SofaKingCool

It has been 14 days since my employer Geko Direct announced I wasn’t getting paid due to “financial problems”.   It has been 7 days since we were all told to go home as the company was being put into administration.  Then today it was officially announced that the company is actually in administration.  It is at this point I will share with you the questions that have been running around my head.  So I think this might be a world first but I am going to interview myself about the whole Geko Saga.

Q. Did I see it coming?

A. No, the last I knew we were told that the company had been making a profit and our connection figures were looking good.

Q. What happened then?

A. I am not in a position to answer this as I was told the same as everyone else, the company is suffering from a cash flow problem and Geko were doing everything they could to sort things out.  Also due to the fact I worked in a satellite office in Stoke I was never actually briefed by the MD or FD (Dave or Vince) and was given the news via the Sales Director (also based in Stoke).  So this is still a question that is yet to be answered, how could such a successful company fail so badly!

Q. How do I feel about it all?

A. Pretty shit!  That’s the short answer, the long answer might include more colourful language.  I put my heart and soul into this job and feel that someone should have pre-empted this and done more to protect the staff and company.

Q. What are you doing now?

A. I am being kept busy with freelance web design work, I have had a couple of fantastic job offers but I am unsure if I want to go back into the mobile industry.

Q. Why haven’t you answered any of the questions?

A. Currently the company is going through the legal bits and bobs and I don’t want to comment until this is finished and the facts are revealed.

So that is my crap interview to myself, yes I understand that there were more questions such as who did I blame, and what “REALLY” happened, however I will keep that for another day.  I am not bitter about what happened, slightly miffed that only one member of the senior management team has bothered to keep me in the loop.  I suppose that is to be expected as I am so used to working my ass off, going above and beyond and getting no thanks whatsoever.

Anyway, I’m getting bored of negativity so I am going to say a few words on what good I took from Geko.  When I started at Geko I worked in an entry level position in a mind numbingly boring job.  I wasn’t about to sit there for the rest of my career doing it so I made it my own and hit the books, I learnt the industry, used my technical background to ensure that I learnt everything there was to know.  Most people turned to me with their technical questions and on many occasions I was given the task to sort out technical issues, crib sheets and self help guides.  I tried my best to balance the mind numbing job with the technical side but my heart was set on moving up!

I then moved into field sales and I’m going to be honest, I was pretty crap!  I couldn’t do the hard sell thing and preferred to take my time, build a relationship and work on customers one at a time which of course affected my sales figures, they were never rock bottom, but they weren’t at the level the company expected.  This wasn’t my biggest problem, I was still supporting the entire Geko sales force and sorting customers technical issues.  If I spent 2 hours on the phone, only 30 minutes would be spent doing my own job.  My day was split 70/30 with 70% of my time doing the support thing.   After some management changes upstairs things started to go wrong, I was still doing the dual role but this time I was getting disciplined for missing target.  So 1 verbal, 1 written and 1 final written warning later I was asked to go to Stoke to follow a sales/support role.  Of course I jumped at the chance, the sales director gave me what I strived for, a chance to shine and ensure that customer’s technical issues were sorted in house as opposed to just referring the customer to the network to sort things out.

The rest is written in the history books (and in these pages).  I have met some great people and learnt so much about an industry that is forever evolving.

RIP Geko Direct.

Geko Direct Limited 01952602260, 08707777701, blackberry, cheap, geko, gekodirect, help, Orange, scam

We’ve all been there, wake up in the morning and notice that your twat of a neighbour has launched a lighter into your windscreen and cracked it, well maybe not all of you but I’m sure any drivers out there have experienced the nightmare that is a cracked windscreen.  I first noticed this crack on a cold morning before setting off for work, it was at the top and kind of hidden behind the rain sensor and tinted section of the screen.  At first I assumed it was just a flying stone but the debris of a lighter was also found within the immediate area.  However I didn’t think much about it as I had windscreen cover with my car insurance and made the call when I arrived home that evening.

The call was fairly straight forward, they took my details and advised me someone would call back to arrange the replacement.  A few minutes later Autoglass called and asked about the car and the damage then told me that he would arrive the following day.  Just as we were sorting out the finer details he told me it would cost £75 for a repair and £150 for a replacement, apparently my rather expensive windscreen cover carried a high excess!  I told him not to bother calling out until I had spoken to my insurance company (Admiral via Bell).  They then told me that the excess was required and I should have opted for the “free” windscreen cover at a cost of £70 a year (I’m already paying an extra £50).  Completely unhappy with this and knowing my insurance was due for renewal a couple of weeks later I chanced driving with the ever increasing crack in my screen.

After 2 weeks of watching this crack get bigger I decided to bite the bullet and start getting quotes, my partner has a premier account with Lloyds TSB which offers a big discount if you buy from AA windscreens, however that quote came in at £600 with the discount.  Thinking that I would be better off just paying the excess I made one more enquiry and found a local company (Auto Price Windscreens) who quoted me £140 for the screen and fitting.  As this was cheaper than the excess I arranged a next day replacement at my workplace.

