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Please improve your service (message to ProZ.com staff)
Thread poster: Jo Macdonald
Jo Macdonald
Jo Macdonald  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 09:12
Member (2005)
Italian to English
+ ...
May 10, 2019

I am not usually one to complain unless I’ve got the flu, but…….
Yesterday I upgraded from Standard to Plus membership and lost 5 months of my previous membership.
I sent a support request, no answer.

Today I was updating my profile, when my IP address was blocked effectively preventing me from accessing any of the Proz features I am paying for.

I received this message.
Your IP address has been temporarily blocked because a large number of reques
... See more
I am not usually one to complain unless I’ve got the flu, but…….
Yesterday I upgraded from Standard to Plus membership and lost 5 months of my previous membership.
I sent a support request, no answer.

Today I was updating my profile, when my IP address was blocked effectively preventing me from accessing any of the Proz features I am paying for.

I received this message.
Your IP address has been temporarily blocked because a large number of requests have come from your IP address in a short amount of time.
Please try again in 2 hours.
If you need technical assistance, please contact our support team via email at [email protected] or call +54-221-4251266

I sent an Email to [email protected], no answer.

Fortunately I have other fully functional resources I work with, none of which I pay for.

I have been a paying member of this web site for many years, supporting it almost since it started.

I am not usually one to complain unless I’ve got the flu, but…….
Please improve your service.


[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2019-05-10 15:52 GMT]
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Tom in London
Angie Garbarino
Sheila Wilson
Mirko Mainardi
Barbara Carrara
Katalin Szilárd
Ivana Kahle
 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:12
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Refund May 10, 2019

Jo Macdonald wrote:

Please improve your service.


Yes, and give Jo a refund.


Jo Macdonald
Angie Garbarino
Barbara Carrara
Katalin Szilárd
writeaway
ahartje
Jessica Noyes
 
Daniel Frisano
Daniel Frisano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 09:12
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
What do you call a provider that doesn't keep promises? May 10, 2019

I call it an ex-provider.

We have been waiting for improvements for years. Nothing happens, except for fancy features that no one really needs.

The market has changed a lot, and ProZ (or rather AmateurZ) has failed spectacularly to adapt.

Most of my turnover comes from different sources.

Conclusion: Membership has become pretty much useless. Mine will expire in a couple of months, and will much likely stay expired.


Grace Anderson
Cetacea
 
Ivana Kahle
Ivana Kahle  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 09:12
Member (2007)
German to Croatian
+ ...
Wake up May 10, 2019

You are a sleeping beauty, still beautiful, but asleep.
Wake up, ProZ.
The sooner, the better.


Sheila Wilson
Jan Truper
Jo Macdonald
Khalid Sabili
Katalin Szilárd
 
Andrew Morris
Andrew Morris
Local time: 09:12
ProZ.com team
Picture the scene May 10, 2019

Ok, so the IP address goes down. Support informs me that (and I quote):

"The issue with IP should be checked by Evelio. I cannot remove that block. It should expire in 2 hours automatically. This is an automatic security measure, that temporarily blocks access to the site if a lot of activity is registered from a specific IP. Sometimes it also blocks regular users. "

Unfortunate, a bit irritating, but these things happ
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Ok, so the IP address goes down. Support informs me that (and I quote):

"The issue with IP should be checked by Evelio. I cannot remove that block. It should expire in 2 hours automatically. This is an automatic security measure, that temporarily blocks access to the site if a lot of activity is registered from a specific IP. Sometimes it also blocks regular users. "

Unfortunate, a bit irritating, but these things happen, right, with a global platform?

Jo posts a similar thread to this one on the Facebook group of which I am an admin.

I happen to be out with friends in central Barcelona, having a coffee (I start work at noon to be in touch with NYC time). But these things matter to me, even though I am not in support services. I break off the conversation and immediately ping Yana in Kiev who responds to say she is on the case. Evelio, meanwhile, is in Syracuse and quite possibly asleep at 4 am, when the problem was first flagged.

And now, not even 5 hours after this thread was launched, Jo has already received a response.

I'd call that pretty "awake".
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Daniel Frisano
Daniel Frisano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 09:12
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Uhmm... May 10, 2019

I'd rather call it a poorly scripted sit-com.

But that's your new policy, right? When you can't provide a decent service anymore, entertain and amuse them, that will keep 'em happy.

[Edited at 2019-05-10 12:54 GMT]


Tom in London
Grace Anderson
Andy Watkinson
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Jo Macdonald
Jo Macdonald  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 09:12
Member (2005)
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Sorted May 10, 2019

Thanks Andrew for getting in touch with the powers that be, and to everyone else of course including Yana from Proz support for explaining the membership mix-up.

