Laura

Got ahold of Carbonite finally (see previous entry for backstory, if you missed it earlier). I had the brilliant idea to file a stripped-down "help request" in case some character or something in the earlier one broke the response page, removing the button I needed. I called it brilliant because it did in fact get me the button. I was finally able to get thru to the chat program with a customer service representative.

Who assures me that my card will in fact be billed correctly. But who is otherwise not much more helpful than the rest of their system.

Things that need to change:
1) There needs to be some way to get to chat with a CS rep without going through the damned search form in case it is BROKEN.

2) The CS rep should see what you put in the search form if you came in via that route (and, if they already do, be trained to actually read it first).

3) The form should be fixed so whatever about my earlier request broke it doesn't.

4) CS reps should have basic ability to read and understand English and respond to the actual problem. I am pretty sure I was not talking to an Eliza program, but I don't think I was talking to the most attentive person ever, either. And when they didn't understand or care about my final question, apparently, they just disconnected!

5) I hope their technical staff is better at preserving my data than their CS folks are at responding to my inquiries.

( My entire conversation with them )

I am really, REALLY annoyed at Carbonite. Understand, I've used them for backup for a while - even had to restore once when a hard drive died - and while I don't consider them perfect I have been very pleased. Best of all I don't have to think about it, so it actually gets done.

However. I am having a billing problem at the moment. With most companies, "billing problem" means I have been charged and did not want to be. With this company it means they are threatening NOT to charge me. They are saying the subscription for one computer, when it auto-renews, will fail because the credit card on file will have expired by then. However...it renews August 7. The card expires at the end of DECEMBER. And it clearly shows on their web site the right card and expiration date. This makes it impossible to update my billing info to fix it since my billing info IS FREAKING FINE.

So I called them. The guy told me I misread the email, and then I got disconnected. I was on my cell phone so I am hoping it was a dropped line, but I still don't feel like calling back and being told I can't read again. So I used the help form on the site, which takes you to a search for your terms (which, since I am writing a letter, finds nothing). According to the instructions on the form, you then click the "Continue Submitting" button to send your question to them.

A small hint: IT'S HARD TO CLICK A BUTTON THAT IS NOT FREAKING THERE.

I'm off to do something useful with my day. If the auto-renewal fails, I will take that as a sign to find a different online backup service (even though I really hate the initial backup, which takes a while). Anyone have any to recommend, if I hit that eventuality?

...also, I'm gonna link their twitter guy to this. Maybe that way I can actually contact them (though then I'll be out for a while, but such is life). So the (slightly edited) text of the letter is ( Below the cut )

I love Babe very, very dearly. Which means I would do again what I did this afternoon (with some modifications) if I had to. But it doesn't mean I wouldn't be a ball of stress by the end.

Babe now has an antibiotic prescription (just in case it's not cancer, but is bacterial) and a steroid (she already had that, but it's been extended, in case it is some auto-immune thing). They could have supplied them to me at the vet clinic, but only if we were willing to give the antibiotic in pill form, which was so not happening. So instead they called it in to the Lloyd Center Pharmacy, where I had to go pick it up.

I never, ever want to have to do that again. I HATE driving in Portland. Portland is a lovely city for walking or public transportation, but driving, no. It's horrid. On a Saturday late afternoon (the prescription was to be ready by 3:30, no sooner; they close at 4 pm), it's even worse. This weekend, there was the usual summer construction plus a flying competition thingy sponsored by Red Bull along the waterfront (not that I knew that when I set out).

I left a tiny bit early, planning to kill any time that I needed to at the Lloyd Center Mall. 1) If I ever, ever get the idea to "kill time" at a nearby mall on a Saturday again, Scott has been instructed to correct me. Hastily. I know better. 2) The signage for Lloyd Center from I-5 North lands you in the middle of it but doesn't actually tell you that, or tell you which parking garages are associated with the mall, or where to get to them. The good signs and access are on another street that you were never directed to. I did get there, mostly because I had referenced some maps online and knew when I'd gone too far. 3) The garage was, not really very surprisingly if I'd thought things through, full. 4) The garage is VERY BADLY DESIGNED. OMG horrific levels of badly designed. Two-way lanes most of the way, but nowhere to turn around so you still have to go through the whole thing to get out. It took me 10 minutes to simply go through the darned garage, and I was scared for my sanity, car, and life several times as impatient people passed in two-way areas, backed toward my bumper to let someone out to secure a space, etc.

I have only ever been there once before, to go to the cinemas, and that was a weekday night if I remember right, and a late showing. I never, ever want to go back again. Ever.

I then left, still early, and figured "fine, I will go to the pharmacy and simply wait there until it's ready, no problem." Good thing, because it took me ten minutes to get there, too. Yahoo maps is convinced you can turn right from Burnside into their parking lot. Lovely, but you can't, because their parking lot is on Grand, which is one way the wrong way from Burnside at that point. Their parking lot is tiny (actually it's a large lot shared with a car dealership, but the pharmacy only has 5-6 spaces total), but not very busy, and once in it I managed to park and get into the pharmacy and get the medicines. (And was given one wrong instruction by the guy who gave me the meds, but I strongly suspected it, called the vet for that and other things, got the confirmation, and the thing that ought to be refrigerated that the pharmacist said didn't need refrigeration is, in fact, in the refrigerator.)

Leaving, I turned on my GPS and let it guide me out. My GPS was also not aware of the flight competition. It was almost impossible to move for throngs of pedestrians (even compared to normal Portland-near-the-waterfront-on-a-weekend-afternoon-in-summer, which is easily bad enough). People were jaywalking constantly, too. I was not able to get to I-5 south - the one shot I had at that lane, a fire engine was coming up behind us with lights and siren, which is the only reason the lane was clear. It didn't seem prudent to get into the lane...and while the truck turned before that, the surge of vehicles behind it didn't.

So I turned up Clay to go to 26, but my GPS insisted it could get me to 405 and then I-5 so I followed its instructions. To get to I5 south, you have very little time to move two lanes to your left there. I was blocked by a car in the second lane that I needed to cross through. So I ended up on I-5 north instead. My GPS told me to take I-84 and then tried to get me to take an exit so I could turn around.

At which point, I powered it off, took I-84 to 205, and came home. I never want to see another Portland surface street EVER right now. I sure as heck wasn't getting off at the OMSI exit, which area has given me fits before, and trying to turn around yet again when my escape from the insanity that is Portland was at hand.

I. Hate. Portland. I hate it with a spitty, thorough hate. And Monday morning we need to call our local vet, get the info on the pharmacies that they use locally for compounding prescriptions (especially if any are open on a weekend, which since I know the Walgreens will do at least SOME veterinary meds, at least one is), and both make sure we have it and pass it to the specialists, because I am NEVER doing that again, not unless it is the only. freaking. option. And it shouldn't be. I will do it again if I must, for Babe, assuming Scott can't do it (he's less likely to be upset to any great degree, especially the same degree, by the same things I ran into; but today, he was helping a friend move, and that needed to happen to). But only if there's not a good alternative.

I made Scott come home and dose the cat with her meds, though, because I am still a stress-ball and I figured he'd be more likely to get it right and deal with Babe well as she resisted the meds than I would be. I tried to help, but I shouldn't've, as I was right. It went much smoother when I just let him handle it.

I do not have anything that even RESEMBLES an angry, upset enough icon for this post.