I was surprised that this season, MLB (the site that deals with the online multimedia products from Major League Baseball) didn't barf into my lap on opening day, as it has every past season. No, it decided to wait until today to deal me dirt.
I clecked on the multimedia tag to open up a browser window for the radio broadcast of the Cubs game. The first message I received from the site was that they didn't support my browser, which is safari, and that I should use either firefox/netscape or MSIE. Oddly enough, it's been working fine with Safari until this morning.
Then it told me that I didn't have a subscription. Unfortunately, I have been paying these idiots for their miserable service since MLB decided to take the games from the radio stations streaming them, and put them on a "pay for" service. Believe me, I'd be lots happier if the Cubs games were still on the WGN radio site, and I didn't have to deal with changing services to go from the pre-game to the actualy boradcast, and then back again. Not that I'm going to get that, though.
So I check my credit card statements. Nope--MLB, even though they had told me they were going to automatically charge my card, hadn't. I've learned that attempting to deal with MLB's alleged "customer service" is a no-win game. The customer service script they use is to tell the customer (note--in many cases, the customer has paid for a service they aren't getting) that they are completely full of shit, and don't know what they are doing. I've had these conversations, from "it won't run on a Mac--get a Windows box", to "there's a problem, I don't know when it will be fixed", followed by a hang-up. Nice guys. They mlb.com people know they have a monopoly, and once they have your money, they don't have to care.
So, it's time to pay up. I finish the process, and check my mailbox. ALong with the "thanks for your money", I see a "if we weren't able to charge to your credit card, we cancelled your account w/o telling you, and we started it back up again" email. Now, *there's* customer service--first they use the negative option for renewals, and then they kill off accounts without telling the customers when they can't get the charge to go through. Ever hear of contacting the customers? There must be a reason, other than selling account info and sending advertisments, that you require email addresses, right?
I had hopes that with XM, I'd be able to get away from this stupidity, but XM is following the "play one feed from the game" model. Maybe once compression and bandwidth improves, I can hope for a "pick your broadcaster" option. I'm looking forward to it.
And to Bud Selig, self-described technophobe, who according to the New York Times, admits that he can't point his browser to the MLB website: Bud, get someone who understands e-commerce, electronic product delivery, and who actually gives a damn about the customers, and have them manage the site. Given all the grief that's currently comng down in baseball, can you really afford to anger *more* of your fanbase?
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