the offer by email to provide "additional time" if needed, none was given.

Less important, but still a matter of etiquette, USAA did not apologize for waiting nearly three months to bring this matter to my attention. Instead, the Company made their issue with a banking peer my problem.

I'm sparing my readers the tedium of obvious but fruitless replies to USAA's obstinacy.

The "solution," a most inconvenient one, was to wire funds to USAA. In five working days there was no way to fund the account with certainty for the refused check in time. The rigid policy at USAA Bank did not take this into account.

It is now more than a month since the original dialog began. My customer has yet to replace the check, but I do not hold them accountable for this nuisance.

Aside: Interestingly, the customer's check was a "paper eCheck" from Citibank -- i.e., requested online by Citibank's business customer and snail-mailed to me. This is standard practice for outfits like CheckFree when they cannot perform an ACH style funds transfer. 

Incident 2

The other incident was a vehicle repair. After decades of dutifully paying my premiums, when I had a weather-related accident with my 1994 Toyota, I figured I'd pay some of the cost, but not all of the cost of repairs. Wrong. USAA immediately raised my premiums to cover -- within $100! -- the amount of the accident that I did not pay for out of pocket. Net value of insurance? Zero for that accident. After the repair costs were paid for, the premium was restored to its original level.

What happened when I complained to customer service? Got nowhere. The first agent was downright hostile and blamed me for the accident. "You should have been driving more slowly in the snow." (The accident was caused by a downhill slide on a snow-covered street. The snow had fallen while I was having lunch -- at its most slippery.) The supervisor was more understanding, "The other agent never lived in the Northeast and doesn't understand about snow."

But there was no budging on the "adjustment."

"There's nothing we can do," the supervisor said.

"So, I am to get auto insurance with USAA in order to avoid a major cost when I have an accident, but when I do have one, you want me to pay for all of it?" I asked.

"This amount is what the adjuster believes you should pay," I was told.

Evaluate Customer Service When Out-of-Band Events Occur

USAA will probably continue to be listed (e.g., ASTD's "Learn from the Best") as one of the best managed firms in many B-school textbooks. But most likely by those who have not interacted deeply with the organization -- in ways that taxed their routine systems and procedures.

Twitter: @usaa_help @usaa @askciti

IVR Experts Anveo Deep Six Inbound Telephone Support

With smaller firms, sometimes the inbound call routing is clearly due to programming errors in the phone system. Perhaps the phone directory has not been updated when employees arrive or depart. That is understandable. But when an IP telephony provider that advertises that one can "Mashup your phones, voicemail, instant messages and the web using Voice 2.0 Visual Call Flow technology," an expectation is created for a smooth customer experience.

After waiting for five days for Anveo to respond to a request to upgrade the service on one of my VOIP lines, I tried their "click to call" feature. Two things happened -- one minor, one less so. First, it would not connect to my own Anveo number, so I had to resort to a Verizon number for the call back. Second, and this is the reason for this post, the IVR simply tells you to submit a ticket online, and "Goodbye."

Open for selling. Closed for support. 

Truly, the online-only model for support would be fine if the desired service upgrade could be accomplished online. Most users of Anveo's service are  moderately tech-savvy and would prefer self-service. But here email does not appear to be monitored; there is not even an acknowledgement of receipt -- e.g., "We received your request for help and will try to get back to you in a month or two." In addition, the Live Chat on the site is rarely manned -- see screenshot. I did reach a live person once on 30 August.

When a user's task cannot be accomplished online, email is unanswered, live chat is a tease, and the clues to resolving a problem if present at all are inadvertently buried on the web site -- then someone must be there to help out.

2013-09-18 Update: At least part of the issue is that the chat feature is not integrated with the rest of the support infrastructure. If the Support | Ticket subsystem is used instead, at the tickets are seen by an agent in a reasonable amount of time.

"Admissions" Admitting No Wrong for Extended Hold Times

Nassau Community College logo (via Wikipedia Commons)

"Come on down tomorrow," said the CSR. "It's better to do it in person, anyway." She was talking about submitting documentation to the local community Admissions office. That was Thursday. Friday I drove the 11 miles to the campus, which immediately seemed largely deserted.

