ProTx: Making customers feel like shit
July 27th, 2007
So I need to speak to ProTx about up-coming changes to their payment system. I send an email with a specific issue. More than 12 hours later, I've not received a reply - which is fine - they made no promises. However, my client has a couple of things that need clarifying quickly so I decide to give them a call.
This is what I'm presented with (see here):
Important Guidelines when using Telephone Support
- Please limit the length of your call. If the support lines are engaged, we will not be able to answer other calls.
- Please DO NOT call us to chase a resolution to an email you have sent us - this will only increase our email response time.
- Please DO NOT hold on the line for extended periods - If you are on hold for more than 10 minutes we advise you to email us your query instead.
- Please DO NOT call other Protx departments if you cannot get through to our support line. You will only be directed to email the support team.
- At busy times, emails will be given priority and in extreme cases Telephone support will be closed.
Is it just me or is this an insult? What this is basically saying is "Once you're a customer, we don't give a shit about you". I find this behavior absolutely shocking. If we treated our clients like this, we'd be out of business. How big does a company get before it starts acting like this?
I've been on hold for 10 minutes now. I keep being told that I'm moving up the queue. I even got a choice of hold music.
* Update *
Seems pretty much everyone is pissed of with ProTx. They have blantently lied by saying that their changes were enforced by the banks which is actually not true at all. My client set up an account with SecPay and the site was up and running within a couple of days. Their support was responsive and everything has been working well for a few weeks now.
Good riddance to ProTx. May you collapse under your own arrogance.
108 Responses to “ProTx: Making customers feel like shit”
Sorry, comments are closed for this article.
July 27th, 2007 at 07:13 PM
Welcome to my world!
I don't think it's anything to do with the size of company, more to do with the lack of decent competition.
I am considering other options but I'm not convinced that the holy grail of UK payment service providers currently exists. If I did find a satisfactory alternative to Protx I'd definitely drop them and never look back.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:15 PM
Tell me about it. IME 24hrs for an email to be answered is pretty typical for Protx but no-where near good enough for Internet-age businesses.
I usually give up and spend 20 mins waiting on the phone to speak to them.
July 28th, 2007 at 05:12 AM
Problem solved
http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=42871
August 1st, 2007 at 01:19 PM
Just to make things worse Protx have cocked up and taken down every single payment processing of thier 10000+ customers since 6am this morning (currently 8 hours and counting) with no Expected resolution. Keep well away from the company.
August 1st, 2007 at 03:57 PM
I have been considering using Protx for my new website but I have been recommended to go with Sec Pay instead. Does anyone know what sec pay are like, i.e reliability and telephone support?
August 1st, 2007 at 04:30 PM
I've heard a couple of people have problems with sepcay but on the whole only good reports. Nice and simple, no problems here. They seem to be pretty reliable in general.
August 4th, 2007 at 08:44 AM
I have been a customer of Protx for some years - never had any problems - but now - I second the title of this blog. I sent Protx an important e-mail regarding a customer refund - now 36 hours - not a dicky bird, nothing, zilch. I switched to WorldPay on 1st August (the day Protx collapsed) - took just 24 hours - they have people (yes, really helpful customer service people that you can actually talk to!). They walked me through every step of the switch - totally professional - I'm impressed. I also sent a couple of e-mails to WorldPay and (you're not going to believe this), they actually answered them within the hour. I'm sorry Protx, I am now an ex-customer!!!!!!!
August 6th, 2007 at 04:35 PM
Protx's upgrade on August 1st left us without the ability to take any online sales or process card payments. We were forced to deliver thousands of pounds worth of goods without having been paid. No online sales meant we have lost over £500 per day. Why did we lose are online payment facility, well, because our shopping cart forwarded details to Protx with an extra space in one of the boxes! The penalty seems to far out weigh the crime. Didn't Protx realise if we lose sales so do they!
August 7th, 2007 at 12:00 AM
I am still waiting to go live and put my Logo up. I have sent over 15 emails just get an automated reply. Just a big company, typical once they have your money they don’t give two hoots about you only new customers count. One of the worst things I ever did. DO NOT USE THEM. 5 DAYS NOW FROM THE FIRST EMAIL.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:49 AM
We spent a long time customising our templates to make them more usable and accessible. Then they changed the rules. No consultation. No logic. Accessibility of the new templates is still appalling and usability depressing. Oh, and they only gave everyone 2 weeks to redo the templates. And they won't justify what they have done. I'm looking for a replacement right now.
August 15th, 2007 at 06:57 PM
I agree with what everyone is saying above. Protx are an absolute shambles since the major change on the 1st August. Not one person who I spoke to in the company cared about the fact that Thousands of pounds were lost. It took ages to get rhough as well. You used to be able to call them and the phone was answered immediately. I am still awaiting a response from an email I sent 3 days ago. I phoned up today only to find the voicemail telling me I will have to wait 45-50 minutes. I though that I would try later, now I am currently on the phone. 8 calls were ahead of me in the queue to start, all probably as frustrated as each other. Now I am caller 3 and have been on hold for 45 minutes (I should have hung on in the day), 8 minutes to go until they offically shut, I wonder if I will actually speak to them? They even have the cheek to use an 0845 number now instead of a local Code. I would not recommend them to anyone. I think that it is time to start looking for a different solution.
