Marketing call from Orange - Observe me using my phone????

[Guest Roadster]

Yesterday (24-03-03) I received a marketing call from orange regarding my SPV. I don't usually answer marketing calls, but felt there was so many good and bad points about the phone that this was my chance to view my opinions.

Anyway the actual survey was a waste of time as the orange spokesperson had a very strong foreign accent and when pronoucing the word "previous", it actually sounded like "present"!! So questions regarding my "previous" mobile and "present" mobile became very confusing, and I'm sure she has now got my answers for my motorola V66 (previous phone) instead of my SPV (present phone).

Confused yet? . . . .well don't worry about it because thats got nothing to do with my question (just a quirky story).

The question:

At the end of the marketing call, the orange spokesperson asked if I would be willing to take part in a survey. This consisted of someone observing me using my SPV in day to day business and social life for a period of time. . . . . I agreed . . . hell I thought this would be fun if someone walked around with me all day waiting for me to receive a call.

No but seriously I agreed to this (because there was a ton in it for me). But I'm not entirely sure what is involved, spokesperson with strong foriegn accent didn't help me understand whatsoever.

Has anyone else any knowledge of these surveys or even been a guinepig for one?

I would be extremely interested to know.

Regards,

p.s. if u were the very friendly person from orange who called me yesterday, I do apologise for not understanding you better.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Would it not be more likely that they "bug" your calls, as apposed to following you round?

Or maybe you fill out a daily log? Unless they specifically said you'd be stalked... ;p

[Guest yatpeak]

It would indeed be a strange sight for an Orange worker following someone around watching how often they use their phone. :)

Wyatt

[Guest South]

I've also had a call from Orange about my SPV. A very odd French lady talked to me for close to 30 minutes in Friday afternoon (21st). At the end of the questionaire, she asked if I would be okay with someone visiting me to see how I use my phone. I was also offered the cash.

I accepted the terms and yesterday, (Tuesday 25th) a bloke phoned and asked me a couple more questions and said someone from Microsoft would be calling to arrange a time and place to meet for 2-3 hours to talk about my phone. I'm probably going to have to take an afternoon off work but £100 tax free is better than being at work anyway!!!! 8)

Roadster, where do you live? I'm just wondering how they've picked the people to call and I thought it may be geographic :?:

I'll let everyone know when I get 'the call' some more details.

The only concern I've got is that I've de-certed so the most used apps on my phone are: Task Manager and my NES Emu!!!! - Along with Media Player which I use a 256mb SD card purchased from the States off E-Bay!

Could anyone else on the board confirm if they've been contacted?

Cheers,

Andy.

[Guest midnight]

tell em that 'o' are daft restricting the creativity of so many talented people who make free apps by the certification process, not that they'll help, but worth a whinge anyway :wink:

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I want a stalker too ;)

Sound's like fun having meetings arranged for you by MS :)

[Guest Will]

lol wow you could scare these stalkers.. :twisted:

I'd love the call!! would the stalker pay for beer when my meeting moves to the pub?

:)

Will

[Guest mantrac]

Haha!

I got a phonecall from some french woman too...

She must have only known a few english sentences because she could not understand a word of what I was on about...

This is not a joke....

She goes:

- Can I ask you some questions about your SPV?

- Erm.... no.... how did you get this number? I don't want to participate.

- Okay, well it will take approximately 20 minutes, so are you ready?

- Erm... I said no... I am not interested.

- So, when should I call you instead?

- I don't want you to call me!

- Would tomorrow for example be fine?

- (5 second silence... at this point I started having strong doubts that I was actually speaking to a human being...)

I don't want you to call me ever again.... EVER! NEVER!

- Oh.... Okay.

- Yes.... Okay.... Capice??

[beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep]

[Guest Roadster]

Would it not be more likely that they "bug" your calls, as apposed to following you round?

Thats all well and good for the radio part of the device, but what about the rest? i.e photo's, sound(mp3), games, web browsing, email?

They want to observe how I use the device in every day to day life. Considering they market the device as a multi functional (almost) PDA. Then the radio (phone) part is only a fraction of what they want to observe, I pressume.

My comment about someone following me around was more of a joke than serious, but hey who knows what M & R at orange have planned!!

Regards,

[Guest Roadster]

Roadster, where do you live? I'm just wondering how they've picked the people to call and I thought it may be geographic  :?:  .

