Magic Unlimited

The Optus Merry Go Round

My wifi has been playing up. It seems to reset itself or something because frequently I have to manually reconnect my notebook, and my printer keeps going offline as does my Akruto sync that keeps my phone and computer talking to each other. 

My modem is provided by Optus,... yes, here we go again... but I already know going into a store will not achieve anything, they will tell me to call technical support on 131 344 (where I will be kept on hold until I hang up out of frustration after an hour or so) or I can go to their website... I chose the latter.

Going to their home page I see this:

 

 

 

 

and I click on SUPPORT - as you would

 

 

 

Which takes me to their SERVICE HUB where you can type your question in and you are offered a few stock answers - none of which helped me unfortunately. 

At the very bottom of the page is a link saying CONTACT US - pressing this takes you to a page called ASK OPTUS

 

 

 

where, after you ask your question again, and they provide the same answers again, you are given the options of:

• JOIN THE OPTUS COMMUNITY (You need to register to join a forum where you can chat with other disgruntled Optus customers)
• PHONE US  (They give a number 133 937, which they said is "General Enquiries/Tech Suport", but it's actually just General Enquiries, once you eventually get through, they will transfer you to the back of the line at Tech Support on 131 344)

At the bottom of that page you see two more additional options. Contact via Facebook or Twitter

 

 

 

I chose the Facebook account and received a fairly prompt response which ended with me being told 

"If that's the case it's best to get in touch with our tech support team on 131344 or via http://yesopt.us/chat2us to get this further investigated. Steph"

I clicked on the link she gave and was back on the website

 

 

 

I click on TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES and was taken to this page

 

 

Not exactly helpful.

I did notice at the bottom of the NEED A HAND? page was the option to FILL IN A FORM and they would get back to me... 

 

 

So I clicked that link and was taken to...

 

 

Yes, the merry go round had completed a full lap and was ready to start again!

 

I went back to Facebook and asked

"Why is there no link to tech support on your web page"

and Dave replied

"We have this one - http://www.optus.com.au/.../answer/how-to-contact-optus.... Not sure if that's what you were after. Dave"

Yes, that is indeed what I was after, but you cannot actually find that page. It's deliberately hidden.

 

 

 

It appears that the only way you'll get it is by going to the ASK US page and typing in HOW DO I CONTACT OPTUS. 

Even then, it gives the same options: Optus Community, Facebook, Twitter, 131 344. Plus an OPTUS APP you can use for questions about your mobile service

But at the very bottom of the page....

 

 

It's like discovering buried treasure... those magical words... HOW TO EMAIL US. Clicking on them takes you to

 

 

But the excitement is short lived

 

 

The next screen warns you off emailing by letting you know it may take several days to get a reply... and again directs you to OPTUS COMMUNITY ("Discuss your problems among yourselves please, don't bother us.") PHONE US, or us LIVE CHAT... sounds promising, but that link tells you to download the OPTUS APP, Live Chat is for Mobile support only...

So, as I refuse to sit on hold for hours at a time (again), my only option is to fill in the form and wait a few days for them to reply. (Bearing in mind, the last time I did this they didn't reply at all. I had to fill out and submit the form THREE TIMES).

 

At least I get to sit on a bench and watch the Merry Go Round turning, taking all the other customers for a ride while I wait for my phone to ring....

 

UPDATE - OCTOBER 2 - I GOT AN EMAIL FROM OPTUS-----------

Hi Tim,

 

Thank you for sending your concern to us.

 

This is in response to the email you sent on 30 September about Internet Connection Issue.

 

I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. Thank you for letting us know about this; I can see how this may be a cause of concern for you. We appreciate the feedback and suggestion that you will be providing and my apologies again for the experience that happened. 

 

I can see that the issue have not yet been raised to our Technical Support; I highly suggest to contact our Team so we can perform troubleshooting and check what's causing the issue for Internet Connection drop outs.  Just to set your expectation factors that can impact speed such as demand on the network, local conditions such as internet traffic, hardware, and the source or destination of the site being accessed. You can contact them directly by dialing 1300739407 Hours of Operation: 24 x 7 (Open all Hours).

Or you can get in touch with our Webchat team online for further assistance, you may use the link - http://yesopt.us/cu.

 

Regards,

 

Optus Email Servicing

Ref #: 1742-48915

 

Tim Ellis is officially a twit

Yes I've succumbed to technology and signed up on Twitter.

You can read feeds here on the blog (look in the right hand column) or sign up to follow me on @TimEllisMagic

In the paper today

If you're in Melbourne, grab a copy of the Herald Sun today and turn to the Extra Tech section where I'm interviewed in 'Geeksville' about my love of gadgets and gimmicks.

Offline last week

Two weeks ago our main website, www.MagicUnlimited.com, was hacked. Within an hour or so Brendan had fixed the site and we were back in business. 

A few days later or webhost, BlueHost, cancelled our account and gave us 15 days to pack up our site and get out of town. A sort of electronic eviction because we'd been hacked.

The same thing happened earlier this year to our Australian Institute of Magic site. A quick google will reveal a lot of sites get hacked on BlueHost then asked to leave. It's not unreasonable to assume that perhaps the weak link making them vulnerable to attack is actually the host... but that's another story.

