HELL accounts at TIAC
Ray Sexton
When I signed up with them, they were the only ISP in my area that was
offering a local dial up. Also they offered 24/7 use which was not
available elsewhere.
I got 14.4 connections with TIAC and less that that with AOL and others IF
YOU COULD CONNECT AT ALL.
While I was not a great user of USELESS (Usenet) news, I subscribed to the
TIAC general newsgroup expecting I could pick up some useful information.
What a mistake that was.
The major postings came from a group of elitists, complaining all the time,
and apparently believing that using UNIX with a shell account made them
superior to the other 98% of TIAC subscribers. Many of these same people
are represented in the n.e.internet.services NG postings currently
badmouthing TIAC and Tim Jackson. This unreasoning belly-aching has been
going on for years. Lacking anything else to complain about they would even
take some sick pleasure in throwing harpoons at Tim Jacksons' wife.
So nothing is new - except that the same species has shown up in the US
House of Representatives Judiciary Commitee during the past Congress.
Suggestion to TIAC.
Drop shell accounts. Other ISP's seem to exist without them. Then you
won't have someone connecting up 24 hours a day and waiting to pounce on
your CSR's as soon as the system burps in some fashion. Take notice that
these customers are IMMEDIATELY (upon discovering any slight problem with
service) on the phone clogging lines and berating your CSR's. Let them look
for a new way to display their "superior intelligence"
One further observation, as long as I have gone this far:
They seem to be a bunch of cheap-skates who want the lowest price in the
universe and who indicate the whole world is going to crumble at their feet
if they miss a few postings on Usenet News.
Good Lord.
Ray Sexton (The Old Man)
Ron Newman
<rtse...@javanet.com> wrote:
> I was a customer for several years at TIAC.
[snip]
> The major postings came from a group of elitists, complaining all the time,
> and apparently believing that using UNIX with a shell account made them
> superior to the other 98% of TIAC subscribers. Many of these same people
> are represented in the n.e.internet.services NG postings currently
> badmouthing TIAC and Tim Jackson. This unreasoning belly-aching has been
> going on for years. Lacking anything else to complain about they would even
> take some sick pleasure in throwing harpoons at Tim Jacksons' wife.
>
> So nothing is new - except that the same species has shown up in the US
> House of Representatives Judiciary Commitee during the past Congress.
>
> Suggestion to TIAC.
>
> Drop shell accounts. Other ISP's seem to exist without them. Then you
> won't have someone connecting up 24 hours a day and waiting to pounce on
> your CSR's as soon as the system burps in some fashion.
World and Shore have shell accounts, and lots of shell users.
How often do you see those users complaining here on ne.internet.services?
--
Ron Newman rne...@thecia.net
http://www2.thecia.net/users/rnewman/
Lee
Ray Sexton <rtse...@javanet.com> wrote in message
news:78uefp$cr9$1...@winter.news.rcn.net...
>The major postings came from a group of elitists, complaining all
the time,
>and apparently believing that using UNIX with a shell account made
them
>superior to the other 98% of TIAC subscribers. Many of these same
people
>are represented in the n.e.internet.services NG postings currently
>badmouthing TIAC and Tim Jackson. This unreasoning belly-aching
has been
In reality, Ray, there are many people frustrated with TIAC who have
good reason to complain.
I don't use UNIX and (obviously) don't have a shell acount. But I'm
one of a number of people who've paid TIAC's premium price for a
long time and have seen service and attitude degrade considerably.
Outages often aren't acknowledged for hours after they are reported.
Loss of connectivity to anything beyond TIAC, ringers, extremely low
throughput, and many other situations.
Heck, even the loss of an entire server can go unnoticed until
customer pressure apparently causes Customer Service pressure on
ops. then they'll wait 4 hours or more before posting to the Network
Status page that there's a problem.
Then there are the billing screwups. One double-billing recently
cost me $23 that TIAC refuses to refund unless I open my bank
account to their scrutiny! Another guy was charged $1,900 (?)
recently for a month's service. If that had happened to me, I'd
probably have lost my bank account. To compound the issue, TIAC
would not even respond to the customer's problem!
