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Story: Free SkypeIn for some users after 0207 snafu

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What's Going on at Skype?

What in the world is really going on at Skype? Have they just decided that they have too many toes, and are trying to shoot them off one at a time? The list of gaffes and blunders is impressive:

- They are taking away SkypeIn numbers from paying customers, giving them only a month's notice, and the cutoff date is five days before Christmas? That's quite a Merry Christmas to the small business owners who have suddenly had a huge, and perhaps irreparable, dent put in their Christmas season! The icing on the cake is that many of the electronic "vouchers" that Skype gave to users to compensate for this didn't work, so when people tried to use them when changing over to the new numbers Skype offered, they were rejected and the customer was charged for another year!

- Two weeks ago, when they released Skype 3.6 the "High Quality Video" mode was restricted to only three models of Logitech webcams, and to users who have at least a Core Duo cpu. Now they have done an about-face, claiming that they were "suprised" at the magnitude of the user oppostion, despite the fact that the Skype User Forums were filled with pleas not to impose that restriction for six weeks before the final release.

- The latest releases of Skype produce huge numbers of Page Faults per second (ranging from at least 700 to as many as 10,000!) on every Windows system. Skype's only response to user complaints about this is that it has "no impact on perfomance". Do they honestly think that people are going to believe such as ridiculous claim?

- Skype has no customer service telephone number. They have no customer service live chat. They have no customer service email. The only way to contact them for help is to submit a support request through their web page, and then wait a MINIMUM of FOUR DAYS to even get the first acknowledgment that they have received it! This applies not only to free Skype service users, but to paying customers as well. It is very difficult to comprehend a situation where a company can take your money in advance for a service, and then choose not to provide that service - and please note that I am saying "choose not to", rather than "be unable to" - and then not even respond to queries as to why the service has been cut off for four days! The actual time to sort out the problem and restore service can easily run into weeks. Skype says that they are doing this to protect their customers from fraud; that is certainly necessary in some situations, but with these sort of contact problems and response times, the worst of the "fraud" is being perpetuated by Skype themselves!

There are more examples, including of course the infamous "four day blackout" last August. But the bottom line is, what is really going on at Skype? Have they simply lost their way? Recent news reports indicate that the Skype founders decided to "take their money and run", and another article implied that the original "technical brains" at Skype have all left. Do they need new management? New techincal staff? Or just adult supervision? Have they become so desperate to try to show that eBay's massive overpayment for Skype was somehow justified, that they are blindly cutting costs, cutting staff, making deals with anyone who will offer them a little money for an "exclusive" contract, and canceling deals with anyone who doesn't meet their price demands, regardless of the impact on Skype users? The next few months are likely to be a very critical and eventful time for Skype.

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