Based in the southeast of Kent. don't want to go to precise. .. . . I'm only interested in one stalker at the moment :shock: . . . preferbly from orange :lol:

Regards,

[Guest Dave.Burn]

:lol: look out for the tango man ;)

only joking sounds like fun

[Guest sparks1061]

I'd just be happy to get any call from "O" still waiting for a call back from Tech support after 3 days :lol:

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I gave up after about 3 weeks...

[Guest South]

Well, just to let you know that I'm meeting my stalker next week. Her name (yes a laydeeee!!) is Sheri and she's represent Microsoft. She may also bring me my very own Orange stalker as backup in case I manage to elude her!

She's over in the UK from the good 'ol US of A for a couple of weeks carrying out interviews. The interview is scheduled to last 90 minutes and I'm holding it in a public place (Costa Coffee @ Gatwick Airport to be precise). She'd just like to go over how I use the features of the phone. I think this is a really good oppourtunity for us (the Smartphone community) to really get to lay into, sorry put our points across. I'll be the first to admit that I don't really get the most out of my phone as opposed to some users on this board. So, if you'd like to form an orderly queue of valid points then I'll try to work them into my meeting. If you are going to comment on 'features' of the phone then please don't leave a post thats the same as someone elses, just make a reference to the other persons post so I can quickly scan through the topic and pick out the things that gripe people the most. I'll probably need to replicate problems when I meet these people so a quick explaination i.e. which menu option, which settting etc would be helpful so I don't just look like someone with a list of bugs.

Also, whats the deal with de-certified phones? Am I at risk of incurring Oranges wrath for tampering with XML files and overriding security settings. I know this is not exactly the same as modifying a games console as I've not altered the hardware and I'm not running illegal software (I'll remove my NES Emulator as I've lost my old NES console, honest!) but I do run Shareware. So will I get in trouble??

That's about it really. The MS rep said she's got interviews lined up most days until she goes back to the US mid April so I guess if you've not had a call by now then you may not get one.

Mantrac - I to had the awful English speaking French woman. The reason it took me nearly 1/2 an hour to do the survey was indeed because she didn't listen to me and when I did speak she couldn't understand what I was saying. All I kept think was £100.....£100.....£100...(I was also thinking about - in no particular order: Pizza, naked ladies, football, more naked ladies, holiday, even more nakedness, I think you all get the picture). :wink:

More news to follow as and when it happens,

Andy.

[Guest hex]

I'm meeting Sheri tomorrow. Again, in case my mind goes blank, pm anything you think I should mention. Things I've got in mind are the SMS character count problem, poor refresh rate of the camera, numerous freezes only cured by removing battery, bloody USB modem (I'm on Windows ME) and general slow response when navigating around the phone. One of my students has an XDA and I was envious at how responsive it seemed! I don't know what I did to be honoured by this visit but I'm glad to get a chance to have my say. I don't mind being treated like a guinea pig if I'm being paid :lol:

Kev

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

[working] SMS sync with Outlook

PROMT option to app signing patch

Are the two that i can think of off the top of my head...

I want to meet the Sheri stalker :lol:

[Guest Hax]

How about fixing the issue of streaming media needing to buffer every 5 or 10 seconds - really bugs me at the moment as I'm supposed to be doing this SPV mobile video trial which is proving to be quite pointless!

Oh and we could do with a Word (and possibly Excel) viewer at least - although preferably a fully functional (if stripped down a bit) editor! :lol:

Hax

[Guest Roadster]

I would like to know if there's any plans for a mac version of the active sync? If not, there should be. I mean microsoft already have half their applications on the mac now and the new operating system OS X is a peice of p*ss to write for.

Actually just tell MMD (Microsoft Macintosh Division) to port over the current active sync.

[Guest South]

Update on the MS / O Meeting: The MS rep has just cancelled on me!!! £100 denied!!!! :lol:

A change of plans on her part....sorry everyone....Hopefully Hex will still get to meet her.

[Guest hex]

'Fraid not! I've been cancelled too. I wonder if we've been banned for talking about the meeting on modaco. Just because your paranoid doesn't mean your not being followed. :wink:

[Guest casper508]

Outch ! I guess you should've kept it to your self :lol:

Cas

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Hmm

It becomes even more suspect...

heheh

[Guest casper508]

LOL

[Guest sprouts42]

Thats really dodgy, I wonder what their game is.

[Guest Cymruan]

not fair I want a stalker as well