Ray, I think a lot of folks would *like* TIAC to be what they
promised they'd be. It is TIAC's "we don't give a shit" attitude
that has taken normal, daily problems of any ISP and made them
subject to longer and louder complaints.
Lee
Jim Strand
account? So you can pretend it is still 1987 and use a fine newsreader like
trn? If you need a shell account, why not obtain a copy of Redhat or Solaris
and use that on your own computer (via a PPP or other IP connection). Besides
being in control of your own account and configuration, it's a lot less
frustating when files like .newsrc are on your own harddrive instead of on
someone else's.
Ray Sexton
>Ray, I think a lot of folks would *like* TIAC to be what they
>promised they'd be. It is TIAC's "we don't give a shit" attitude
>that has taken normal, daily problems of any ISP and made them
>subject to longer and louder complaints.
>
>Lee
I agree.
When I left TIAC about a year ago it was because I felt I could get better
service elsewhere. But, while I was a subscriber, the added cost for long
distance calls would have been $3 to $6 per hour. Slowly other ISP's made
arrangements that permitted me to connect using a local call. Now, I
believe, 3COM and others have set up shop in my area and I can make
connections with a large number of ISP's.
While at TIAC I had accounts variously with AOL or MSN for about $7 a month
using telnet thru TIAC. I could usually make connections thru TIAC, as much
of their trouble was with usenet news and reach other sources for news if I
needed it. $7 a month extra didn't (and doesn't) seem like budget breaking
expense for the back up services, plus added content if one needed or used
it.
I was billed monthly by TIAC and didn't get into Credit Card problems.
When I left TIAC it took only a few hours for my account to be deactivated.
I live out here in the boonies and I believe many of the constant
complainers were in a position to get accounts other than with TIAC but they
just hung around and complained. Others left TIAC and they are still
yapping about problems THEY had years ago.
I never knew Tim Jackson. It never interested me whether he had become
wealthy running TIAC. It was his business to run any darn way he wanted.
Many of the complainers couldn't seem to stomach his good fortune. Others
were ex-employees.
I found the CSR's that I talked to on the few occasions I called to be
courteous. I expected limited ability to solve my problems because that is
the way it is now-a-days. Major corporations have customer service
operations that are as bad as anything TIAC has had.
My second phone line costs me about $30 a month. I really think that an ISP
offering 24/7 connections to the internet for that price or LESS is a real
bargain. Recalling the days of the Commodore 64, writing sub-routines to
expand its DOS, 300 baud modems etal - Boy, we sure have a better deal.
Enjoy
Scott R. Ehrlich
- Same email address regardless of how I access the 'net (from work, home,
wherever)
- Central location for reading news regardless of how I access the 'net
- Storage of files in case floppies are not enough and no other medium is
available
- Network troubleshooting (i.e. traceoute, ping, etc)
- Separation of personal email (shell address) from work email
- Others I can't think of at the moment
--
-------------------------
Scott Ehrlich sehr...@shore.net
Scott Ehrlich Consulting http://www.shore.net/~sehrlich
Charles Demas
Jim Strand <nos...@nihil.co> wrote:
>I guess I'm missing the point here, but what is the point of having a shell
>account? So you can pretend it is still 1987 and use a fine newsreader like
>trn? If you need a shell account, why not obtain a copy of Redhat or Solaris
>and use that on your own computer (via a PPP or other IP connection). Besides
>being in control of your own account and configuration, it's a lot less
>frustating when files like .newsrc are on your own harddrive instead of on
>someone else's.
How about being able to do automatic email processing without having to
be connected. You can do this with procmail. For example, someone
writes your business asking for a pricelist, and you email it to
them automatically.
How about reading very heavy volume newsgroups with a killfile to
select only those posts that interest you (i.e. meet your selection
criteria). Try reading a jobs newsgroup with 2000+ posts per day using
your PPP account. The download time will make that task very
cumbersome. Try ne.jobs if you want an example.
Try surfing the net looking for some information, using lynx (a text
browser) you can look at a 500k text file, search it, and be onto the
next URL very quickly because it didn't have to be downloaded through
your PPP connection, but rather got transferred to the ISP at T1-T3
rates and searched at the ISP inside the shell account.
There you have three reasons for having a shell account, email, news,
and web.
Having and knowing how to use a shell account can make life much
easier using the Internet.
