The title was going to be “What a fucking joke!”, due to the frustration caused. That title would’ve also clarified that this is not a post containing a comical joke of any form, however the situation could be laughed upon, in a cynical fashion.
It started sometime yesterday when i thought i’d have a look at GetAFreelancer, a service where projects can be advertised and bid upon by freelancers around the world. I signed up for an account so i could take a closer look and possibly bid on a project listed.
So i filled out the sign up form and away we went. Not so fast, there’s always that verification email they send out and it was stated on the second page of sign up that i’d be receiving an email within about 10 minutes. Great!
Time went by and i didn’t receive an email from them at all. So i waited a little longer before looking for some sort of answer on their website. I didn’t have a password so i couldn’t log in, however i gave the forgot password form a go and it sent me an email. Nothing was wrong with receiving email that means, so what’s the deal here?
I entered my username and generated password that had been emailed to me. After submitting this form it replied with, “Sorry, your email has not been verified yet. Please enter verification code on this page.”
Fantastic! My email address hasn’t been verified and i’ve not received an email to verify. That’s a great help.
I started digging around to see if they had a “Resend verification email”, which most services offer. On the page that asked me to enter the verification code it also had, “Email delivery usually takes not more than 10 minutes. If you have any problems with verification, please submit your question at Contact page.”
Ok this looks promising, they should definitely have a contact form with the option, “Resend verification email”. Uh oh! No email form. It’s asking me to login.
On this page however there are two options presented
- If you are not registered and still want to submit a support question without registration at GetAFreelancer.com, please, sign up at GetAHelpdesk.com and submit your ticket
- If you have already registered at GetAHelpdesk.com, you can login here.
Great so these options seem stupid, if i’m a member i can login and receive the help i need. Great i’m a member, but wait i can’t login because i need to verify. I don’t want to create an account with GetAHelpdesk as i should be able to contact GetAFreelancer without this and i’ve already created an account with GetAFreelancer, i shouldn’t have to sign up twice. Also what’s to say the situation won’t re-occur with a new sign up?
So lets get a run down of the situation going on here:
- I have an account with the service
- I can’t login due to the account not being verified
- I try to contact the service to rectify the situation so i can verify
- I need to login to contact someone about this incident
- I can’t login due to the account not being verified
It’s an infinite loop. What a fucking joke!
I decide to give in and register at the GetAHelpDesk, which i think is totally bogus as i’m already registered at their other service. This sends me the verification email and all i have to do is click a link.
Now that i’m registered with their help desk, as much as i didn’t want to do this, i’m presented with another set of hurdles.
I’m asked to now use their ticket system to add a new ticket for my query. Luckily there is an option for the verification code.
I guess now i’ll just wait and see what happens.
This is such a long winded way to go about something and it should definitely not be this tedious to sign up to a service and if something goes wrong the situation should be sorted out immediately. Hopefully once they actually do sort it out an i can sign in, the service will be better than the sign up process. Otherwise i won’t be using it.
I think that this is a major concern for web apps that provide user registration. Sure GetAFreelancer has many members, but there are plenty of other services with much the same difficulties. I would say that making the registration process of a website very easy for the user is something that would help to not only build a member base without hassle, but also retain members.
