HolmanGT wrote:I don't know if Dan Borislow wanted to hide it or not.
I don't think he wanted to hide it. (It couldn't be hidden because people were expected to notice it.). I just don't think he cares about his customers. Not enough to communicate it as a temporary measure in the soft-ad window (with a link for more explanation). Nor, even to communicate it to the support group who would receive calls about it.
Maybe he thinks that at $20 a year, his customers only deserve that much courtesy. He could be right. But, I don't think he'll ever get beyond a niche (novelty) market that way.
Maybe he didn't care like you say, Mark. I don't know what he's thinking. Holman could be right, the Brother-in-Law could be the Cptn. Kirk. I dunno.
What if the plan was to build it up fast, and sell it to eBay or Google or Vonage. If so, I think the more bugs he fixes without anyone knowing about them the better it looks to a perspective buyer. The more money he'll get from the buyer.
Could it be that there really is this problem with occasional calls not ending when we hang up? I saw it on my MJ. I ended the call and hours later saw the call timer still running. I saw the phantom call.
If the plan was to put in the cut-off timer for a short time while the engineers worked to fix the cause of phantom calls, then remove the call cut-off timer as soon as the phantom problem was solved, I don't find it highly unethical because it was to be a temporary thing, while troubleshooting. Not knowing if it could be fixed in a day or a month, how do you handle such a thing? You balance the damage it causes to the value of a possible Google sale, against the unknown of how long the cut-off may need to be in place. If it turns out to be a short time, nobody discovers it, phantom problem gets fixed quick, no harm no foul, no more cut-off timers. Didn't happen like that. My randomizer would have bought a little more time to find the phantom cause before he has to come clean. Eventually you have to come clean if you can't fix the phantom problem quick and tell people you have a technical problem that you are working to resolve and the cut-off timer was put in place as a temporary thing.
Last edited by xxM5xx on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
xxM5xx wrote:Maybe he didn't care like you say, Mark. I don't know what he's thinking. Holman could be right, the Brother-in-Law could be the Cptn. Kirk. I dunno.
What if the plan was to build it up fast, and sell it to eBay or Google or someone. If so, I think the more bugs he fixes without anyone knowing about them the better it looks to a perspective buyer.
Could it be that there is this problem with occasional calls not ending when we hang up? I saw it on my MJ. I ended the call and hours later saw the call timer still running. I saw the phantom call.
I was going to quietly drop out of this thread but your comment about having seen the "Phantom Caller" peaked my interest. I believe that is the first time I have heard anyone say they had a problem with MJ not disconnecting a call, usually the other way around.
I sure would like to see anyone else that has noticed this "not hanging up" problem to document it here. You may have just legitimized MJ's conduct to some degree even if they should have informed their customers of what they were up to.
- George -
HolmanGT - St. George, UT MJ-Area/Prefix 435-275
ooma-Area/Prefix 435-579
Baja Broadband, up-1mb dn-10mb, on days with a good tail wind.
MJ on HP T5730 2GBF/2GBR Thin Client XPe SP2 Router Dlink Dir-655
It is not a "phantom caller". It is a phantom call. The call was a real call. The parties are done talking, they each hang up, but the call stays running, costing Dr. Dan money in PSTN terminations and resources on his servers and leased lines.
I read about it, and I said, oh yeah, that happened to me.
If there is no phantom call problem, why put cut-off timer in place long term and let it blow up in your face? I honestly believe it was to be short term and then gone when the phantom call (intermittent failed disconnects) problem got fixed.
It is the only thing that makes perfect sense to me.
robatino wrote:There's enough sleaze in the way this company does business that I'm glad they're NOT trying to hide the fact that these cutoffs are intentional. Also, random cutoffs would be worse for the user in that one couldn't plan for them, and they would give the impression that MJ has less of a handle on service quality than it actually does.
That's a very concise and thoughtful post. I agree with everything you said.
xxM5xx wrote:It is not a "phantom caller". It is a phantom call. The call was a real call. The parties are done talking, they each hang up, but the call stays running, costing Dr. Dan money in PSTN terminations and resources on his servers and leased lines.
I read about it, and I said, oh yeah, that happened to me.
If there is no phantom call problem, why put cut-off timer in place long term and let it blow up in your face? I honestly believe it was to be short term and then gone when the phantom call (intermittent failed disconnects) problem got fixed.
It is the only thing that makes perfect sense to me.
M5,
I would agree with you except for the fact that it could have been done with a call inactivity timer, then no one would have gotten upset.
- George -
HolmanGT - St. George, UT MJ-Area/Prefix 435-275
ooma-Area/Prefix 435-579
Baja Broadband, up-1mb dn-10mb, on days with a good tail wind.
MJ on HP T5730 2GBF/2GBR Thin Client XPe SP2 Router Dlink Dir-655
xxM5xx wrote:Call inactivity timer. Explain how that works.
Start Wireshark and watch what happens when you place a call, and when you stop talking (or go on mute).
It's possible to detect when a RTP connection isn't carrying any traffic necessary associated with a live conversation. The number of packets that occur are directly proportional to how many words are spoken.