Chuck Demas
Needham, Mass.
--
Eat Healthy | _ _ | Nothing would be done at all,
Stay Fit | @ @ | If a man waited to do it so well,
Die Anyway | v | That no one could find fault with it.
de...@tiac.net | \___/ | http://www.tiac.net/users/demas
Ron Newman
> I guess I'm missing the point here, but what is the point of having a shell
> account? So you can pretend it is still 1987 and use a fine newsreader like
> trn?
Trn can be a lot faster than news-reading programs that you run on
your PC or Mac, especially if you have a low-bandwidth connection between
you and your ISP.
Another good reason to have a shell account: so that you can run
"procmail" and filter out spam e-mail before it has to pass over that
low-bandwidth connection.
A third reason: so that you can edit web pages directly on the web server
file system, without having to FTP them back and forth to your PC or Mac.
Betsy Schwartz
I have a shell account instead of rolling my own linux server for the
same reason that I don't bake my own bread or sew my own clothes. Sure,
I could, but other people do it better and cheaper and I don't have
to stay up late at night working on it.
I also agree about the efficiency of running procmail and news filters on a
remote shell machine. Besides, we like having Windows 95 machines to play
games on, and one (soon to be both) of our machines is a laptop that
travels to work and back, so we'd really need to set up a linux box as a
stable network server, and make both machines clients, and drill some holes
in the walls to wire up a local lan, and you know, we'd rather play with
our kid at night and just log onto a network that is all set up and
professionally run, by somebody else.
--
bet...@shore.net http://www.shore.net/~betsys
bet...@cs.umb.edu http://www.cs.umb.edu/~betsys
If this looks funny the baby is trying to help me type!
Scott R. Ehrlich
- Be connected via a cable modem?
- Be connected via DSL?
- Be connected via ISDN?
- Be connected via a CSU/DSU?
Doesn't have to be dial-up.
In article <5B6t2.539$q74.1...@news.shore.net>,
Scratchie <upse...@ziplink.net> wrote:
>
>Jim Strand <nos...@nihil.co> wrote:
>: I guess I'm missing the point here, but what is the point of having a shell
>: account? So you can pretend it is still 1987 and use a fine newsreader like
>: trn? If you need a shell account, why not obtain a copy of Redhat or Solaris
>: and use that on your own computer (via a PPP or other IP connection). Besides
>: being in control of your own account and configuration, it's a lot less
>: frustating when files like .newsrc are on your own harddrive instead of on
>: someone else's.
>
>Except when you happen to want to access them from somewhere else in the
>world and your home computer isn't dialed in. Duh.
>
>--Art
>
>
>
>--
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> National Ska & Reggae Calendar
> http://www.agitators.com/calendar/
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay D Ribak
>There you have three reasons for having a shell account, email, news,
>and web.
>
>Having and knowing how to use a shell account can make life much
>easier using the Internet.
>
All good reasons Chuck.
Not to mention having 'standard' tools such as grep, wc, sort, gcc, gdb, and
other things that SHOULD come with any OS that deserves to be called an OS.
The ability to compile your own programs and tools is priceless. Try
writing decent C code on a PC...not to mention having to pay hundreds for a
compiler.
And finally, what about creating web content? Other than using notepad and
ftp'ing it up to the server, it is a hell of a lot easier to just create it
on the server using emacs or pico or vi. But, I forgot that the people who
don't like shell accounts are the same people who use crap like FrontRage.
jay R.
Jay D Ribak
>The major postings came from a group of elitists, complaining all the time,
>and apparently believing that using UNIX with a shell account made them
>superior to the other 98% of TIAC subscribers
They are. What is your point?
Jay D Ribak
>Then there are the billing screwups. One double-billing recently
>cost me $23 that TIAC refuses to refund unless I open my bank
>account to their scrutiny! Another guy was charged $1,900 (?)
>recently for a month's service. If that had happened to me, I'd
>probably have lost my bank account. To compound the issue, TIAC
>would not even respond to the customer's problem!
