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

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

Wow, what a fantastic month it has been for traffic on my little blog.  Whilst checking the in depth stats about who, what and when my site is being hit I discovered quite a few interesting facts.  Firstly there has been a great deal of interest in who I am, more than 30 referrals from various Whois sites all searching for the domain details.  Well let me tell you, I am Robert Adams, I live in Telford and there is a real picture of me in the about me page.  I work for Geko Direct as Head of Technical Support and love my job and employers!  That’s me!

So after a bit more administration and digging, I found around 5-10 referrals from domain tool websites all relating to the keywords and ad campaigns this site runs!  It seems to me that someone wants to learn how a small time blog can get great results for certain keywords without paying a penny.  Well if you want to know what I do it is pretty simple.  I write relevant posts and enter relevant keywords with a bit of back linking, all basic stuff but put together with some clinical methods.

There was one more thing that made me smile, I seem to have had a large amount of referrals from a particular porn site which kind of tells me whoever was researching me got bored and decided to entertain themselves elsewhere.

Once again and as usual, Geko Direct do NOT pay me to keep this blog updated, they do not have any input nor do they instruct me to post.  The views and opinions expressed here are my own and nothing to do with my employers Geko Direct, nor do they represent the views and opinions of the Orange Network or its partners.

Whatever happened to the pictures on every post?

Shouts:

Geko Direct: www.gekodirect.co.uk

SemRush: www.semrush.com/uk/info/sofakingcool.org

WhoRush: www.whorush.com/

Orange: www.orange.co.uk

Geko Direct Limited 01952602260, 02, 08707777701, bb, blackberry, cheap, geko, gekodirect, help, microsft, microsoft, news, Orange, scam, scammers, uma, voip

Yup!  Complaints.  We are a business with a massive customer base and are growing steadily and as a result we can occasionally get things wrong.  I am an employee of Geko Direct and know from first hand experience the massive effort that is involved in making the customer experience a good one for the end user.  We have a highly skilled and dedicated team who work in our after-sales department, in fact there are more people working in the support departments than sales!

I must add at this point that I do not get paid for making these posts, are completely my own opinion and are not “vetted” or pre approved before publishing.

Recently I have seen an increase in staff leaving Geko for one reason or another and a random spattering of unfounded complaints appearing on various business review sites.  Having access to the Geko Direct database I have run quite a few of the names used in these complaints and the results shocked me!  At least 70% of the names yield no results in our systems?

Whereas there are genuine complaints out there on the web, they appear to be the same person copying and pasting the same complaint on lots of sites in order to damage Geko Direct’s business.  Geko is  regularly audited by external parties to ensure compliance to Ofcom regulations and GC25 in particular.  Before any deal is connected the call is listened too and scrutinised by an audit team.  They check for tariff miss sell, cost miss sell and ensure that everything is explained fully to the customer.  We are not allowed to be ambiguous about anything and everything MUST be spelt out.  Only then is the account passed to our operations team to be connected and dispatched.

If you have a complaint, first take it to your account manager, if that fails speak to our after-sales team as it is them who WILL be able to sort your problems out.

On the subject of complaints, just google any mobile phone dealer and count the number of complaints, google Geko Direct complaints and you find 1 page of the same person before the results start quoting the Garmin Geko?  A company doesnt achieve one of the highest accolades from Orange and last 10 years even through a recession by ripping people off!

If you feel that you need to complain feel free, just add your real name to add some credence so if ever someone from Geko reads it they can respond directly to you.

Whilst I understand that this post isn’t going to stop the disgruntled ex staff members continuing to post their rubbish on the web.  It will however add credence to the genuine people out there.

Should you wish to add a complaint here it will not be edited or removed unless you are not a genuine customer or just want to practice your bad language.

A helping hand, Geko Direct Limited 01952602260, 02, 08707777701, account, account manager, aftersales, bb, blackberry, business, business partners, cheap, complain, complaints, Coolio, customers, geko, gekodirect, news, no complaints, Orange, scam, scammers, specialist, uma

What a start to the new year, not only does Geko Direct continue to grow it’s customer base but we get the ultimate accolade from the Orange Network Below is the actual letter that we received from Orange, there is a link to the original PDF which has been signed by Duncan Hay!

December 2010

Dear Dave

At Orange, we are continually striving for excellence.  As such we have developed the Orange Partner Programme where we handpick the best dealers in the UK to work closely with us to provide new and existing customers the best service possible.

Orange has been a supplier to businesses since 1994 and has a strong foothold in the UK and international business markets.  We aspire to be a market leader by marrying innovation, reactivity and dynamism with an absolute commitment to delivering against the needs of our business customers

To be part of the Orange Partner Programme, Geko Direct Ltd has met our criteria and we are pleased to categorise Geko Direct Ltd as a Specialist Partner in recognition of being one of the top dealers in the UK today.

We are confident that this partnership ensures that your business customers benefit from our combined expertise and understanding of their needs to ensure your customers are provided with the ideal solution.

Yours Sincerely

Duncan Hay
Sales Director

Click the below link to read more:

Orange & Geko Partnership

Geko Direct Limited, Uncategorized 01952602260, 08707777701, android, Assist, bb, blackberry, briefing, business, business partners, cheap, complaint, geko, gekodirect, help, news, Orange, partnership, scam, uma, voip