Tesco Internet Phone Service Not Working For 2 Days

[Tony]

Are you having problems with tescointernetphone.com
Ref:-  tesco internet phone unable to login

3  days out of  service

[/color]
webserver tescointernetphone.com down on ip address  77.75.0.10
server type apache 2.2.3 on red hat linux.
The dns servers pdns1.ultradns.net are working ok.

NOT A VERY SATISFACTORY SITUATION (not even a posting on tesco website to say what the problem is 3  days out of  service.)
Searching for a suitable Tesco email address is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Eventually I found a tesco email address
I am now waiting for a reply. !!

[Tony]

Monday 16/03/2009
Tesco Internet Phone Service is now back online
But the audio quality is very poor I tried phoning my home landline
using a hotspot in northwales.  We gave up with the conversation
the connection kept tripping out once connected again you could only identify one or two words and sometimes getting a chirping darlek sound.
We gave up and used windows live messenger without any audio problems using the same tesco internet phone as a microphone and speaker.
Clearly its not a problem with our setup its Tesco problem.
I received a reply about the Tesco server down for days.
--------------------
Thank you for your email.

I'm sorry that I can't deal with your query about Tesco.Net from my office. This is because we don't have access to their database.

I've passed your query to TescoNet and my colleagues there will get in touch with you shortly.

Should you have any other queries in future, you can send an email to Tesco.Net directly at:

support@tesco.net

You can find more information about our Tesco Internet services, including a number of 'Questions and Answers' on our website at:

http://www.tesco.com/telecoms/

For technical queries you can also call TescoNet on 0906 301 9000, but remember that this is a premium rate telephone number.

For Customer Service issues only you can call our helpline on 0845 650 8000.

Should you prefer to send a letter you can address it to:

Tesco.Net
PO Box 612 
NEWPORT
NP10 8QX

I hope this information will help. Thank you for contacting us.

Kind Regards


Tesco Customer Service
---------------------------------
I dont want to try ringing on a premium rate phone call
to report a problem they should have sorted 

[Tony]

This evening the Tesco internet phone is working again with the audio quality back to normal.
 :oI receive a bit of a disturbing email from customer care 
Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email regarding service difficulties.

In order for us to assist you further with your query we first need you to confirm some important security details to comply with current data protection regulations.  We would be grateful if you could reply to this email and include the following information:

1)  Your Tesco internet phone number
2)  The first line of your address and post code
3)  Your Mother's maiden name
4)  The model of your Tesco hardware
5)  Computer operating system. (Windows XP, Vista, etc.)
6)  Internet Service Provider and if you can access www.tescointernetphone.com
7)  A detailed description of the problem

Once we have these details we can access your account and strive to offer a suitable answer to your query.

Thank you for contacting us, please let me know if you have any further queries, alternatively call our customer care team on 0845 045 0130* - free from your Tesco internet phone or visit our website http://www.tesco.net/internetphone/.

Kind Regards,
Rachel
Tesco Internet Phone Team
Every Little Helps

This email is very disturbing customer care should take greater care in customers security NO WAY SHOULD YOU GIVE PRIVATE DETAILS as requested in this email.
It’s very easy to intercept and read someone's mail.
I would have thought they should have a report ticket system a user
could login to and post a question?
Tony

[Tony]

I receive another email from tesco.
 Lindsay  from tesco customer care gave a very good explanation for the outage of service. At last someone knows the problem.
Many thanks Lindsay and to be fair to Tesco i will include the email reply:-

 Thank you for your email. The reason for asking for your private details is that whilst it may be very easy to intercept and read somebody's email, it is even easier to simply ask questions about somebody's account when you are not the account holder. These sorts of questions are commonplace - you do not have to give us your mother's actual maiden name when you sign up for an account, you can just set it up as a "secret handshake" kind of question. I do like your idea of a ticketing system where you ask questions from your account page, and I will pass the idea along. However, I feel obliged to point out that the outage you just experienced would have precluded you from doing such a thing successfully. Now, with regards to said outage, as far as I am aware, the issue was related to a new batch of IP addresses that were released by several ISPs recently. Ordinarily, only a certain range (or set of ranges) of addresses are used by internet devices. Due to the exponential growth of the internet medium though, new batches of addresses are 'released into the wild' as it were.  What normally happens is there is a 'whitelist' of addresses, and servers are configured to only accept incoming connections from addresses on this list. This helps to reduce the level of spam, as spammers often use 'spoofed' IP addresses in invalid ranges. Now, when new IP addresses are released, it takes time for all the servers in the world to update their whitelists to accept incoming connections from the new addresses. In this case - as far as I can tell (and I'm not involved with the troubleshooting) - a server somewhere between your ISP and ours wasn't updated, and so has been blocking all access to our website. I hope this explains everything for you. Thank you for contacting us, please let me know if you have any further queries, alternatively call our customer care team on 0845 045 0130* - free from your Tesco internet phone or visit our website http://www.tescointernetphone.com/. Kind Regards,LindsayTesco Internet Phone TeamEvery Little Helps

[Tony]

I receive another email from tesco.
 Lindsay  from tesco customer care gave a very good explanation for the outage of service. At last someone knows the problem.
Many thanks Lindsay and to be fair to Tesco i will include the email reply:-

 Thank you for your email. The reason for asking for your private details is that whilst it may be very easy to intercept and read somebody's email, it is even easier to simply ask questions about somebody's account when you are not the account holder. These sorts of questions are commonplace - you do not have to give us your mother's actual maiden name when you sign up for an account, you can just set it up as a "secret handshake" kind of question. I do like your idea of a ticketing system where you ask questions from your account page, and I will pass the idea along. However, I feel obliged to point out that the outage you just experienced would have precluded you from doing such a thing successfully. Now, with regards to said outage, as far as I am aware, the issue was related to a new batch of IP addresses that were released by several ISPs recently. Ordinarily, only a certain range (or set of ranges) of addresses are used by internet devices. Due to the exponential growth of the internet medium though, new batches of addresses are 'released into the wild' as it were.  What normally happens is there is a 'whitelist' of addresses, and servers are configured to only accept incoming connections from addresses on this list. This helps to reduce the level of spam, as spammers often use 'spoofed' IP addresses in invalid ranges. Now, when new IP addresses are released, it takes time for all the servers in the world to update their whitelists to accept incoming connections from the new addresses. In this case - as far as I can tell (and I'm not involved with the troubleshooting) - a server somewhere between your ISP and ours wasn't updated, and so has been blocking all access to our website. I hope this explains everything for you. Thank you for contacting us, please let me know if you have any further queries, alternatively call our customer care team on 0845 045 0130* - free from your Tesco internet phone or visit our website http://www.tescointernetphone.com/. Kind Regards,LindsayTesco Internet Phone TeamEvery Little Helps