>
TIAC seems to be renowned for billing problems. The only solution seems to
be to go over to their Bedford office in person and demand a refund and
don't leave until you get it. I have never been a regular subscriber of
TIAC, but I have occasionally taken advantage of their 14 day free trial
accounts during downtime at previous providers. In one such case they
charged me on the 7th day of a 14 day free trial account. I cancelled my
account on the 13th day and thought nothing of it. Then I started receiving
things from TIAC saying they charged my card for a months worth of service.
I called and complained and they supposedly closed my account down (which
had been open this whole time), and said they issued a refund. 2 weeks go
by, the account is still active, and no refund. Call them up again, they
have no record of saying they would give a refund. My wife demands a check
that day (the total they owed us was over $80 for a 14 day free trial
account). They hedged, saying no one could sign such a check. She told
them to have TimJ sign it. We dropped by their office that evening and
waited about 15 minutes and finally got a check signed by TimJ's wife. I
never went near TIAC after that....
But seriously...try the direct approach.
Jay R.
Lee
Jay D Ribak <jri...@1tac.com.NOSPAM> wrote
>But seriously...try the direct approach.
You may be right. I tried the 'telephone and ask for a senior CSR'
method someone else suggested. The Senior CSR said I had to send him
"proof" of their billing error (even though he admitted I'd been
double-billed), which would mean sending copies of my bank
statements to them. I'll be damned if I'll turn over my bank records
to people I can't trust to bill me once a month. It's just a $23
lesson in "customer service" at TIAC.
Jay Rogers
> The major postings came from a group of elitists, complaining all the time,
> and apparently believing that using UNIX with a shell account made them
> superior to the other 98% of TIAC subscribers.
Here's an interesting article with some thoughts on why some choose to
criticize Unix devotees as elitists.
http://www.performancecomputing.com/features/9809of1.shtml
--
Jay Rogers
j...@rgrs.com
joet
> Lee wrote in message <78vmc6$2...@news-central.tiac.net>...
> >Then there are the billing screwups. One double-billing recently
> >cost me $23 that TIAC refuses to refund unless I open my bank
> >account to their scrutiny! Another guy was charged $1,900 (?)
> >recently for a month's service. If that had happened to me, I'd
> >probably have lost my bank account. To compound the issue, TIAC
> >would not even respond to the customer's problem!
> >
>
> TIAC seems to be renowned for billing problems. The only solution seems to
> be to go over to their Bedford office in person and demand a refund and
> don't leave until you get it. I have never been a regular subscriber of
> TIAC, but I have occasionally taken advantage of their 14 day free trial
> accounts during downtime at previous providers. In one such case they
> charged me on the 7th day of a 14 day free trial account. I cancelled my
> account on the 13th day and thought nothing of it. Then I started receiving
> things from TIAC saying they charged my card for a months worth of service.
TIAC accidentally billed you one of the times you were scamming them for
free access? Those bastards!
--
+---- joe tomkowitz ----+ When something doesn't work, really force it
| jo...@jtcs.net | because maybe it'll go. And if it doesn't
| http://www.jtcs.net | or if it breaks, you needed to fix it anyway.
+-----------------------+ -my dad, ca. 1970
joet
says...
> joet <jo...@jtcs.net> wrote:
> :> TIAC seems to be renowned for billing problems. The only solution seems to
> :> be to go over to their Bedford office in person and demand a refund and
> :> don't leave until you get it. I have never been a regular subscriber of
> :> TIAC, but I have occasionally taken advantage of their 14 day free trial
> :> accounts during downtime at previous providers. In one such case they
> :> charged me on the 7th day of a 14 day free trial account. I cancelled my
> :> account on the 13th day and thought nothing of it. Then I started receiving
> :> things from TIAC saying they charged my card for a months worth of service.
>
> : TIAC accidentally billed you one of the times you were scamming them for
> : free access? Those bastards!
>
Of course not. What part of "accidentally billed" could possibly mean
"*should* bill"?
> Perhaps you could explain how taking advantage of a free trial offered by
> TIAC constitutes a "scam".
Perhaps it's pretty clear that if you have to ask, no one would ever be
able to explain it to you.
The more I see of how a lot of people act, the more I believe that
morality is something you either understand at a very early age or you
never get at all.
Ann
>The more I see of how a lot of people act, the more I believe that
>morality is something you either understand at a very early age or you
>never get at all.
