Slashdot Mirror
Zynga Puts Random Stranger In Customer Support Role
An anonymous reader writes "A server error has meant that for the past few months, a man not associated in any way with social gaming powerhouse Zynga has been getting customer support emails. When Zynga failed to return his messages, he started replying to the customers himself. Hilariously." Sadly (though perhaps some of his correspondents would disagree), the glitch has now been fixed.
I wonder what reaction one should expect from Zynga? Ummm... let try:
1. sues the hell out of Eric Mueller for identity theft?
2. "randomly" assigns Eric Mueller as CEO?
3. Don Mattrick starts throwing brown bears and folding chairs?
Other ideas? C'mon... we're speaking of a dying craporation here... be merry, creative (meh)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
it's obvious they were using themepark as a codename for the project when doing development.
that's pretty fucking zyngalike right there though. "hey, let's make a clone of theme park, you remember, that old bullfrog game?" "yeah that's awesome I'll create the project right now.. what should we call the project.. hmm.. I know, themepark!"
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Several years back a new hotel opened in Niagara falls. Their phone number was 1 digit off my grand parents number. They started getting several calls a day, all hours of the day, looking to book rooms. They called the hotel several times and asked them to change their number but they refused and told my grandparents they should change theirs. My grandparents had that number for over 30 years so they refused. Eventually they got sick of being polite and telling people they had the wrong number, so they started "taking bookings". The situation was then quickly resolved when the hotel started having people showing up expecting a room. Hotel changed it's number and life went on. I know it sucked for the people who expected rooms, but they tried to be nice and polite for a few months.
It may be a fake, but it's damn close to something I'm dealing with. My user name, Quirkz, is also a domain I've had for ages. There's a venue that opened a couple of years ago that calls itself Qirkz. People are constitutionally unable to type a Q without typing a U, so I get tons of email for bookings and confirmations and ads and all sorts of junk. One professor had an entire class full of students try to contact me about summer internships, and then I got a bunch of laughing replies when I responded "No, no! That's the wrong address and I'm sick of this junk."
For a while I tried forwarding requests, including interviews with the BBC, but that felt like a job. Then when I was running an online game I tried a standard response which explained both businesses, hoping maybe a few people would also be curious in what I did, but that didn't seem to help and I don't have the game anymore. Now I just delete the email, but it's still unsatisfying.
I haven't ever really considered intentionally disruptive behavior, mostly because that'd be even more work, and I'm just not quite that malicious (or funny). I really don't know a way out. I'm mostly hoping they'll either eventually rebrand, or somehow the slow trickle of business lost to failed emails will clue them in and make them change.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Many years ago a buddy got some new phone lines. One had just been a reservation number for an extremely large restaurant. After a few days of folks trying to make reservations through him he called the restaurant and offered them the number back if they'd pay the transfer fees. They declined. So he started taking reservations. "Four for the Ponderosa Room at 7pm? Under 'Caruthers'? Not a problem; please check in with the Hostess when you arrive." After a week of this he called the restaurant back, and offered them their reservation number back. For just the fees? Oh no, assholes, now it's gonna cost something! He got some nominal amount, just 'cause he was pissed about his time & trouble.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I got a worse one which happened to me personally...
About 10 years ago a local heating/boiler/airco installation company put accidentally my phone-number as the 24/7 support number on their invoices.
(The last digit of mine is a 3, theirs had a 2. Probably a typo by whoever made the design for their logo on the pre-printed invoice-paper.)
So I started getting calls for repair at all hours of the night.
Usually by quite pissed customers, whose heating had broken down on a cold night, who grabbed the latest invoice to look up the number.
So I pick up, still half asleep, and someone yells at me "That @#@$%@ heater is broken again, send someone to XXXXX asap".
Before I can respond they have already broken the connection.
About 1 hour later I get another (very) angry call "Where the bloody *@^%#%&@ is that blasted mechanic @&*#^@#^*&".
Again connection broken before I can get a word in.
Had 4 of these calls the first night. 7 the night after.
Worst thing was that I couldn't disconnect the phone.
I didn't have a cell-phone at the time and my father was in hospital with a critical heart-condition.
Every time that phone rang it could have been the hospital.
I also had on-call duty for my job.
The 2nd night, on one of the calls, I got someone reasonable on the phone who explained to me who they were thinking they where calling.
So I contacted that company the next day.
To their credit they send a new mailing to all their customers that same day, but I kept getting 5 to 10 of such calls per night, for 2 weeks running.
After that it gradually petered out, but I still get one every 3 or 4 months when someone finds the number on an old invoice.
Needless to say I got a cell-phone that same week for real emergencies and an answering machine for the land-line during the night.
(Can't do without the land-line. Still need to do dailup to ancient industrial controllers with 4800 baud modems. )
I actually had to fact-check that one. Not because I thought you were lying but because I didn't think Zynga could be even more overt assholes than they already were. Sure enough you're right.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.