Anyway, we signed up with another host, Astang, who advertised 24/7 support, live chat support, all seemed good and the transfer began. Unfortunately, there were some hiccups and we contacted the 24/7 support - repeatedly. We all tried the live chat support, which seemed to be offline... a lot! So, Friday through Monday was a constant stream of one way communication with me emailing them and getting no reply. 

On Monday morning I'd had enough and signed with InteractiveOnline, who not only answered all of my tech support questions, but offered to migrate our entire site for us. A few hours later it was all done.

Meanwhile Astang emailed me wanting to let me know that they'd sorted out our problems by deleting and re-establishing our account and all we had to do was to reupload our site on their server. I explained that because of their lack of communication I'd signed with another server, our site was already up with them, and I'd like a refund. He apologised for the lack of response to my emails saying he was sorry for the delay but it was the weekend and they normally have few support people on weekends...

To Astang's credit, a refund was promptly issued.

And then today, Wednesday, I got this reply to one of the emails I sent on Friday.

Hello-

Are you still encountering this issue?  We are unable to duplicate this issue on our end.

Please do get back to us if we can be of further assistance.

Missy R.

Astang IT Solutions

Quality & Affordable Web Hosting

And the banned plays on...

Wow! At well over 10,000 views the BANNED FROM BLACKPOOL thread on the Genii Forum must be the most read magic thread of all time... and it shows no sign of stopping!

The last half of page three will be of interest to Australian viewers as Australian Society of Magicians President Nick Morton addresses the issue of him banning me from the club and all of its affiliated events. (Still waiting on Nick's reply to my email as to whether Sue-Anne is banned as well).

The most recent twist in the saga is that comments made by Paul Daniels in this thread about staging FISM at Blackpool were picked up by the mainstream media in the UK and Derek Lever, who had remained silent on the banning issue, chose to respond to the press calling Paul a 'c-list celebrity' and, while pointing out that no-one is banned from Blackpool FISM, said Paul is not invited to attend.

The Blackpool Gazette has also picked up the story, and if you look through the comments section you'll see residents and past-residents debating as to whether the town of Blackpool really is as "rough, tasteless, bawdy and scruffy" as Paul said.

Another Magical Ripoff

The hot topic over at the Genii Forum at the moment is a newly discovered website www.magicaluniversity.com

The site looks legit, but none of the "faculty" listed know anything about it.

It appears that the domain owners (who seem to own a lot of other questionable domains) have simply lifted the contents of American magician Tim David's site www.themagiccollege.com - just open both sites in separate browsers and compare the two - and added the faculty list from McBride's Mystery School.

The worst part for Tim David is that they've left his contact details on the site so, unless you do a WHOIS lookup on the domain owner, you'd assume that he is the one responsible for Magical University.

The aim of the site, as it appears, is to get your credit card details and continually rebill you without providing you with a service of any kind.

Please tell all magicians you know to avoid this site.

Tim David wrote to me saying:

"Thanks for the heads up on this Tim. I’m in a bit of a panic right now, because I’m getting angry emails from some magicians I respect very much. I have NO affiliation with magicuniversity.com or The Magical University. My real (and legitimate) site is TheMagicCollege.com  They have copied my entire site and used it for apparently fraudulent purposes. I’ll be posting more at the forum. Again, thanks for looking into this and not jumping to conclusions…

- Tim David (The REAL Tim David)"

Google me

Here's a funny thing. I was googling myself this morning (that sounds funny in itself) and an ad came up for another magician.

Now I realise that if I google the terms 'Magic', 'Magician', 'Corporate Entertainer' and the likes, many magicians use those as keywords.

However, it looks like this magician has used the keywords 'Tim Ellis'.

He's also used the words 'Matt Hollywood' and 'Derren Brown'. (Try googling them yourself, and unless he quickly realises he's been caught and changes them, you'll see his ad appear).

The funny thing is, he was the one who circulated an email accusing me of using other magicians names to attract consumers to my site a few years ago.

AIM's new-look website

 

After a big weekend rennovation The Australian Institute of Magic website has been freshened up with a new look and more user-friendly design. Take a look at it here, and feel free to add weblinks and upcoming Australian magic events.

(Thanks to Brendan Croft for donating hours and hours of work!)

That's My Face!

Mat Unwin is a very busy man. But he always seems to find time to scour the web for the most unusual sites.

www.ThatsMyFace.com is his most recent discovery.

By simply uploading two pictures of your face they'll create a 3D rendering of it that you can play with online. See what your face looked or will look like at different ages, or how you'd look as a different nationality.

You can even buy 3D sculptures of your face and, most importantly, lifesize face masks.

As Mat said, "Think about the possibilies."

They're watching!

First of all I'd like to thank all of our regular blog readers and commenters, our stats just keep getting higher and higher which means (for whatever bizarre reason) you're enjoying the little snippets, oddities and prattle presented here.

The other thing I can see from our stats is just where some of our readers come from. Of course, we get many from different parts of the world, after all, magic is a universal language, but we also have three local lurkers who visit very frequently! They know who they are, and the very fact they visit this blog more often than any other readers means at least in cyberspace - to quote Sally Field - "You like me, you really like me!"

I just wish they didn't put on such gruff fronts in 'the real world'. Mellow out and say "Hi" next time we meet, or I'll have to have Sue-Anne lock you all in the cupboard!  *g*