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I'm having one of those moments when "customer service" takes on a whole new and sinister meaning. A service I have been signed up to since, in internet terms at least, "time immemorial", been paying for regularly for at least six years, though admittedly have used little, has frozen me out of my account just as I started to need to use it more.
Skype has gone through, I think, three owners, since I signed up with them. As best I can fathom from what emails I have managed to find, I had an account at least before 2008, started paying for a SkypeIn number (useful for people, like me, who can't have their own landline number) in 2008 also, and have had it ever since, paying month-in-month-out ever since and using it very little it has to be said. The occasional OCLT board meeting type of thing. But heck, I even had one of those ridiculous "3 SkypePhone" things for a while, and invested in a home phone that was supposed to let me use the Skype account right alongside my landline.
But now, moving flat into what is quite an effective Faraday Cage, I've had occasion more to use it - the WiFi signal is far better than my cell signal, and I don't yet have a landlline installed. So I've actually started using it. Actually consuming some of the SkypeCredit I've been paying for and wasting for so many years. And wham! On Saturday evening, I get a message about "Unauthorized activity on your Skype Account" that has resulted in the account being frozen and could I go through a form filling exercise to verify who I am to unblock it.
Fair enough thought I, I'm all for stopping scams and maintaining internet security, so I happily start completing what seems like a very long form, only to discover that my long term loyalty is now a hindrance. They want to know what email address I used when I signed up, for instance. Not what's attached to the account now, and has been for many years. They need the month and year the account was created - I was an early adopter. I Can't. Remember. Ditto which credit card, if any, I used, or whether, as I do now, use a payment processor to collect payments.
Then I have to name five of my "Skype Contacts". Well I can't say I remember any of their usernames. I don't use Skype much that way - Skype-to-Skype. But no, it appears perhaps that if I am sad enough to have fewer than 5 memorable Skype buddies, I can't get back in. Or something.
Things change. We sometimes even forget when. I'm kind of surprised to see in my emails from Skype I must have signed up as "Jonathan". That alone tells me it was a really long time ago. It's a very long time since I would have signed up for anything using my, still technically legal, full first name. Unless perhaps there was some kind of link to a legal or financial database needed - you know, your name has to match what's on the electoral roll or the credit scoring system or whatever. I know I've gone through at least three different email providers in that time too. It's something of a miracle I've still got emails going back to 2008. My domain name was snaffled in about 2010 so yes, the email I use now on my Skype account isn't the same as when I created the account, but I can show them receipts to both addresses. Yes, I may have used a credit card for something before I started direct debit style payments, but if so, no, I can't give them the card number: it's two card renewals later!
I try to explain my predicament in the form and the little message box at the bottom. I get an email explaining that they "understand your Skype Account is important to you" and could I go and complete another form. Well it's actually the same form, but this time they seem to think I have requested an email change. This could of course be the cause of their concern about "Unauthorized activity" and, though they'll never confirm or deny it, fair play to them if so, because the one thing I can say is that I didn't request any such change any time recently that I can recall. I try to send them a PDF of various significant emails in my time as a Skype subscriber, going back six years, but their email server rebuffs my attempt in every known file format.
Well, I could do what they say - I haven't really used the account much. Setting up a new account is easy enough. But I also have this nifty SkypeIn number. This gives me an Oxford based number of my own, independent of my university land line provider for instance. Again, easy to replace, you would think, but it was chosen, for a reason, a connection that makes it easier for me to remember the number and quote it to people. And it's been in my email signature and on business cards and the like for all these years. I've been paying for it for many years, so I would want it transferred to any new account. But the same problem applies: they can't transfer something from my existing account if they can't verify me as owner of that account.
I do, I really do, appreciate their concern for my online security. But it seems an odd coincidence that just as people start to use my SkypeIn number and just as I start making calls out from Skype, "unusual activity" causes my account to be suspended. That is when you want "Customer Service" to swing into action. To help find a way of reconnecting you to your account. To enable a human behind an internet form make a decision based on what must appear common sense if not algorithmically accurate. And if not, at least a route to some kind of appeal mechanism. But no, every correspondence begins "I know that your account is important for you. Do not worry, let me help you with your concern" and goes on to exmplain why they cannot help me with my concern.
So, having been happy with what I have used of Skype over these many years I've never looked at any alternatives. But maybe now's a good time to do so if I'm having to create a whole new account and so on. Are there any? Specifically it would help if they had a facility like the SkypeIn number, and that calling out to real life landline or mobile phones is possible and not overly expensive.