Philmore Productions continues to trash its customers

Hi all,

The opinions expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of any company in which is represented here.

I’ve been made aware of the continuing assault towards customers by the company Philmore Productions, an Illinois based company which offers voice mail services as well as a declining Internet by Phone service.

Recently, I heard from a user, wjho wanted to cancel voice mail services for one of their boxes. An Email sent by Philmore Productions customer Service, indicates another user did not have authorized access to the box that the box owner explicitly gave access to.

Lets remember something about security. First, if the box owner gives permission to someone to access their account, from what I understand, it is the box owner’s responsibility to have rules of the system followed, or have their account deleted.

Philmore Productions calss this unauthorized access to their systems, “dirty pool.”

Dirty pool: a Philmore Productions term

The problem I have with this tactic, is simple. Philmore Productions has never cared about ones privacy. Philmore Productions has never cared whether the company reputation is held up by negative coverage. As part of this blog and podcast, I’m thinking about both sides. I was once a customer of Philmore Productions, and I’ve covered both sides of this issue.

In this case, Philmore Productions is in the wrong. It is not dirty pool to give someone else access when the box owner explicitly gave that access. It would be dirty pool if the box owner did not know of the access.

He claims that the dirty pool machine is out to prevent unauthorized access from people Philmore Productions does not authorize to access the box.

Philmore productions has never supplied customer service by telephone or any other method unless it is necessary, I.E. credit card issue or another box issue where the company can’t leave you a message.

Philmore productions needs to understand the issues at hand and learn what is unauthorized or authorized access.

I still predict that Philmore productions will be closed for business within the next year, with a big player of Philmore’s business cancelling service very soon because the conference line will not exist.

I can’t say when this will occur, but if the conference line does close, and the people paying for the block of numbers doesn’t need it, Philmore Productions will suffer, and potentially raise prices to compensate for the huge loss of money.

This is only a hunch, and I could be completely wrong, but Philmore Productions staff does not understand the security aspect, and once they do, then they may have a chance. Until then, they’ll continue to suffer negative consequences at their behavior.

I hope they enjoy this, it must feel great.

Comment on your experience with this company.