So – It seems that JaJah.com doesn’t like my previews reviews and comments. It would appear that my account has been locked out by them (see the image below) quite possibly because of my comments in the articles Not Jah’st yet thanks, JaJah revisited and Jahst say no. I am making a guess that this is the case – as my account now sports the phrase “Inactive Account” to the right of “My Phone Number” and I have not been able to use their service for quite some time now.

If this is a standard business practice for them, to say I am disappointed is a little bit of an understatement. I have given them the opportunity of refunding the money I put into my account to use their service – and will let you know what their response is.

This is an incredibly irresponsible business practice, and quite outside of fair trading law for many countries. I hope that they are offline to make repairs and that they have not specifically locked out my account, but as there is no notice on their site warning users of the work – I can only assume that this is specific to my account.
If you have had a JaJah.com experience (good or bad) please feel free to contact me (via comments below).

In a previous post titled Ordering on the Internet I discussed the saga that I went through just trying to purchase a DVD player from the USA and have it shipped here to me in Japan. Well, I feel it is now time for an update.

I ended up using a company called Provantage, based in Ohio. They were clear with their international shipping requirements, accepted credit cards for international orders – and shipped to Japan – the three things I was looking for.

The problems arose after I placed my order…

For reasons known only to American Express, my credit card keeps getting flagged as stolen because I am trying to use it out of my home country (see rant about that here). Because of this my transaction did not go through with the Provantage accounts department. They sent me an email – which both my mail server and my mail client flagged as Spam, so I didn’t see it.

After a week, and with their mail still sitting in my Spam box, I emailed them again. This time their reply came through (because they were replying to an already established conversation). They informed me that their system was unable to process my card. At this point in time I was curious as to why they had not tried some other means of contacting me – they had my phone number, and even postal address. I didn’t really expect them to post me a letter, but – a customer trying to buy $US300 worth of equipment surly should at least get a phone call? Shouldn’t they?

So, over two nights I scanned images of my cards and two forms of photo ID and sent it to them so they could process my payment. Which finally got completed on July 26th

The item was in stock, well not just in stock they had over 70 of them according to their processing system, so I looked forward to shipping details, and getting my DVD player before I had to do some international travel for work. Things for me however never seem to go smoothly…

A day or two after my payment was processed, I logged back into the site to see what my shipping details were, and at that time it informed me that they had to ship it from one of their regional warehouses to Ohio, to ship it to Japan. I didn’t have a problem with that, until I saw the date they expected it to hit Ohio to on-forward to me – August 2.

I sent them an email, and as I do with all emails that are probably going to end up as a rant, I put delivery and read receipts on it. Now I know these are pretty much useless, but it is a good indication that it has at least hit their mail server. The thing that has really irritated me is that I got a read receipt for my email – and no response… nothing.

On Monday, I decided to try and chase them up again, so I sent them another email asking for the consignment note number and delivery details. I got a read receipt, then shortly after details of my DHL AirWayBill.

A few hours after reading that email, I got a call from DHL - asking to confirm my address. I was impressed – at least my DVD player had made it to Japan. Don’t get me wrong, I was exceptionally disappointed at the lack of communication – and the complete disregard of customer service that Provantage had shown, but at least the player was here.

Yesterday morning, first thing, I called DHL and gave them my address at work to deliver to as I would not be home again. That was fine, and after a few initial language issues it was all sorted. I even emailed DHL shortly after the conversation to make sure they had the address correctly in writing (which they confirmed as completed a couple of hours later).

Watching the AWB tracker on DHL’s site, I saw my package leave one depot, and arrive at the one for the area my office is in. At about 3pm, wondering why it was still sitting at the depot, and getting concerned that it may not make it to my office before I had to leave – I got one of the people I work with to call and speak with them in Japanese

After a lot of very polite discussion and checking of parcel locations, it was confirmed that they did indeed have the correct address, and that it may or may not turn up in the afternoon – possibly tomorrow.

This concerned me… I leave the country on Sunday, and have to take delivery personally (according to DHL). I waited until about 6 and called DHL again myself, this time I was going to put the hard word on them to sort out the delivery. I honestly don’t understand why they can get a package from one side of the world to the other in a day, but can’t get it from one area of Tokyo to another (12 minutes by train) in that same time. Eventually I gave in, and we agreed that it would be delivered no latter then 10am today.

I emailed Provantage again last night, appraising them of the situation, and informing them that if it is not here by this morning, it will have to get sent back because I will not be in the country. Not surprised, two read receipts from the two emails I sent them last night – but no response at all.