Deserted, I thought, because school was not in session, No problem, but Admissions is probably working today. It was not a holiday. First I looked for a campus directory or map at the main building, though it wasn't clear from the markings which one was "main." Nothing. But there was a posting that the "Registration and Health" offices had been relocated, so I headed there. It as a brisk 10 minute walk, only to discover a locked door. No signage to indicated closed or open status.

Back in the car, I phoned the main number, which through IVR placed me in the Admissions queue. The recorded message indicated that the campus was closed, but the Admissions queue was open. Well, at least the recordings were played (In essence, "Go read our web site instead," though more polite). Then, "All of our representatives are busy . . ." 

There were perhaps two dozen others parked or strolling the campus, all of them on cell phones. A casual sampling of them suggested that many were trying to reach a college representative for help or directions.

Analysis 

1. CSR: Before wrap-up, consult the organization's calendar and update the delivered information accordingly. [Training failure]
2. IVR: The automated systems weren't used to full advantage. Automated wrap-up, usually including the quality message, could give users the option of playing back hours information for the current or following day. Importantly, the IVR may already know the department of interest, so hours should be limited to the listener's already expressed interest. [IVR integration failure]
3. Use permanent signs to direct users at SMS or web messages with updated hours for main departments. This is useful for institutions with busy calendars, unpredictable closings or when no labor is available to keep physical signage current. [RL integration]

"I'm Sorry but that Order Number is Invalid"

A previously successful online transaction at Home Depot allowed for scheduling of an appliance purchase including delivery and installation. However, when a gas range failed recently, Home Depot didn't have the model desired in stock, and would not for another 30 days or more.

Next up was Best Buy; one assumed that a similar experience would be possible. 

No such luck. Payment and scheduling of the installation could not be accomplished online. So on to the phones.

The ordering of the appliance through the call center was straightforward enough, but the audio quality was poor. It sounded like the early days of IP telephony. An initial operator fielded the call, then relayed it to an appliance specialist, who took the order. This part was routine. Later in the day, several emails were received (albeit to the wrong email address; the updating of email addresses on an account lags more than 24 hours?) indicating the order status.

Two days later, the order status was queried. No record of any order. Hmm. Back to the phones. "No, I have no record of such an order. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Disposition: The order acknowledgement was forwarded to a different email address, and later the next day, a CSR emailed that there had been a delay in posting the order to the account. Specifically, 

I have read the previous chat contact you made with regards to your order number (1113152694909). I do apologize if there was a delay in reflecting your order in bestbuy account [sic]. I checked the email details you sent and I am happy to inform you that I was able to confirm your order.

As of three days after receipt of this message, while the order may be valid in some system somewhere, the order is still not showing on the account.

"You Must Be Super Busy, Since My Letter is Three Months Old Now"

At writethecompany.com, there are amusing stories of company communications and the lack thereof.  The title of this blog post reflects just such as a lack, this time by the manufacturer of Better Life green cleaning products, who took three months to respond to a letter from writethecompany.com. 

A central, if implied, message of writethecompany.com is that clever letter-writing doesn't always produce better, or more prompt responses than fiery, obscenity-filled expressions of outrage.

But it should. Instead of relying on the sturm und drang of dialectic disagreement, each post is a pleasant but insistent (sometimes cleverly indirect) essay on enterprise responsibility or consumer rights. Some might draw the line at teasing out the difference between the taste of gray squirrel and red squirrel as judged by the British palate. On the other hand, in the post "Old Spice Roulette," writethecompany.com acknowledges a generous response from the manufacturer Olde Thompson -- including free replacement products -- but politely observes that the manufacturer does not address the original offense -- i.e., fading product labels, as carefully observed in the original writethecompany.com letter:

The reason I’m writing is to inform you about some spices now on my rack called Ba l, hyme and Italia soning. At one time, they were known as Basil, Thyme and Italian Seasoning. Whatever you’re using to print names on the caps doesn’t seem to be worth its salt. Rather than reaching for specific spices on my rack, I’m concerned that I will soon be racking my brains to figure out which spice is which after the letters are all gone. Of course, I’ll always be able to spot the Sage.
Variety is the spice of life, but if you can’t tell which variety the spice is, what kind of life can you have as a chef?