August 15th, 2007 at 06:57 PM
I agree with what everyone is saying above. Protx are an absolute shambles since the major change on the 1st August. Not one person who I spoke to in the company cared about the fact that Thousands of pounds were lost. It took ages to get rhough as well. You used to be able to call them and the phone was answered immediately. I am still awaiting a response from an email I sent 3 days ago. I phoned up today only to find the voicemail telling me I will have to wait 45-50 minutes. I though that I would try later, now I am currently on the phone. 8 calls were ahead of me in the queue to start, all probably as frustrated as each other. Now I am caller 3 and have been on hold for 45 minutes (I should have hung on in the day), 8 minutes to go until they offically shut, I wonder if I will actually speak to them? They even have the cheek to use an 0845 number now instead of a local Code. I would not recommend them to anyone. I think that it is time to start looking for a different solution.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:38 PM
You waited 10 minutes on the phone?
Aren't you the lucky one!
60 mins for me then to be told that "yep there is an issue".
Service is appalling, no simple "how to" guides, no replies to emails, no telling you they upgraded this or that and that's why it does not work anymore.
A shambles. Absolute dogs breakfast.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:37 PM
And Protx are down again today!
August 21st, 2007 at 05:33 PM
Hi,
No Protx was not down on the 20th August 2007. The reason why you guys was or still are experiencing problems with the Protx system would be due to your Shopping Cart. Since the upgrade on the 1st August 2007 yes there was a major down time for about 6 hours due to an error in the new system that was written. If you are a developer you would understand the amount of work to re-write a new system and the errors you come across. The new system was up and running at 8am on the 1st August 2007 at the time we was monitoring the system to see if there was any problems and at 9am We noticed transaction were timing out due to this we decided to totally bring down the Protx system as transaction were failing. After 5 hours we was going through the new code to see what happened and where the error was we got so close to giving up and doing a roll back to the old system then we found the problem. Fair enough there were still problems after this but most of these have now been sorted and fixed. The reason why we decided to re-write a new system is to provide a much better service to Protx vendors. Yes at the moment things have gone kind of bad. But we have now kind of got things under control and if you notice now when a transaction fails you get a better response. I do understand the problems that Protx vendors were having due to me having a Protx account and my transactions failing. The old Protx system was more flexible for developers to write there code to how they want. Unfortunately on the new System it is very strict if you followed the VSP Protocol guide you would have had no problems unfortunately most web developers created there own code to how they would like and did not correctly follow the VSP Protocol that’s why there were so many problems as well with shopping carts. Most of the shopping carts now have updates for Protx and can be very easy to implement into your shopping cart if you visit there website. The thing you have to remember the service and support has always be good before the major upgrade and if you imagine 14000 vendor hitting 20 support staff members phone calls all within July and August 2007 and sending in a ticket each or like some vendor 10 tickets you understand the amount of work that the support team have gone through remember we only charge £20 Per Month for our service and support. We even provide developers with integration kits so they can link with Protx so it’s very easy to follow the Protocol. With regards to the banks, We were told by all the banks that all vendors must have 3D Secure on there Protx account for the 1st August 2007 to accept Maestro transactions during the upgrade we had vendors calling Protx saying there merchant bank has told them that they now do not need this and Protx don’t know what there talking about which really pissed us off but one merchant stuck by the guns and that was Natwest StreamLine so if you are a Natwest Streamline Merchant you can confirm this. With regards to MOTO Merchant Numbers the bank done the same thing and pulled out at the last moment and said you can still use VSP Terminal through your E-Commerce merchant number which SOON we be changing so you will need to obtain a MOTO Merchant Number to take Card Not Present Transaction.
If you want to know anymore reply to this forum.
August 21st, 2007 at 05:38 PM
done the same thing and pulled out at the last moment and said you can still use VSP Terminal through your E-Commerce merchant number which SOON will be changing so you will need to obtain a MOTO Merchant Number to take Card Not Present Transaction
Sorry removed the We with will
August 21st, 2007 at 07:30 PM
Protx: Being a developer for quite a number of years, I completely understand that big system changes rarely go according to plan. What I have a problem with is not the fact that you had issues, but the perceived attitude that we as customers were presented with.
Despite what you say about the 1st August switch over to 3D Secure being the banks' fault, this is not what all other evidence points to. We are running through Natwest streamline with Secpay without 3D Secure enabled and have been for 3 weeks. We therefore feel that Protx have lied to us.
My initial point on this site was that your support information on the website was basically rude. Even at the best of times it is very difficult to get a reasonable response time from your support.
I have to say that when I did get through on 2 occasions, I spoke to helpful people. However, their access to systems and logs was very low. We were quite happy to believe that the problem lay at our end, but no-one over the phone or email could let us know what was wrong with the information we were submitting.
Once again, I'm sure most of us appreciate that things do not always go according to plan. However, when this happens we don't expect to be lied to, told not to hold up the support lines or 'what do you expect for £20 a month'.