So, it is now 9.30 – DHL have another 30 minutes, and I don’t think I will hold my breath – but hey – I have been surprised before.

Out of all this – I have come to the conclusion that there is no company in the USA that can ship technology to the outside world and provide a positive customer service experience in the process.

Well, not really – but humans will be if a trial currently running at Shibuya station results in success.  The East Japan Railway Company has been trialing a new entry / exit wicket that captures the energy expanded by the traveller as they pass through.

It appears that a device is fitted along the passage of travel and as the user walks along it – it generates power.  This is part of a new “Eco” approach for the train stations that JR is taking and the trial will finish some time in August.

More information from here (In Japanese)

With the recent MySpace embarrassment delivering spy-ware to millions of teenagers, and other online advertising related bad press I have begun to think about who should be responsible for the advertising on a web site.

My personal feeling is that ultimately it is up to the site, the people who deliver the content that people actually want to see, to ensure that the content delivered is appropriate and “safe”. MySpace’s passing of blame over to their advertising “partner” is unacceptable as far as I am concerned.

The issue is not just limited to trojan style installation of back doors on to peoples computers, but the content and layout of many banners is becoming questionable. Here in Japan where everything flashes, several times a day I will end up on a website with 3 or 4 banners flashing black/white or red/green very quickly. It makes the site incredibly difficult to read, but there is no real point in complaining to the site owners – that advertising is what generates a large portion of their revenue. Who are they going to listen to – me? An individual user who technically costs them money, or their advertiser?

Television stations, newspapers, radio stations and many other mediums of advertising all seem to be able to ensure the security and appropriateness of their content. So why can’t companies who have an online presence? Mistakes will always be made, but this “side-stepping” of responsibility of the major content providers is making me nervous. I feel that the liability should be theirs, after all – their site is the reason you are at the web page in the first place.

I hope that very soon some level of sensibility enters this game. Surely the “smarter” advertisers understand that delivering unsafe / visually distracting advertisements will drive people to start blocking their content as many have done with pop-up blocking in web browsers – which has now become a fairly standard feature.

I have a feeling that we will start to see home Internet routers offering this type of subscription based blocking service very soon (I have this already set up at home but this isn’t something that is easy to set-up for the average Internet user). Blocking of this content – and maintaining a list of servers that deliver the content is not hard to do, and if you block it the right way – it will not affect the layout and readability of the site – just the revenue of the agency and in the end the site owner.

I don’t mind advertising on sites that doesn’t detract from my browsing experience. I actually quite like the concept of contextual advertising – at least the ad’s are generally about something I would be interested in. I hope the likes of AdWords and other Internet advertising aggregators win the war, advertising is an important revenue stream that keeps a lot of the Internet free for general users – and I really like not having to pay for stuff.

Just met a few people touring Edward Scissorhands around the world, and they are currently here in Tokyo. We met them just before attempting to purchase shinkansen tickets to do some sight seeing before their season opens in a few weeks.

It was amusing for me to see somebody else experience the same problems that I have had trying to use a credit card in a foreign country. First they tried to use the automated reservation terminals located at the JR station, which failed – rejecting their cards. Next, they tried at a counter – after nearly 30 minutes in line they all got their tickets. Having to purchase them one journey segment at a time so as the transaction would get approved.
I know that these measures have been put in place to prevent / stop fraud – but with technology sure we would make the card holders life easier – not more difficult. I myself have ongoing issues trying to use my American Express card over here in Japan. I am yet to have a transaction go through as authorised (I have tried several times). What makes matters worse is that American Express in their cost cutting brilliance have decided to outsource their call centre to India. So language becomes an issue, add to that however a secondary cost cutting measure of very poorly configured VoIP – and the call becomes a waste of time.

I am disappointed that the credit card leaders have not taken the initiative, and sacrificed just a portion of their profits to implement usable security on their cards, such as photographs, biometrics or something else.

Ok, so this is very cool. It is still in pre-launch until tomorrow – but the concept is great.

Cambrian House basically a group based (or “crowdsourced“) development house. Members from all over the world register, then submit ideas. Those ideas are voted upon, and then other members work on the product to get it to release. Depending on your involvment – you get a “share” or the profit that your product makes.

I think this is a really cool idea, and I hope it gets traction. I have already submitted one idea, and am looking forward to seeing how it progresses. I do have some concerns about the site getting hit with legal issues at a later date (once they start making money and people get greedy), but I hope that won’t happen – at least for a while.

Oh – and by the way – this is a link to my idea . Go and vote for it dammit!