Two Weeks Notice to Get Offa My Cloud

Two weeks notice.  No, not as part of a mass layoff -- Lord knows there have been enough of those -- but that was the notice, according to ZDNet,  given by Intuit to its Quicken Online service that they had to move to a new online platform.  As "Lostlogic," one disgruntled commenter, put it, this is typical of online products: "No connection, no work done / Trust someone else with your data / Forced to change at any time / Slow and clumsy interfaces / Totally at mercy of others ..."  Maybe not THAT bad, and not all the time, but point taken.

"No Smell, No Service" - A Monopoly's Business Rule

A routine inspection of a natural gas invoice ("bill") turned up an obvious problem, as shown in the chart supplied by the local monopoly. The meter reader could have made a mistake, or . . . Come to think of it, we had replaced a broken water pipe in the yard recently. Perhaps there had been damage to a nearby gas line?

I reached the call center after hours on the "emergency" line. There was no other line to call after hours, although the invoice stated that 24/7 service was available.

When the problem was explained, before I could finish, the CSR interrupted me, saying that none of the usage history information I was reading aloud would be of interest. "This is a billing issue, sir.  Billing, billing, billing."

I explained about the recent digging.

"Billing. You'll have to call back tomorrow during office hours."

I asked for a supervisor. The CSR at first refused to put a supervisor on, then finally said one would call back.

2010 San Bruno explosion

In 30 minutes I had the identical conversation with another CSR.

"No smell, no service, sir. This is a billing issue."

I explained that we have been customer since '92, and never had a problem until speaking to her and her colleague. I also pointed out that we were considering a switch to natural gas from heating oil, but wouldn't if this was the service we could receive from the Company. (A switch would be worth thousands of dollars in additional gross revenue per year to the Company.)

"No smell, no billing."

I gave up.

The next day I waited ten minutes for Billing, only to be transferred to a "Consumption Analyst."  One was not available, so the CSR simply scheduled to have the meter re-read. That was the end of any interactions with the Company by phone. At some point an inspector was sent, a credit was issued, but no one said anything further to use, either in writing or by phone.

Except for mailed solicitations for me to switch to natural gas for heat.

Analysis

• Failure to allay legitimate customer concerns
• False or incorrect information regarding availability of customer service personnel after hours 
• Failure to acknowledge long-term value of a 20-year customer 
• Repeatedly interrupted a knowledgeable consumer in the middle of a calm explanation, putting the conversation in unnecessarily heated tone
• Failure to follow up when / if an inspection was made 
• Failure to apologize for the reading error 

Carbonite's 90-Day OId Trouble Ticket: Prelude

Carbonite is one of several online backup services.  Previously I was a customer of HP's discontinued Upline service, so I was somewhat hasty in the search for a replacement service. There's been considerable marketing of Carbonite of late, and several Twitter posts that were worth responding to.

The service did appear to back up several hundred GB over the expected week or so of uploading. Everything seemed normal until my RAID crash forced a restore.  The requirement was a 100% restore of everything backed up for this account at Carbonite.

The restore succeeded only partially.  The restore, which operated by restoring the smallest files first, stalled and would not resume.  

In addition to losing the unrestored backups, this has meant that the Carbonite client must remain in restore mode, meaning that it is unusable for new backups until the problem is resolved. Customers in this situation must use other backup methods in the interim, and figure out how to merge the two if Carbonite is able to ultimately resolve the problem.

This incident occurred a few days before 22 June 2009.