Now I work in Stoke, the head office is in Telford (where I live) however I drive a company car around the country as part of my job meaning I was not there to inspect the work once finished.  I paid over the phone before he came out and collected the car once I had finished work.  The invoice had some advice about when I could drive the car and the “no car wash for 4 days” warning and all appeared good.  The following day the company car wasn’t available so I drove my car to Norfolk to do a job and on the way home the windscreen lifted and the rubber flew off.  After making a dive into the hard shoulder I retrieved the trim pieces and called them.

I was quite angry at the situation as I was stuck in Milton Keynes on the side of a motorway wondering if I could drive home.  The MD then called me and once I had told him the problem I was safe to drive home (slowly) and he would send someone out to me as soon as he could.  I got home and just started making a cup of coffee when a van pulled up and the fitter knocked my door, amazed that they knew I was home I showed the chap the problem and he set about fixing it.  Problem sorted or so I thought…

Today I decided to go to the garden centre to make use of the week off I have and went over a pothole and a big part of my rain sensor/alarm thingy/rear view mirror fell off and was left hanging on by a couple of brightly coloured wires.  Once again I called them and they advised me that someone would call out within the hour.  Just as the friendly lady had said a chirpy chappy came out and fixed the mirror thingy, cleaned up the roof lining, polished the windscreen inside and out and even had a crack at polishing my dashboard.

One happy customer later I finish off my gardening and think about telling the world about a company who stand by their work and who came out to me to put right any problems I had.  Do I think they should have done the job correctly the first time?  Yes of course, however they haven’t once given me the brush off and have fixed everything professionally, without question and best of all without charge.  Would I use them again and recommend them?  Yes 100%  I doubt any of the major companies would have tried so hard and called out twice to put things right without charge.

So if you are in the Stafford/Shropshire area and need a windscreen then try Auto Price Windscreens by calling 0800 298 0469

http://www.autopricewindscreens.com/

A helping hand 0800 298 0469, autoglass, cheap, cover, excess, http://www.autopricewindscreens.com, insurance, no complaints, repair, replace, telford, windscreen, windscreen repair in shrewsbury, windscreen repair in stafford, windscreen repair in stoke, windscreen repair in telford

Security Communications Release: Security Advisory posted (KB26296: Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager component of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server”)

On April 12, 2011, Research In Motion (RIM) released a security advisory, KB26296: Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager component of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. This security advisory provides details of a known cross-site scripting vulnerability in the BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager component of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express.

RIM has issued interim security software updates that resolve the issue in supported software versions of the affected software. Resolution for the issue is available by downloading and applying the interim security software update for the appropriate affected software version. Links to the updates are listed in the Resolution section of the security advisory. Orange recommends that BlackBerry Enterprise Server or IT administrators should apply the software updates.

The vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute externally supplied scripts using the user privileges of the BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager. This could allow the attacker to perform any BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager task that the legitimate user could perform on a BlackBerry smartphone while the user is logged in to the BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager. Such tasks include remotely wiping and disabling the device, remotely resetting the device password and locking the device, and activating the user’s account on another device over the wireless network.

Successful exploitation of this issue requires an attacker to persuade the legitimate user to click a specially crafted URL in a web browser or an email or instant message.

For further information, please see the posted security advisory above.

Mobile & Cellular 01952602260, 02, 08707777701, bb, BES, blackberry, cento, centoconsultants, cheap, consultants, geko, gekodirect, microsoft, Orange, ripoff, scam, scammers, stoke on trent, uma, voip

Oh how this message has haunted me over the past couple of hours.  The story goes something like this; customer pays for on site support, I advise customer to prepare server and create BES admin user, then I arrive.  Install the BES Express onto the Windows 2003 server, plug it in to exchange & AD, so far everything is looking good, yet the installation skips the MAPI option.    Anyhow, the software finally installs and I connect the device to the server to do a wired activation and set up.  I create a user and try to assign a user to attached device.  Then up pops the dreaded message  The BlackBerry Administration Service was unable to retrieve specific device attributes from the device that is connected to your computer. At first I believe this is down to the device being setup via BIS first, so a hand held wipe and cleanup is completed.  This solved nothing, so I checked the permissions of the admin account that was setup all looked well until I attempted to ensure that the account could log on as a service and realised that the right service manager in my computer differed to what I normally see, there was no local security option.

At this point I had decided that the admin account might have been setup incorrectly so tried in vain to follow the steps laid out in the install guide with no success.  It was then I decided to go guerrilla on the server, I created a user (in AD users and computers), assigned a mailbox (in server manager), allowed the send as, receive as and information store permissions (right clicked AD users and computers) and sent the test mails via outlook web access.  Following that I un-installed the BESE and cleaned out the old databases.  After logging into the BESAdmin account I had just created I started the install, this eventually threw up the MAPI option which was missing from the initial setup.  With the install complete I added the users and connected the device to the server, then clicked the assign device to user button and hid under the desk.  Whilst under there I noticed that the handset was doing stuff so jumped up and saw that it had assigned correctly.

