I received an email this morning that started:
A recent audit has indicated that the email client for your cheerfulmonk.com email addresses is currently accessing host318.hostmonster.com, a server that will be decommissioned in the next week. In order to ensure full email functionality after this server’s shut-off date, you will need to update the server name in your email client settings.
It went on and on with instructions, and I don’t think it applies to me, but I phoned my hosting service to be sure. In the past I simply asked for technical support and waited a bit. This time it was more complicated. The automated service asked for my “validation token.” Huh?!! She didn’t understand my response so asked again, telling me how to log in to my account and find it.
Okay, I found it:
I read off the numbers to her and ignored the rest. She liked it and put me on hold for tech support.
When the fellow responded after a couple of minutes I asked him about the token, was it just another hoop for us to jump through or did it have any use? He said actually it should make things easier — all my account information should come up for him and the process would be easier. Unfortunately it didn’t work. He didn’t have my information so we had to go through it anyway, but he apologized, took notes, and will give the powers that be feedback on their new system.
Hopefully it will be fixed before I have to phone them again.
On the plus side, it’s good practice for us old folks in keeping flexible/adaptable and having a sense of humor in this ever changing world.
November 25, 2019
i’m sorry. i’m wondering how long it’s going to take them to complicate every single thing so much that nothing actually works.
can’t help but wonder what steve jobs would say. he was a minimalist that liked simplicity. but… he’s gone now. so who knows? 🙂
We’ll have to see. It’s good exercise for our sense of humor.
I am glad you could take it with a sense of humor.
I thought it was funny that the fellow didn’t have the information.
A sense of humor is absolutely necessary in these trying times.
Amen to that!
I get so much spam asking for information that I probably would have ignored the email and lost my blog.
The message was about email using my account, and I don’t use it. It would have been fine to just ignore it, but I’m glad I didn’t. It was funny,
this whole thing has got ridiculous – just yesterday when I was trying to ascertain from customer help about “where was my packing slip, and where is the xyz product” I said my name and a real person said “what is the order number” which is funny because she knew she was speaking to me; the phone number would have shown up on her phone.
I’m not going to tell you the outcome of this fiasco, but I will say I’m about fed up with this online grocery store. I tried to find out if the other competitor can deliver but apparently it’s not set up in this area yet…although click and collect is. I may have to restart shopping in bricks and mortar and get a cab/uber home…probably be about the same cost as delivery with a lot less hassle!
Our local store has click and collect, but we buy a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, so we would rather pick out our own. I’m sorry you are having trouble with your store — it’s a lot harder without a car if the store isn’t close.
Oh my, that would have thrown me for a loop especially with a big long technical explanation. I’m good to run a computer and do whatever I need to but when it gets technical my brain goes in to melt down. The automated answering systems drive me crazy too.
I completely ignored everything except the validation token. I don’t see how this new system is any more secure for me than the old one where I had to tell them the last four characters of my password. But I suppose if my information automatically came up for the tech support fellow it might be quicker for them. I think it’s funny that part didn’t work.