Since then, the following CSRs have handled the case: Shawn, Amy, Leena, Vince, Abe, Pam,  Arthur and Ashton.  There were three separate (unrelated) attempts to log in remotely (using GoToAssist), but the extensive logs produced by Carbonite were -- even when zipped -- too large to transfer successfully using the file transfer service built into the remote application.  I offered to put the archives on my ftp or web servers for them to download, but the CSRs were apparently prohibited from taking this step.

The current status is that the problem has been "referred to Engineering."  The case has been in this status now since June.

Carbonite's underlying technology is nontrivial, based on what can be seen from the logs on the client machine.  It's probably not possible to diagnose this particular problem without the logs, though it would not be surprising to be asked to try again with a new release.

A longer version of this incident with commentary will follow. 

Some problems (not this one, unfortunately) are addressed at the Carbonite Community at GetSatisfaction.  Visit their profile on Crunchbase or learn who participated in their last venture round.

See Carbonite's lightly visited BBB listing in Boston.

Following is a list of other reported technical or other issues with Carbonite.  Claims and counter-claims, for and against the Company, should be assessed with a skeptical eye:

• Brent Ozar  and his later post
  
• Techcrunch story on Carbonite's suite vs. Promise Technology 
• Steve Duplessie  
• Mike McDerment and others on FreshBooks.com 
• Silvexis 
• James G    
• James Thigpen 
• Mike Baska   
• Heinz Dinter

Update 19 October 2009  Was recontacted by a Carbonite Representative to reopen the case.   Will report on disposition.


Update 3 December 2009  I was finally contacted by a capable technical support representative.  According to Carbonite's Technical Support Rep, there was a breakdown in support workflow within Carbonite; despite my repeated requests for status on my escalated trouble report, escalation apparently did not occur.

Kirk, a senior Technical Support Representative, was able to install a new version of the Carbonite client, which successfully connected to some of my archives on the Carbonite farm.  A  detailed Carbonite log analysis was unnecessary for this exercise.  The TSR was capable and knowledgeable of the product.  However,  I noticed that entire partitions that had been put on the backup list did not appear and could not be restored.  Kirk asked others in the organization to look at older versions of the backup, and after a few weeks, he notified me that no further data could be restored.

I have a guess as to what happened, but it's highly speculative.  Since my rebuilt system had a slightly different layout of drive letters and partition identification, it's possible that the older Carbonite client was unable to associated items to be restored with the new layout.  The Carbonite client application operates as an extension of Windows explorer, so it's easy to imagine how this confusion might arise.  Just a guess. That said, it does not explain why the missing partitions weren't on the backups at Carbonite, where they should have been saved in the May-June 2009 timeframe.  It wasn't the case of a few missing files, but perhaps 50GB of files, including almost 10,000 lossless (FLAC) rips of music files.

Conclusion  The Carbonite technology can be quite good, especially if you have high speed broadband.  I have this with an upgraded Verizon FIOS that features fast inbound and (this is important) outbound speeds.  But it should be not relied upon as the sole backup, especially for whole-system outages that require recreating entire machine environments. As the old saying goes, miniscule software errors -- or simply design limitations -- can have large consequences. This is the case with a few hundred gigs of precious data.  On my network, I've implemented a local backup capability using Backup for Workgroups.  I'm happy with this so far, especially since it has a good de-duplicating capability and works with both server and client operating systems.  It's not a disaster recovery solution for the next Nor'easter,  broken water pipe in the basement, or California wildfire.  More than one backup solution is needed, even for casual home users.

What is PlzHold.com?

The purpose of this blog is to identify systemic problems -- usually related to CRM, but not always -- that arise from specific customer service incidents. The incidents happen to come from personal experience, but I do my best to offer neutral versions of the events.  In addition to the "more heat than light" problem that arises from too much emotion in some posts in the wild, there is a tendency to overlook the issues encountered by the enterprise. Where it makes sense, I try to identify, or at least imagine, what the issues may be on the service supplier side.  The issues are sometimes completely beyond the control of the Customer Service Agent (CSR).  However, the CSR is often the public face of the enterprise, and the added scrutiny observers such as this ex-CSR is to be expected.