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

A look into what went wrong with Excel and a response from the former MD Mr Stuart Box.

It would appear that our friends at Excell have gone bump. Yes I understand that you have probably heard this before on this blog but after a slight legal issue I can now post this.

On the 6^th of December Excell Communications was placed into administration by Begbies Traynor after the company ran out of money, leaving up to £1.3 million owed to customers.  The Midlands based mobile dealer used to offer low cost tariffs and services by offering cash-back or redemption deals which is common within the industry.  Basically the customer would sign up to a £30 a month tariff and the dealer would give a cash back of £125.00 which would effectively reduce the monthly cost to £25.00 (24 months x £5).  This way the dealer can “undercut” the network’s advertised price meaning the customer gets a better deal, the network gets a subscriber and the dealer gets a returning customer, everyone wins.  This business model is very common among dealers and Excell had successfully used it for many years prior to its collapse.

18 months prior to the collapse of Excell Stuart Box (former MD) had taken a leave of absence for personal reasons, during this time the company was run by Richard Taylor and the existing management team.  However when Stuart decided he needed to leave the business there were complications between the distributor and existing management team.  These complications left the company in financial hardship and as we all know these financial difficulties eventually driving the company into administration.  Although no longer part of the business, Stuart still contributed financially towards the business out of his own pocket, yet no amount of funding was going to save this sinking ship.  This contribution was born out of loyalty to those staff,  including many family members still working within the business who had worked for Stuart for a number of years. Stuart was of the firm opinion that common sense would prevail and that trading relationships would resume.  This contribution was supplied as loan to the new owner of the business.  Unfortunately, trading relationships were not resumed between the Distributor and the new owner leaving Stuart as a large creditor of Excell.

Stuart also ran another two businesses (B2BMobile & Wolves Mobile) which had been trading independently since 2006 which were not part of Excell and removed all association from the failing Excell business.  This might have looked like Stuart was bailing out yet this was not the case, these businesses were completely separate entities and was well within his rights to protect his current business interests however the damage was already done.  Interestingly Stuart had no access to the administrators reports as he was no longer part of Excell and could not have guessed the trouble the business was in.

Orange decided to take the decision to issue a “do not deal” notice to all companies involved or previously linked to Excell (including B2BMobile).  I have to point out that it isn’t just Stuart’s companies who have been hit with this condemnation from the Orange, premier telesales now owned by Richard Taylor, and all its associated companies have also taken a fall for their part in the Excell collapse.

As you are probably aware I have taken this mission rather personally and published various stories that were removed from the internet regarding this.  However as I pointed out at the beginning of this post I had a slight legal hiccup regarding some of the comments I had made and through this I got an opportunity to speak to Stuart Box personally.  I have offered him the opportunity to set the record straight regarding the whole Excell saga.  The post will appear completely unedited and exactly as he wrote it, I will however put full moderation on the comments, this is to prevent a flame war starting, as was the case on various other sites.

On the subject of flaming, this post does not mean I am siding with anyone, had any involvement or condone what happened.  I just believe everyone has a right to an unbiased platform to tell their side of the story.

A note worth adding at this point is that as of 18:48 on 15th April 2011 premierphoneshop.co.uk is offline, by the looks of things all files have been removed from the domain directories, however BKMobile and PremierTelesales are still live.

Excell Communications (Shropshire) Limited administration notice

10 January 2011

As you may be aware, Excell Communications (Shropshire) was placed into Administration on 6 December 2010.

Any amounts owed to customers will form part of an unsecured claim in the Administration proceedings.  Indications are that there are insufficient funds to make any payments to customers under any cash back agreements or transfer fees from previous airtime providers and any monies owed to you will be lost.

If you have not already done so, please log your details, including any amounts owed to you, via our website link to Excellcommunications@begbies-traynor.com.

Queries regarding your ongoing contracts should be directed to your airtime operator.

Begbies Traynor is unable to answer any individual queries and telephone calls will not be taken.  All enquiries in writing please but given the number of customers affected, it may be some time before we are able to respond.

Stuart has given us a statement which we have published in full below in a completely unedited format.  Please note that due to this statement coming directly from Stuart, no correspondence will be entered into regarding this.

Statement

In the past few months numerous bloggers have made inaccurate claims against me in connection with this matter and when I have sought to have them removed, the incorrect accusations  re - appear via different means of social media which has caused great distress to me and my family.

I have agreed to give this final statement purely on the basis of trying to get some facts across so that readers are not left to rely on rumour, speculation and inaccurate reporting of my involvement.

In all honesty, I haven’t known how to fight back against these allegations, believing publishers were bound by libel laws which mean the claims had to be taken down.

This has been a huge source of stress not only for me but for my family, who were at the heart of the reason why I left Excell and had not been playing an active part in the business for a year and a half prior to my departure from the company.

It was reported I sold the company “just weeks” before it went into administration. It would be reasonable to surmise from that, that there was a degree of expectation of anticipated financial difficulties on the horizon. This could not be further from the truth. There is no connection between me leaving Excell and my former company going into administration. I left following an 18 month sabbatical due to personal reasons following the birth of my son and an illness in the family.

When any company goes under it is a difficult time. When that company is one that you have built up from scratch, working with close family and friends, the toll of distress on those involved can be heartbreaking.

Adding to this nightmare is the inaccurate and in some cases very damaging accusations made against me and my current company. In recent months both me and my family have been the subjects of personal abuse and unfounded accusations from online commentators and local speculation. I hope that my setting out some of the facts here goes some way to helping people understand the nightmare myself and my family are now enduring.

I have every sympathy for those owed money and I myself are a larger creditor of Excell  because, in a bid to save Excell and even though I had by that time left the company, I have also signed a number of personal guarantees that have also resulted in substantial financial claims being made against me.

Due to the very nature of this and the complications surrounding the administration of the business, I do not wish to make any further comments relating to Excell and would welcome the opportunity for me and my family to move on .

Mobile & Cellular administration, b2b, b2bmobile, Begbies, box, cellular, dealer, do not deal, excell, excell communications, facts, Midland, mobile phone, Orange, premier phoneshop, premier telesales, Richard Taylor, shropshire, social media, statement, stuart, stuart box, telford, Traynor, truth, webologist, wolves mobile

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