One United Woes
I love Man United and I always have. And we're going to win the league this year (fingers crossed) which is superb. I'm also hoping they'll get to the first FA Cup Final at the new Wembley stadium, now that it's finally finished... wishful thinking at this early stage, I know, but there's a decent chance that it will happen. If they do get there, I'd love to go... so I thought I'll pull my finger out and actually join the official United fan club, One United. I did this, no bother, and then I saw that One United members could also sign up for extra free content and stuff from the United website. 'Brilliant!', I thought. I'll do that.
What a fucking nightmare. The whole process was so shambolically crap (and I do the whole web/applications/ticketing/football thing for a living, so I know my stuff)... so bad, in fact, that I felt the need to send a massive long email to their website team. It's only right and fair, I thought, that I share it with you. It's actually not funny or entertaining, but it does prove that I don't think that absolutely EVERYTHING Man U do is brilliant :)
So, here it is, verbose...
Hi,
I'm having problems with your e-Membership and would like some help, as well as to offer some feedback.
First, let me point out that I am actually a Project Manager in the Web Application Development industry, working in the ticketing (for football) sector and currently working on a project for Euro2008... so I 'know my apples', so to speak.
I hope this email won't seem belligerent or impolite -- that is not my intention -- however, these problems are very, very frustrating and completely un-necessary. The reasons why, I hope, will become apparent.
Problem 1: I am asked to put in my One United membership number to the E-Membership sign-up form, yet, after that, I have to enter all my personal details again. Why? Every One United membership number is unique, so why doesn't the system just pull back my name and address from the database? There's no security problem, since I had to select a username and password in my original membership sign-up, so why not just ask for membership number, username, password, abnd Bob's your uncle!?
Problem 2: The "address" section of the sign-up form asks just for the first line of my address and my postcode... which leads me to believe it's going to look up my address from a Royal Mail PAF or Address-Point or similar... except no... it doesn't find my address, even though I live in a 1930's semi-detached house, not a new development, that's instantly found on every other website of the same nature.
Problem 3: When I've finally completed all the forms (4 pages) and hit submit, the system tells me that my One United Membership number doesn't exist, even though it does. (I've just joined One United for £27.00) and have my email confirmation.
Problem 4: Rather than the system telling me that it can't find my membership number after "Stage One" of the sign up process (the very, very first step, which is the stage where I have to enter it), it takes me through ALL the forms before failing, after which it takes me back to the start! Why on earth didn't it validate the membership number straight away after stage one?
Problem 5: I have to fill in ALL the forms (again) from scratch, because the system doesn't restore them from the session using cookies or whatever, even though this would be really easy to implement.
Problem 6: (Not related to E-Membership) When signing up for One United membership I enter my Debit Card details, but not a "Start Date", since my card (Maestro) doesn't have a start date... This makes the submission fail, the error message being "Please enter a start date". Now, there's no instructions on the fom saying "If your card doesn't have a start date, please enter January 2007"... The fact that the lack of start date on many cards is ignored by your
system hardly fills me with the greatest sense of faith in other issues such as the security of my card details, etc...
All in all, I would class these kinds of things as "Schoolboy errors" (and this is precisely what I would say to developers working on projects for me), so it's not the kind of thing I would expect to see on the website of the world's greatest football club!
Thanks for your time -- I look forward to your reply.
Regards,
Andy Thelwell
What a fucking nightmare. The whole process was so shambolically crap (and I do the whole web/applications/ticketing/football thing for a living, so I know my stuff)... so bad, in fact, that I felt the need to send a massive long email to their website team. It's only right and fair, I thought, that I share it with you. It's actually not funny or entertaining, but it does prove that I don't think that absolutely EVERYTHING Man U do is brilliant :)
So, here it is, verbose...
Hi,
I'm having problems with your e-Membership and would like some help, as well as to offer some feedback.
First, let me point out that I am actually a Project Manager in the Web Application Development industry, working in the ticketing (for football) sector and currently working on a project for Euro2008... so I 'know my apples', so to speak.
I hope this email won't seem belligerent or impolite -- that is not my intention -- however, these problems are very, very frustrating and completely un-necessary. The reasons why, I hope, will become apparent.
Problem 1: I am asked to put in my One United membership number to the E-Membership sign-up form, yet, after that, I have to enter all my personal details again. Why? Every One United membership number is unique, so why doesn't the system just pull back my name and address from the database? There's no security problem, since I had to select a username and password in my original membership sign-up, so why not just ask for membership number, username, password, abnd Bob's your uncle!?
Problem 2: The "address" section of the sign-up form asks just for the first line of my address and my postcode... which leads me to believe it's going to look up my address from a Royal Mail PAF or Address-Point or similar... except no... it doesn't find my address, even though I live in a 1930's semi-detached house, not a new development, that's instantly found on every other website of the same nature.
Problem 3: When I've finally completed all the forms (4 pages) and hit submit, the system tells me that my One United Membership number doesn't exist, even though it does. (I've just joined One United for £27.00) and have my email confirmation.
Problem 4: Rather than the system telling me that it can't find my membership number after "Stage One" of the sign up process (the very, very first step, which is the stage where I have to enter it), it takes me through ALL the forms before failing, after which it takes me back to the start! Why on earth didn't it validate the membership number straight away after stage one?
Problem 5: I have to fill in ALL the forms (again) from scratch, because the system doesn't restore them from the session using cookies or whatever, even though this would be really easy to implement.
Problem 6: (Not related to E-Membership) When signing up for One United membership I enter my Debit Card details, but not a "Start Date", since my card (Maestro) doesn't have a start date... This makes the submission fail, the error message being "Please enter a start date". Now, there's no instructions on the fom saying "If your card doesn't have a start date, please enter January 2007"... The fact that the lack of start date on many cards is ignored by your
system hardly fills me with the greatest sense of faith in other issues such as the security of my card details, etc...
All in all, I would class these kinds of things as "Schoolboy errors" (and this is precisely what I would say to developers working on projects for me), so it's not the kind of thing I would expect to see on the website of the world's greatest football club!
Thanks for your time -- I look forward to your reply.
Regards,
Andy Thelwell
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