Contending with a rising tide of spam and a mysterious Wi-Fi outage has made for a less than restorative sabbatical, Wyn Drabble writes.
Contending with a rising tide of spam and a mysterious Wi-Fi outage has made for a less than restorative sabbatical, Wyn Drabble writes.
A huge chunk of my precious sabbatical has been spent in conflict with our phone/internet provider.
I use the word conflict advisedly because no actual weapons were used but items were launched into flight and accompanied by loud screams of frustrated anguish, so I think the word is appropriate.
Thefirst few weeks of frustration were related to spam/scam emails. The same sort of emails kept coming but, each time, from a different email address. I did the right thing and added each sender to my blacklist, then reported the email as spam. I even photographed each one and sent it to the recommended helpline.
A worse development was that, when I added addresses to my blacklist, I was often rewarded with a pop-up advising me that the address I was trying to blacklist was already on my blacklist. "Then how did it get through your filter?" I shouted at the little speech bubble. No answer.
I kept up my blacklisting/reporting/forwarding regime for several weeks without any success. I even phoned the provider on four occasions but I might as well have phoned planet Venus.
After huge waits then callbacks (because my call was important to them) the advice I was offered was to blacklist the senders, report the emails as spam, send copies of the emails to the helplines.
"But that's what I'm doing!" I retorted. "And have been for weeks!"
"Good, then you're doing the right thing," came the answer. "Is there anything else we can help you with today?"
"Aaaarrgghh!"
The most helpful of the calls – at first, at least – was from a woman who listened, offered sympathy and understanding and then said she would investigate the issue with her "team" and call me back in an hour. I found this terribly encouraging.
She never called back.
Weeks later, I'm still waiting for the call. This is especially annoying because it could have been "recorded and used for training purposes".
I even contacted Netsafe and their advice was to keep doing what I was doing.
The next stage of the crisis had a positive side effect. Suddenly, the unwanted emails stopped coming. Trouble was, everything stopped coming. Our broadband had failed. Another phone call.
This time we were told a technician would have to come out ("before 7pm") to investigate the problem. If the technician found that it was our own wiring issue and no fault of theirs we would be charged for the callout and labour. But at an extremely attractive rate.
Of course, we had no choice but to accept such a visit and any associated charges.
"If he doesn't turn up until after midnight, do I turn into a pumpkin?" I asked.
I needn't have worried; the man turned up soon after midday.
In under an hour, our internet was back. The problem was "probably rodents eating the wires" which, I suppose, is classed as our fault but begs the question, "Does wireless have wires?"
At least this meant we would be able to take advantage of the extremely attractive callout and labour costs.
Once back online, the only thing left to do was run through my blacklisting/reporting/forwarding regime for the unwanted emails which had gathered during our period of outage.
Yes, the digital age sure can be a tough old time, so tough that I often rue the demise of the telegram.
You never ever, for example, would have received an unsolicited telegram asking whether you were interested in meeting up with Russian girls (and, after a few romantic telegraphic "outings", sharing your intimate financial details with them).
Oh, for the innocence of the non-digital age! Feel free to send me encouraging telegrams.
In under an hour, our internet was back. The problem was "probably rodents eating the wires" which, I suppose, is classed as our fault but begs the question, "Does wireless have wires?"
