This may be a matter of principle, but everytime I decide to give my money to someone who tels me he will do something in return in a given period of time, I actually expect him to do so in the first place!
When he let's this period of time pass (as well as more than one "friendly bump" afterwards), still without doing what he stated he will, it actually leaves a very bad taste here. This is not how to handle one's paying customers in my view!
If activation does take 14 days, fine, but why can't one say so in the first place?
Alex, I agree. There is no doubt that the need to manually apply/enact certain transactions requires extra measures, but it's also clear that the currently-stated guidelines aren't adhered to, and are possibly not realistic.
I'm sure there's a good reason it hasn't been taken care of yet. We know the site has been messed up the past few days. It's back up running well now and I'm sure everything else will be taken care of as well.
The problem being, this is an ongoing difficulty-- the delay in transactions being completed, and the absence of communication throughout. There are
always reasons, but when a stated policy is consistently shown to thwart practical implementation, it bears re-examination.
Imagine if these transactions took place in the Exchange...? Would this be acceptable there, wherein a Dealer/Service Provider repeatedly received money then didn't follow through within a stated time frame, and didn't respond to emails or PMs, and required several public prompts to follow through?
(The latter is one of the things I'd love to see changed no matter what, the need to publicly post one's transaction/request in order for it to be fulfilled. This suggests that the transaction annotations, PMs and emails will go unheeded...? It also sure takes the blush off the rose o' gift memberships.
)
Again, I understand that with a site and membership of this size, manual transactions are a fly in the ointment. And, this is not a matter of Spark not following through-- he
does get to these and takes care of them properly.
But, given reality, I agree with the OP-- State upfront that all transaction will attempted to be honored within 72 hours, but realistically it could be one to three weeks, with prompts needed throughout. I believe that clear communication would alleviate much of the frustration.
(Perhaps this has crept up, ie, before this past year the 72-hour timeframe held? Regardless, I believe it needs to be re-examined.)
~ P.