It looks like there was some confusion about the price.
I got the Plus upgrade for a discounted price of 126 bucks, which the way I read it was an update offer for the first year only, because I was already a Standard member.
I thought "Wow, special offer for people who are already Proz members, great value, on
... See more
Thanks Andrew for getting in touch with the powers that be, and to everyone else of course including Yana from Proz support for explaining the membership mix-up.

It looks like there was some confusion about the price.
I got the Plus upgrade for a discounted price of 126 bucks, which the way I read it was an update offer for the first year only, because I was already a Standard member.
I thought "Wow, special offer for people who are already Proz members, great value, only 6 bucks more than standard membership for the first year, then 180 bucks from the second year."
Apparently I was mistaken and that was a discounted price for what remained of my Standard membership.
I know I can be a bit dense at times but perhaps Proz people you could clarify this in the update price/discount/special offer info to avoid confusion in the future.

About security measures to prevent paying members breaching site security (clicking on their profiles).
Is it really necessary to block the IP address of a long-standing, paying member of this web site because they are updating their profile?
Clicking on your web site is kinda necessary if I’m going to use it.
I could understand if I was posting spam, porn, death threats, but I’d never dream of doing that I swear to gawd… Hang on a minute though……
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Andrew Morris
 
Andrew Morris
Andrew Morris
Local time: 09:12
ProZ.com team
Confusion. May 10, 2019

Haha Jo

Points well taken, and the team is looking into it right now.


 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:12
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Global platform = global support May 10, 2019

Andrew Morris wrote:

Unfortunate, a bit irritating, but these things happen, right, with a global platform?


Uhm... A truly global platform would have a global user-base (checkmark for that) and also a global support team (no checkmark for that).
A global support team would have 24-hour support (not that difficult when you have offices in various timezones, IMHO) to solve any and all kinds of technical issues. If only a single person has the ability to resolve certain issues, then unless that person is on call all the time, problems will be waiting in queue for long hours.

So no, this is not acceptable. Not from an outfit that calls itself “global”.

I have had IP blocking incidents happen to me several times, preventing me to access my ProZ-hosted email and directly resulting in missed job opportunities.
Let alone the annual nightmare of ProZ staff forgetting to renew the mail server’s certificate. Funny, but not really.


Robert Forstag
Jo Macdonald
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DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
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Mend or end May 10, 2019

Daniel, while I understand your frustration, perhaps you are using not a 'white' IP, but an external IP, automatically assigned and shared among many users (including abusers).

For instance, I often prefer VPN (Opera/plug-ins) and proxies, so working with several browsers and hundred of tabs open sometimes makes even my white IP seem "suspicious".

A week ago a colleague of mine with a white IP was blocked because of some malware, so take care)


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Daniel, while I understand your frustration, perhaps you are using not a 'white' IP, but an external IP, automatically assigned and shared among many users (including abusers).

For instance, I often prefer VPN (Opera/plug-ins) and proxies, so working with several browsers and hundred of tabs open sometimes makes even my white IP seem "suspicious".

A week ago a colleague of mine with a white IP was blocked because of some malware, so take care)


However, I think that paying members should nicely get what they are paying for, indeed.
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Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 09:12
Member
English to Italian
This May 10, 2019

Jo Macdonald wrote:

I sent a support request, no answer.

...

I sent an Email to [email protected], no answer.


I have a ticket (about a link in profiles that opens to an error page) that's been open for more than a month now, and have received no reply whatsoever to my subsequent inquiries about it...

Based on past discussions I have read here and there, it seems there are several unresolved issues, and there have been many calls to solve them instead of keeping changing "stuff" on the site non-stop...

I think it would be very helpful to have some sort of (stickied) "bug-tracking thread" where alle issues are listed, together with their status and ETA.


Jo Macdonald
 
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Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule
Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule
Katalin Szilárd
Katalin Szilárd  Identity Verified
Hungary
Local time: 09:12
English to Hungarian
+ ...
The same thing happened to me May 10, 2019

Jo Macdonald wrote:

I received this message.
Your IP address has been temporarily blocked because a large number of requests have come from your IP address in a short amount of time.
Please try again in 2 hours.
If you need technical assistance, please contact our support team via email at [email protected] or call +54-221-4251266




In January I decided to delete all the quotes I sent via this site. I noticed that I could do this only if I delete them one by one (there was no other option that time, I have no clue whether this was changed or not since then). After the 15th quote deletion my IP address was blocked. I was angry of course, but waited 2 hrs and then continued. Since it was solved after 2 hrs I didn't write to anybody although I was hindered in deleting my own data. But!! Then I decided to delete very old Sent messages from the Proz Connect. The system did not allow me to delete these messages. I wrote a support ticket in January about asking to be able to delete those old Sent messages. The support ticket is still pending. Although if I remember well Proz accepted the GDPR and I should be able to delete messages I sent.


 
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