I then went about generating some activation passwords and sending them wirelessly to the devices.  A few minutes pass and we start to see users appear next to devices, Woooooo Hoooooo!

Not satisfied with “just” fixing it I needed to troubleshoot the initial install to find out what went wrong.  After scouring through the old server logs, I couldn’t see any failure points and felt like throwing the server in the bin.  Eventually I noticed something about the admin account that was created for the first install.

The initial account was what the customer used as the main windows account and was a Domain Controller.  This is what stopped the system working, how?  I am still working on that one but if like me you had this fault then check the following:

You log into server using the BESAdmin account, ensure that the BESAdmin account is a Domain User, ensure it is a member of the administrators group, give it send as and receive as permissions and finally check it can access and edit the information store.  On a side note, if you use the windows server 2003 manager and MS SQL then you do not need to check for SQL permissions as it is set to give full access to admins by default.

So if you get stuck and can’t see any possible causes just check the account permissions.  Failing that give me a shout and I will see if I can help!

A helping hand, Geko Direct Limited 01952602260, 08707777701, 2003, bb, BES, BESAdmin, bese, besexpress, besx, BIS, blackberry, BlackBerry Server Express, cheap, enterprise, geko, gekodirect, help, microsoft, no complaints, Orange, orange bis, server 2003, uma

Hey, as some of you may be aware there has been some stories and rumours floating around the interwebs regarding a winding up order that was issued against my employers Geko Direct Limited. Now I do have a working knowledge of these things so followed the online vitriol quite closely.  For those of you who don’t quite know the facts; there was a winding up order against Geko Direct that was dismissed utterly by the courts on Wednesday of this week. The interesting part was that it was the claimant who dismissed the action as it was not considered something they were able to pursue… The matter is now closed off and put to bed once and for all.

I must say when I first learnt that this had happened I took my concerns to my sales Director who shone a bit of light on the matter, advising me that a winding up order can be issued by anyone but it is the courts who decide whether the company gets “wound up“.  I then started trawling through the internet and finding what can only be described as an online public flogging.  I did notice some of the comments made online had rather familiar names and claimed to be Geko Direct customers but most of which turned out to be ex staff members with a grudge to bear.  With the research I have done I figured that a lot of the words online aren’t entirely truthful as genuine complaints don’t end up becoming Chinese whispers, unlike some of the comments on the web.  Once the news of a winding up petition was being proposed against Geko Direct the rumours evolved and has been interpreted as Geko being sued via a class action lawsuit, losing it’s dealer codes and even going into administration. We are a medium sized business and connect large numbers of new business every day, we continue to do this in a very saturated marketplace and even during an economy in decline and public spending at an all time low.  If the rumours were to be believed we would have been out of business a long time ago.

I have said before that there are genuine people out there with genuine complaints but Geko Direct is a company that will not leave you out to dry.  I have seen genuine complaints out there from genuine customers, this information has been passed directly to the managing director of the company to be passed onto the relevant departments. I invited people to post on here if they have a problem and whilst I cannot discuss individual accounts publicly I can certainly pass on your concerns.

I have worked in the support departments within Geko and know how much work goes into resolving issues, as a result we have a massive database of happy customers who keep their business with Geko and wouldn’t consider anyone else.  We have some of the highest retention rates in the industry and pride ourselves on having “fanatical” customer support.  Our head of customer experience Lacey has worked tirelessly to create a streamlined and dedicated department and has employed from within, some of the best minds in the company to ensure that every customer is satisfied.

During the time I have worked at Geko I have seen a huge shift in the way we do business, for those of you who remember this site as a social network you should remember the tag line we used “constantly evolving”.  This is something that Geko Direct is doing. we are more focused on the “customer journey” and the industry is so strictly regulated there is very little we can do to miss-sell a product or service.  Yes I am biased as I love my job, the people I work with and the industry, however the views and opinions expressed on here are my own and are not fed to me.  I truly believe Geko Direct is a fantastic company to work for and be a part of be it as a member of staff or a customer, so much so my brother has his business phones with Geko.  Yes I know we aren’t perfect during the 10 years we have been trading there have been misunderstandings and mistakes but we always work hard to put them right.

2011 is a new year and with cellular technology moving quicker than ever, it is a great time to move away from the networks directly and allow your account to be managed by someone who knows the technology and understands your business.

Again I must stress that the views and opinions expressed in this post are mine, this blog and the content within does not represent Geko Direct nor do I gain from posting.  I do this because I want to.

Geko Direct Limited 01952602260, 02, 08707777701, administration, bb, blackberry, cheap, complaint, geko, geko direct limited, gekodirect, help, microsoft, news, no complaints, Orange, petition, ripoff, scammers, sued, voip, whocallsme, winding up, winding up order, winding up petition