Broken Registration Process
Vegan Passions
reviewed Nov., 2007
Sometimes I have not just one problem with a
website, but problem after problem after problem.
That was the case when trying to register an account on
the site Vegan Passions.
The first problem was that the signup form warned
me that if I entered a false city/state, my account would
be deleted. What this really meant was that if I
entered in the correct city/state my account would
be deleted, since I was traveling and connecting to the
Internet in a different place from where I live. So to
please the signup form, I entered the city/state where I
was connecting (hoping I'd be able to change my
city/state in my profile later).
Second, the password field inexplicably limited me
to eight characters. I use a mnemonic
system so that I can have a unique password on every
site I visit, and to be able to recall it on the fly
without looking it up. But since VP won't accept
passwords longer than eight characters, I was forced to
make a special exception for this site and use a
different password (and meticulously record it).
Third, when I clicked Submit, I got absolutely no
message about what happened to my submission. I
should have gotten either "Thanks for signing up" or
"There was a problem signing up", but I didn't get
either. All I got was a login page.
Fourth and fifth, I would come to find out that my
account was automatically deleted, but VP didn't alert me
to that, and certainly didn't tell me why. In fact, I
received a Welcome email thanking me for registering, but
when I tried to log in, I got a "bad login" error. I
tried to retrieve my "forgotten" username by typing in my
email address, but a got a message saying my email
address wasn't on file. That was the only way I knew that
my account had been deleted. VP didn't notify me by email
of the deletion, like they did of the creation.
I tried the whole process again, with identical
results.
Sixth, I got no meaningful help from customer
service. After I wrote to the CS address, the CS
staff blamed the problem on "your computer". They also
said that their system might have figured out that I had
entered a "false" city/state, though how they think that
was possible I have no idea. Finally, they said it was
hard for them to help me without my reporting a specific
error message. (What I originally told them was, "I got
an error saying the login was bad." The actual text was
""ERROR - You entered an incorrect username or
password." I'll let the reader judge if that was really
too disssimilar.)
In fact, the failure to provide the exact error
text was simply an excuse, as CS eventually admitted to
me, incredibly saying, "Basically, right from the
start, we couldn't care less that you were having trouble
accessing the site." They eventually told me that they
were uninterested in helping me because I admitted to
entering false info into the form (not seeming concerned
that their system required I do so because I
wasn't connecting from where I live), and because no one
else had reported the problem. (They also said they
didn't like the tone of my inquiry. I reprint my original
message below in its entirety for the reader to
judge.)
They invited me to try to register again. I questioned
what the point was, since I had already tried twice and
failed, and between the two of us, they were the ones
able to figure out why my registration was failing.
But I decided to try. First I looked up the
geolocation of the IP I was connecting from to see where
there system expected me to live, and I found that
querying three different databases, each said I was in a
different location: Las Vegas, NV; Nacogdoches, TX, and
Atlanta, GA. I pointed out to the VP CS that I could not
possibly know which database they were using, and where
they concluded I was connecting from. They never
acknowledged this.
Nevertheless, I tried to register three more times,
listing a different location each time, trying to match
their geo database. As I expected, I had the exact same
problems as before.
How Vegan Passions can fix these
problems
- Remove the gratuitious limitation on password
length.
- Show visitors a "Thanks for signing up" or a "Problem
with signing up" page after the user fills out and
Submits the registration form.
- If the account is deleted automatically, inform the
member of that via email.
- If an account is deleted automatically, either inform
the user why via email, or, if VP feels that would
divulge too much info to those trying to game the system,
it should at least send the user some sort of tracking
code that they can share with customer service, so CS can
know why the account was deleted and can be better
equipped to help the customer (or deny help if they
believe fraud is involved).
- I won't say that VP must toss its faulty geolocation
system, because they've obviously determined that they
really need its benefit of automatically preventing
large-scale fraud. However, VP should simply be prepared
to help those who were thwarted by their system, like
me.
Can you register and log in
successfully at Vegan Passions?
VP insisted to me repeatedly that I'm the
only one having problems. Frankly, I find that hard
to believe. Perhaps if no one else is contacting them,
it's because they correctly suspected they'd get the same
kind of non-helpful replies I got and so they didn't
bother to try. In any event, I'm curious to see how many
others are having problems signing up. If you have the
time, please try to register
an account at VP and then let
me know whether it worked.
Yes, I know that I'm helping VP by driving more
members to their site, (VP said as much when I told
them I was adding them to ProblemWebsites), but my goal
with this article isn't to hurt VP. People often think
these articles are "punishment" for a company with a bad
website, but it's actually something quite different: I'm
trying to encourage web developers to make their sites
work properly. If VP does so, it won't just be their
users who benefit, it will be VP itself. It won't trouble
me for VP to enjoy more success (yes, even though they
told me they "couldn't care less" that I was having
trouble accessing the site). If things go better for them
because they become more visitor-focused, then more power
to them.
My original message to
VP
To: VeganPassions.com
I have been trying to register at VeganPassions.com
without success.
The first problem was that your system forced me to
enter a false state. I am traveling and so the ISP I'm
connecting with is in a different state from my
home.
The next problem was that when I clicked Submit, I
just got a generic Login page. There was absolutely no
message about registration being successful or
unsuccessful. I checked my email and there was nothing
there.
I tried to submit the form again, and had the same
problem: Just a login page, zero indication of whether
I'd successfully signed up or not.
I tried to log in using the username and password I'd
selected, but I got an error saying the login was
bad.
I checked my email and found two confirmation messages
welcoming me. I tried logging in again, using the exact
same login in the welcome messages (identical in each
message), but I still got the bad login error.
I clicked "Forgot my username", although I hadn't
forgotten it at all, and when I typed in my email
address, it said it couldn't find my email address in the
system.
After this disappointing experience I'm not expecting
to get a helpful reply, but I thought I'd try anyway.
Ed. note: In hindsight, that
last line was a mistake, and one that I won't repeat. On the
other hand, it sure seems prescient, huh?
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