You're a helpdesk, so ... help!
Last week I got a free pass for pogo.com which gives me full membership of the site for 30 days. I used to play on there a lot some years ago but stopped playing as much when they brought in paid memberships. One of the the things they have on there is a Mini, a little avatar that you can dress up and all that sort of thing. Very much along the lines of Yahoo's mini me things. However, some of the items are marked as for Club Pogo only. I presumed that now I had that membership, albeit free, that these items would be available to me. Except that they're not. I waited a few days as it says 'Changes made recently to your Payment Plan may take a day to be reflected.' When it still wasn't working, I searched the FAQ, found no mention of this issue and so I e-mailed them about it.
My e-mail said:
I currently have a free pass to Club Pogo active on my account. It lets me access the members only games and rooms, but it doesn't let me access members only items for my Mini. Is this a fault or is it not working because I have a free pass?
I thought that although it was short and to the point, it was pretty easy to understand what my issue was. Apparently not. The response from Pogo's Helpdesk was:
Unfortunately, I need some more specific information in order to really know what's causing the problem. If you're getting errors, please write down or copy and paste the error message exactly as it appears and send it to us at your earliest convenience. If you're not getting an error but are having problems, please describe in more detail what exactly is going wrong, and what you're trying to do when it happens.
Fair enough, I suppose. I could have put in more detail to explain it better. So I responded with more detail:
I'm not getting an error. This is what is happening: When I go to edit my Mini and select different outfits or hairstyles, some of the items are marked 'Club Pogo only'. I assume means these items are only available if you are a Club Pogo member. I have a free pass to Club Pogo active on my account but I am unable to select any of the Club Pogo only items. The options for Try and Add are both greyed out. Is this because I have a free pass and therefore my Club Pogo is not acceptable for Mini items or is it a fault?
I thought that this time, I'd really explained well what was going on. Not even close. Another response from Pogo's Helpdesk:
I need a little more information before I can figure out what might be going wrong. Can you take a 'screenshot' of "Error message screen" the next time this happens and send it to me? Then I can see what you're seeing, and that will help me get a good idea on where to start in troubleshooting this problem with you.
It then goes on to tell me how to take a 'screenshot', naturally assuming that I have a Windoze computer. Eugh. Helpdesk, my arse. More like headdesk. Which I did, a lot, after getting that message. I get the impression that if they are reading my messages - which I doubt - the person does not have a CLUE about any of this anyway and doesn't understand jargon like 'greyed out'. There is no 'Error message screen', for crying out loud! I really don't know how to make this any clearer. I will take a screenshot - sorry, 'screenshot' - and send it anyway but they'll probably spend more time being baffled by the fact that I'm a) using Firefox and b) not using Windoze. And of course, my membership is slowly being used up while this is trying to be sorted out. Gahhhh.
My e-mail said:
I currently have a free pass to Club Pogo active on my account. It lets me access the members only games and rooms, but it doesn't let me access members only items for my Mini. Is this a fault or is it not working because I have a free pass?
I thought that although it was short and to the point, it was pretty easy to understand what my issue was. Apparently not. The response from Pogo's Helpdesk was:
Unfortunately, I need some more specific information in order to really know what's causing the problem. If you're getting errors, please write down or copy and paste the error message exactly as it appears and send it to us at your earliest convenience. If you're not getting an error but are having problems, please describe in more detail what exactly is going wrong, and what you're trying to do when it happens.
Fair enough, I suppose. I could have put in more detail to explain it better. So I responded with more detail:
I'm not getting an error. This is what is happening: When I go to edit my Mini and select different outfits or hairstyles, some of the items are marked 'Club Pogo only'. I assume means these items are only available if you are a Club Pogo member. I have a free pass to Club Pogo active on my account but I am unable to select any of the Club Pogo only items. The options for Try and Add are both greyed out. Is this because I have a free pass and therefore my Club Pogo is not acceptable for Mini items or is it a fault?
I thought that this time, I'd really explained well what was going on. Not even close. Another response from Pogo's Helpdesk:
I need a little more information before I can figure out what might be going wrong. Can you take a 'screenshot' of "Error message screen" the next time this happens and send it to me? Then I can see what you're seeing, and that will help me get a good idea on where to start in troubleshooting this problem with you.
It then goes on to tell me how to take a 'screenshot', naturally assuming that I have a Windoze computer. Eugh. Helpdesk, my arse. More like headdesk. Which I did, a lot, after getting that message. I get the impression that if they are reading my messages - which I doubt - the person does not have a CLUE about any of this anyway and doesn't understand jargon like 'greyed out'. There is no 'Error message screen', for crying out loud! I really don't know how to make this any clearer. I will take a screenshot - sorry, 'screenshot' - and send it anyway but they'll probably spend more time being baffled by the fact that I'm a) using Firefox and b) not using Windoze. And of course, my membership is slowly being used up while this is trying to be sorted out. Gahhhh.