Someone may have gotten hit from being placed on non-music hold for 30 minutes. But, that would be a vast improvement over whacking everyone.
Another possible improvement over the way it was implemented is if it beeped every minute five minutes before the cutoff. Maybe 2 beeps 15 seconds before cutoff.
Another improvement would have been to communicate the change to the support staff so they could have intelligently responded to questions instead of misinforming customers with assertions that there is no call limit.
Finally, nobody knows if there really is a problem with "phantom" traffic. That's the problem with all of Dan's other exhibited behaviors. They lead many people not to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Well, if you are sure that there is a reliable and feasibleway to detect connected calls that carry no talking then I agree completely that things should have been handled that way.
An equivalently to WireShark on a PC must not be feasible do on each and every connection Y-Max establishes. The cut-off timer was/is feasible. I am just speculating some more.
I'm as unimpressed as everyone here when it comes to selling four years of service and telling people it is 5, charging peoples credit cards (or putting holds on debit cards) immediately when the ads say 30 days free, we won't charge you a penny for 30 days, not having a decent method of contacting the company when you want to return the thing, or for whatever other reason. They shouldn't say talk as long as you want but put a secret monthly cap on it. They should let everyone read the TOS before they decide to buy. I agree with you. Should they encourage you to dump your landline service given that their service is kind of buggy. I think not. Should they have charged more for the service and provided a higher level of customer care? Maybe. I personally think they should have charged more but that is not my call. Should the company tell you about all the technical challenges they face? Are you or am I entitled to that kind of information? I think not. I guess because I am an engineer and I have owned a couple of start-ups I see some informational items as "internal" things customers (and my competitors) are not entitled to. If you are my customer, I don't have to tell you about every bug that materializes with my start-up. Especially if the bugs are fixable and I hope to get millions of dollars by selling my start-up soon, and telling the World how dysfunctional things might be in my organization would be harmful. This stuff would hurt me on the day I hope to cash out.
Y-Max should not engage in false advertising. It should not be fraudulent. It should provide customer service to correct mistakes in billing, shipping etc. It should replace defective dongles. But if it does or does not have a phantom call problem that it is trying to fix it doesn't necessarily have to divulge that to me (even though I'd prefer that they do). Nor does it have to necessarily tell me what tools or procedures they use to fix the problem (but it might be nice if they did). If the cut-off timer was to be a temporary thing that was to last, at most, a few days or weeks, I can see where that might not have to be disclosed to customers under certain circumstances. It can't be permanent without disclosing it though. Nor, can it be long term without disclosing it.
I dunno, when it comes to technical challenge related stuff I have a soft spot. Maybe because I have been there. How much do you tell people about the things you know relative to fixable bugs? How much does any high tech company? Almost nothing. How is MagicJack so different. It isn't different. Look at Microsoft, if Microsoft was in the aviation business the planet would be knee deep in crashed airplanes and dead passengers. Microsoft's has shipped so much defective product for 30 years they should be ashamed to be seen in public, and it was alot more than 20 or 40 bucks per household too. Microsoft has made trillions of dollars selling defective merchandise.
I spent some time this morning trying to find the information I once saw where Borislow allegedly wrote some woman an email response explaining the phantom thing. No luck yet.
I was told by a friend yesterday when she called MJ support they still didn't seem aware of any call time limit and told her they would check into it.
Now that is just plain rude on the company's part. The cat is out of the bag and they still don't give their support people a reasonable answer to give people that call in (or is that chat in).
So not only rude, they obviously don't care how much of your time you waste trying to figure out what is wrong with your phone, "insult plus injury".
- George -
HolmanGT - St. George, UT MJ-Area/Prefix 435-275
ooma-Area/Prefix 435-579
Baja Broadband, up-1mb dn-10mb, on days with a good tail wind.
MJ on HP T5730 2GBF/2GBR Thin Client XPe SP2 Router Dlink Dir-655
xxM5xx wrote:I spent some time this morning trying to find the information I once saw where Borislow allegedly wrote some woman an email response explaining the phantom thing. No luck yet.
HolmanGT wrote:So not only rude, they obviously don't care how much of your time you waste trying to figure out what is wrong with your phone, "insult plus injury".
A day or two ago there was a guy on DSLR who took the extraordinary due diligence of contacting MJ support *before* buying. They told him there are no caps, etc. So, then he jumped on us for spreading "FUD" (because he was sure he'd gotten the straight answer).
I was thinking last night about the update to the BBB's web site[1] saying they'd met with Dan, and he's promised to improve the conditions leading to what was an F rating (and now NR, or not-rated as the BBB gives him the benefit of the doubt).
I have a feeling they're going to be like that guy on DSLR when they realize they just had Dan work some of his magic on them.
I hate to be so jaded. But, he met with the BBB at the same time he began the "four years equals five" gimmick. 30 days before the unannounced 30-minute call cap (changed to 60 minutes, and apparently tech support still is unaware of it even two weeks later.).
It's hard to take anything he says seriously. Great product. It's just too bad it's him behind it.
