Slingshot horrors

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PaulZA

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#92980 10-Nov-2011 09:49

Hi guys

our broadband connection got switched off, probably my own fault. This is what I did.

I was on the website yesterday, I activated something called "Activate free dial up", becuase I thought it was a bonus free dial up account to use when I am away, a few hours later our broadband got disconnected. I contacted Slingshot, to ask if they could please repair the damage, the woman refused to speak "For legal reasons" becuase I wasn't the account holder. (I'm the one who does most of the account stuff, I have phoned sky for problems, and I have never had problems.) They even refused to speak to my mother.
Anyway, in the evening, my father (The account holder) phones them up, after about 10 minutes on hold, they tell him It will be up withing 24 hours. I was extremely annoyed, becuase I had missed a conference call on Skype this morning becuase of that. Anyway, my father phones Slingshot, not 100% sure what they told him, but they said it may take longer then the inital 24 hour period that we got given.

The bottom line is, on the slingshot website, the activate free dial up thing, isn't clear enough. If I had known it would overwrite our broadband account, I wouldn't have signed up for it.

Is there any of you here, that maybe work for slingshot, that can help us get our broadband connection up and running, for almost 12 hours now, I have had nothing but the worst quality dial up possible, and it's really getting frustrating.

Thanks

NZCrusader

646 posts

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#543544 10-Nov-2011 10:38

Maybe you should move out of your parents place so you can have your own account to stuff around with..

As a Telecom tech once told me, "Things run fine 99% of the time, until someone fiddles with it".

The "free" dial up is for when you are away on holiday.
From the account you have given, Slingshot is not at fault here.... although 24hrs does seem a bit steep.
The reason why the dial up appears slow, is because webpages & downloads have been increasing over the years. Hence why DSL is now used. Realistically it will be the same "quality" as what was on offer in the past (with the exception of modems not capable of 56k).

Best not fiddle next time, unless its your own connection.

Alternatively call back & pretend you are the account holder. (Just know the address, name & DOB)

nate

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#543545 10-Nov-2011 10:42

NZCrusader: Best not fiddle next time, unless its your own connection.

How is this helpful? If it was the OP's own connection the same thing would've happened!

It seems that Slingshot need to make it clearer that activating the dial up account will disconnect your broadband.

Renkin

87 posts

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#543560 10-Nov-2011 11:09

You don't need to activate the dialup next time, just use your normal login along with the dialup access number to get access to dialup.

This is only if you have an active broadband account with Slingshot.

Access number: 087308880

NZCrusader

646 posts

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#543564 10-Nov-2011 11:16

nate:
NZCrusader: Best not fiddle next time, unless its your own connection.

How is this helpful? If it was the OP's own connection the same thing would've happened!

It seems that Slingshot need to make it clearer that activating the dial up account will disconnect your broadband.

Will save op from buggering up other peoples connections.

Im all for people fiddling with electronics, settings & mechanical parts (thats how you learn & discover) but, you do it with your own stuff & not other peoples ;)

eg:
I would be mad if someone came to my place & fiddled with my connection.

/logic

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Skolink

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#543695 10-Nov-2011 14:25

I can relate to this. My brother and I 'fiddle' with our parent's Slingshot account, because they don't know / don't care to do it themselves. They'd probably still be on Xtra dialup if we didn't intervene. If I had seen the box 'activate free dialup' I would have ticked it too, thinking it would be useful when on holiday or if there was a problem with DSL.

hellonearthisman

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#543737 10-Nov-2011 14:53

I thought the free dialup related to the free dialup offered on all BB plans, like the activate free webhosting.

There should have been a few more boxes alerting the user to this drastic change.

I hope the old BB wasn't on one of the old free off peak plans as that would now be gone forever.

Also get your dad to authorise you with the slingshot account, would be you can access tech support.

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nickb800

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#543739 10-Nov-2011 14:55

For what its worth, i just pretend to be the account holder when sorting out issues on behalf of family. Sometimes a little lie just makes things easier!

Batman

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#543787 10-Nov-2011 15:34

nickb800: For what its worth, i just pretend to be the account holder when sorting out issues on behalf of family. Sometimes a little lie just makes things easier!

haha tell you what - when i was a 20 year old boy i house sat for a 65 year old woman. they threatened to cut the power bill in a letter while she was away somewhere uncontactable in europe. she was the sold account holder. i rang and became her and sorted the thing out in 200 seconds. there was no other way.

nate

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#543825 10-Nov-2011 16:06

joker97:
nickb800: For what its worth, i just pretend to be the account holder when sorting out issues on behalf of family. Sometimes a little lie just makes things easier!

haha tell you what - when i was a 20 year old boy i house sat for a 65 year old woman. they threatened to cut the power bill in a letter while she was away somewhere uncontactable in europe. she was the sold account holder. i rang and became her and sorted the thing out in 200 seconds. there was no other way.

Not too hard to do, do it for my Dad all the time.

Most companies just ask for your full name, date of birth and mother's maiden name. Not hard to remember.

kingjj

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#544327 11-Nov-2011 16:42

nate:
joker97:
nickb800: For what its worth, i just pretend to be the account holder when sorting out issues on behalf of family. Sometimes a little lie just makes things easier!

haha tell you what - when i was a 20 year old boy i house sat for a 65 year old woman. they threatened to cut the power bill in a letter while she was away somewhere uncontactable in europe. she was the sold account holder. i rang and became her and sorted the thing out in 200 seconds. there was no other way.

Not too hard to do, do it for my Dad all the time.

Most companies just ask for your full name, date of birth and mother's maiden name. Not hard to remember.

And its scary how easy it is to get that information too. At work I occasionally make calls were I'm asking for names/address/dob/telephone numbers, and usually all I have to say is which organisation I work for and people just hand it over. No checks, no identifying questions or call backs and we call from private numbers. Call someone, claim to be from some official organisation, ask some questions and you've got control of their accounts.

Slingshot

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#544799 13-Nov-2011 13:56

To clarify, the button on the site for "Activate Free Dial Up" is intended for those customers with homeline and tolls with us, so they can get the free dialup this entitles them to.

For those customers it would then prompt for them to choose a username etc, then would create the dialup systems on their account automatically.

For people on broadband, it assumes you want dialup not broadband, and so it cancels the broadband services on the account (Just our end, it does not disconnect the line or anything) and sets it up as dialup.

People on broadband the system allows to use dialup already, you simply setup the dialler on the computer in question, and use the same username and password as the broadband (without the @slingshot.co.nz). Keep in mind that you can only have broadband OR dialup running at once per account, as per our T&Cs

"5.7 You must not have more than one connection to our service using
your user ID at any time. If for any reason you do have simultaneous
connections we reserve the right to charge you $5.00 per hour (or
part hour) for each additional connection."

That said though, the system should fail your second connection attempt if the first is online, that clause is simply for those who try to hax things up abit.

I'll let our marketing guys who maintain the site know the concerns about the labelling of this button =)

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