sblinn
12-19-2005, 12:33 AM
1. check for existence of chosen username being already taken before billing CC (easy)
2. check for likely success of provisioning an account before billing CC (perhaps at least moderately difficult)
3. if an account cannot be provisioned, provide reason(s) and estimated time until it can be provisioned. (likely at least moderately difficult to do). user can choose to proceed or cancel at this point. if they choose to cancel, CC should not be billed or should automatically be refunded if already billed. if they choose to proceed, CC can be billed even though account is not immediately provisioned.
in other words, suggestion for improvement is: "don't bill CC unless you are going to be able to successfully provision an account". i think much of the confusion and bad feelings are due to money changing hands but service not being provided -- whether due to technical reasons, user bad input on signup form, or other.
as for me, i can wait for at least a while for my account to be provisioned, so i would have chosen to proceed and wait and have my card charged anyway. i didn't have a compelling urgency to have my account active immediately and just wanted to get the ball rolling. however, 3 days later and no account, and even the casual user's patience begins to wane, let alone one who has already been billed and paid for the service they are waiting on.
all that said, i'm still willing to keep waiting (although haven't had a response from tech. support in a while) because i'm happy enough with my existing tektonic vps to believe that eventually unixshell will get my account going "sometime soon", which is soon enough for me. but i'm a very casual user, not a business user.
2. check for likely success of provisioning an account before billing CC (perhaps at least moderately difficult)
3. if an account cannot be provisioned, provide reason(s) and estimated time until it can be provisioned. (likely at least moderately difficult to do). user can choose to proceed or cancel at this point. if they choose to cancel, CC should not be billed or should automatically be refunded if already billed. if they choose to proceed, CC can be billed even though account is not immediately provisioned.
in other words, suggestion for improvement is: "don't bill CC unless you are going to be able to successfully provision an account". i think much of the confusion and bad feelings are due to money changing hands but service not being provided -- whether due to technical reasons, user bad input on signup form, or other.
as for me, i can wait for at least a while for my account to be provisioned, so i would have chosen to proceed and wait and have my card charged anyway. i didn't have a compelling urgency to have my account active immediately and just wanted to get the ball rolling. however, 3 days later and no account, and even the casual user's patience begins to wane, let alone one who has already been billed and paid for the service they are waiting on.
all that said, i'm still willing to keep waiting (although haven't had a response from tech. support in a while) because i'm happy enough with my existing tektonic vps to believe that eventually unixshell will get my account going "sometime soon", which is soon enough for me. but i'm a very casual user, not a business user.