Posts by Jeremy North

TheTrainline.com fixes web security derailment

It shouldn't be any surprise

This is one of the worst websites out there. I recently tried to purchase a pair of tickets from Cardiff to Manchester. Every time I got to the payment stage, it told me that the card had failed authorisation. I checked with my card issuer and they hadn't even received a request, let alone rejected it. I spoke to the 0870 number people and got queued, then told that I would have to empty out my shopping basket and start the whole process again. Did this more than 6 times, tried three different credit cards all with the same results. The operators on the line were, shall we say, inexperienced and reading from scripts, anything outside their comfort zone was not something they wanted to be bothered with. After three hours and calls to their 0870 number and two of my card issuers (just in case!) I gave up. I tried once more the following day with the same result, then phoned them, spoke to a very helpful lady who took my order over the 'phone and used exactly the same payment card as I tried first which worked first time.

Definitely not a candidate for Best on the Web!

Simon Pegg to play Scotty

at least he's British...

Hooray for casting a Brit though. Despite being from the West Country I still think he'll manage a better accent than the sadly departed James DOOHAN.

I'm not saying that Simon Pegg can't do anything wrong, but he's managed to get three top-notch comedies out to the world in fairly short order, each of which have broken new ground and given us some film moments that are absolutely classic -

Mr Pegg on horseback, armed to the teeth riding into Wells for a Wild West Country High Noon.

Messers Pegg and Frost hurling LPs at a zombie in a suburban garden..

Giants carve up broadband punters

and are any of them any good?

What a line-up, not one amongst them inspires any sort of confidence in level of service nor from a customer care perspective. Having direct personal experience of Orange and Virgin Media I wouldn't recommend them to a 419er from Nigeria, let alone anyone in the UK.

Why is it that these organisations are happy to pump money into their marketing operations whilst failing time and again to invest in their networks, equipment and UK customer service teams?

Oh no, wait a second, it's because that makes them money by pulling in more poor saps as subscribers whilst reducing the operational costs. D'Oh!

Cynical, moi? surely not....