What on earth is immoral about testing out a service using a company's
offer of a 14 day trial??? How in any way is that 'scamming them for
free access"?
--
Ann
annbal*at*thecia.net
Fix the from:
9 is the spam trap!
Jay D Ribak
>In article <794v7m$c8h$1...@remarQ.com>, jri...@1tac.com.NOSPAM says...
>free access? Those bastards!
I don't see how using an advertised 14 day free trial account is a 'scam'.
Josh Brandt
>Here's an interesting article with some thoughts on why some choose to
>criticize Unix devotees as elitists.
"Here's a quarter, kid. Get yourself a real computer."
Josh
--
...said it was heaven just to breathe your air Severed Heads
J. Brandt - mu...@sidehack.gweep.net
Charles Demas
Chris Gauthier <cgau...@monad.net> wrote:
>Ron Newman wrote:
>
>>
>> I don't see anything wrong with this. What do you see that is wrong?
>>
>
>Let's see..."occassionally" would imply more than once.
>"Trial", so far as I know, means trial. As in, check it out
>before you purchase.
>Never mind using equipment that other people have paid for...
So, if he tried it three years ago and didn't like it, he shouldn't
try it a few years later to see if it improved???
That sounds like "occasionally" to me. Perhaps you're confusing
"occasionally" with "frequently?"
Seems to me that if there are restrictions on how often a "free trial"
can be used, those terms can be included in the offer. I imagine that
most companies have some such restrictions, but I don't know. I know
that if I tried some service, and it was not good enough, I might
try it again at a later date to see if it had improved. I don't see
anything wrong with this.
joet
says...
> In article <36B72113...@monad.net>,
> Chris Gauthier <cgau...@monad.net> wrote:
> >Ron Newman wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I don't see anything wrong with this. What do you see that is wrong?
> >>
> >
> >Let's see..."occassionally" would imply more than once.
> >"Trial", so far as I know, means trial. As in, check it out
> >before you purchase.
> >Never mind using equipment that other people have paid for...
>
>
> So, if he tried it three years ago and didn't like it, he shouldn't
> try it a few years later to see if it improved???
>
> That sounds like "occasionally" to me. Perhaps you're confusing
> "occasionally" with "frequently?"
Much more likely it's that you've seen so much legal maneuvering in the
media over the past few years that you believe that an absurd explanation
made up to fit the evidence is as real as what actually happened. (A
model I particularly enjoy is where the defendant resorts to going to
great lengths to prove that he was so stupid that he couldn't possibly
have comprehended common terms and understood what was intended.)
> Seems to me that if there are restrictions on how often a "free trial"
> can be used, those terms can be included in the offer. I imagine that
> most companies have some such restrictions, but I don't know. I know
> that if I tried some service, and it was not good enough, I might
> try it again at a later date to see if it had improved. I don't see
> anything wrong with this.
Let me just write up the essence of a followup (or followups) bound to
show up here sooner or later:
"I, uh, wanted to, um, see, uh, if their service had improved... Yeah.
Improved. That's the ticket. And they didn't. Not one bit. And, um,
I, uh, I'm gonna SUE them. That's it. I'm gonna sue them for multiple
counts of wasting my time via service non-improvement. So you see, TIAC
actually ripped ME off. They suck. And why are you always defending
them?"
Charles Demas
joet <jo...@jtcs.net> wrote:
>In article <36b7774d....@enews.newsguy.com>, ann...@thecia.net
>says...
>> jo...@jtcs.net (joet) expounded:
>>
>> >Much more likely it's that you've seen so much legal maneuvering in the
>> >media over the past few years that you believe that an absurd explanation
>> >made up to fit the evidence is as real as what actually happened. (A
>> >model I particularly enjoy is where the defendant resorts to going to
>> >great lengths to prove that he was so stupid that he couldn't possibly
>> >have comprehended common terms and understood what was intended.)
>>
>> country ever since the media has started covering and participating in
>> the legal maneuvering. You are looking too hard.
>
>I don't understand what you're trying to say.
She means that you're seeing evil where none exists. That you're
expecting the worst from these situations.
Ann
>She means that you're seeing evil where none exists. That you're
>expecting the worst from these situations.
Thank you, Chuck :o)