I hate OB10 - It’s the worst way to invoice anyone
One of my clients insists that I use the execrable OB10.com online invoicing system.
It’s almost impossible to use, costs money for each invoice I raise and regularly locks me out for no reason whatsoever.
I am, in fact, the owner of two accounts - neither of which work - simply because I gave up trying to get access to the first one. They didn’t reply to my emails and there is no support phone number.
Now the second one doesn’t work. Here is the ironic and unhelpful error message. I’ve given them over £50 for their “service” and I can’t even log on or raise an invoice.
It’s hard to imagine a more frustrating experience. What makes it worse is that this bloody system stands between me and my hard-earned money. Argghhh.
PS The next day. I was able to raise a support ticket on the second account and get some help to reset the password on the first account. I also got a call from a senior support person in the US who is going to sort out the second account for me. So I hope that my OB10-Kenobi problems have been solved.
Several times when I rant about problems on my blog, people spring out of thin air and solve them. It’s happened too many times to be a coincidence. Do companies have PR firms monitoring blogs? Is it just friendly employees who read the blog? Is there software that does it? I’d be interested to know how companies monitor blogs like mine.
Mat Atkinson wrote:
Hi Matthew.
You should try Freshbooks or Blinksale.
Mat
Posted on 10-Jul-08 at 7:53 am | Permalink
lisa wrote:
I imagine they put something like a Google Alert on their product name and then have someone review sites that mention it. A friend ran in to trouble with a large website hosting site, blogged about his hosting problems, and then others took up his cause on their own blogs. Within hours a member of senior management of the company was leaving messages on all the blogs offering to ammend the issue, making apologies and vowing to look into the customer service issues raised in the blogs. Power to the people!
Posted on 14-Jul-08 at 5:06 am | Permalink
Jason Newton wrote:
Matthew -
I suppose a lot of the monitoring is done by employees like me. I know our PR team uses Google Alerts and other such sites to get a lot of updates on key words.
If your OB10 problem is not being resolved, let me know and I will find the right answers for you. I know almost nothing about the system (other than the name), but I’m sure I can find someone to help you.
Jason
Posted on 15-Jul-08 at 5:13 am | Permalink
Amanda wrote:
This happened to me just yesterday. I was amazed, as my humble little blog receives nothing like the traffic yours does. I told the story in a blog post but to sum up:
-We went camping recently, and there were some noisy blighters in the campground.
-This campground is in a remote location in outback Australia frequented only by obsessed birders.
-I blogged about the campground and had a couple of lines about the noisy people.
-An anonymous reader called the manager of the campground after reading my post.
-The campground manager rang me to ask about the noisy people.
I dare say the group of ‘Grey Nomads’ -you’ll have to Google that one to understand- will be getting a phone call themselves.
Anyway, thanks for the great website, Matthew.
Posted on 15-Jul-08 at 9:31 pm | Permalink
OB10 user wrote:
My company is having huge problems with OB10 at the moment. We have spoken to about five different people at the support end, but our customer invoices remain unpaid since March - and we only have one customer on the OB10 system so far! Every time they promise to ring back and don’t. The result is, of course, that the customer will get blacklisted. Perhaps then someone will do something.
Posted on 04-Aug-08 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
Didier Lombard wrote:
I am a Proramme Manager at OB10 responsible for managing a number of our key accounts. If any of you are experiecing problems using the OB10 network do contact me and I will see what I can do to resolve any outstanding issues. We do have over 40,000 clients currently using the network so we have many very happy custommers but we do appreciate that some Suppliers may have experienced problems and are often frustrated by this.
Rgds,
Didier
Posted on 09-Aug-08 at 11:56 am | Permalink
ob10 us user wrote:
My company has recently started receiving 150 email notifications from OB10 support about failed invoices. The only problem is that the referenced invoices they are saying have failed were processed and paided by the customer several months ago. I received 400 emails in 3 days before OB10 stoped all of my emails, so in other words I have no idea if the 100 invoices I submit daily are being processed or not because their only thought to fix this is to stop all emails to my company. Go figure, I try to get them to fix it for months and their bright idea is to syop all communication. Good resolution thinking there OB10.
Posted on 15-Aug-08 at 1:20 pm | Permalink
OB10 Crazy wrote:
My small business has spent 4.5 hours trying to collect fees to cover 8 hours of services to a large company. I assume OB10 is supported by businesses that hope we will all give up invoicing and save them money.
The site is far from self-explanatory. My client’s online help looks nothing like the current OB site. The trouble warnings are obtuse and nonspecific and there is no online help. The trouble ticket fields fail to cover the problems I’ve had. Tech staff has taken days to respond, only to leave a message that my account is fine while I am still getting trouble notices and cannot, after 3 weeks, bill my client. I have currently been on hold for over 2 hours trying to reach a technician directly. All of OB10’s spin about saving trees and energy does not take into account the lost productivity caused by their poorly designed interface.
Posted on 22-Aug-08 at 12:43 am | Permalink
HJ Fritz wrote:
One think that seems to work with OB10 is to scare people in using the system. We are a competitor of OB10 not just offering invoicing but the entire business flow from ordering to invoiceing and we experience time after time that OB10 contacts companies telling them that they need to sign up for OB10 because companies like Dixons require them to invoice via OB10. It’s just not true - Check with your customer before you get scared into signing a contract.
Posted on 12-Sep-08 at 4:07 pm | Permalink
A Pound wrote:
We are thinking about joining OB10 so these comments are interesting to say the least !
Posted on 15-Oct-08 at 5:03 pm | Permalink
weldr wrote:
we are being forced to used OB10 as well. It is a ridiculous concept to expect the seller to pay for sending the buyer an invoice! We probably will quit selling to this customer. Their loss.
Posted on 12-Nov-08 at 6:16 pm | Permalink
Cliff wrote:
I stumbled accross this site looking for help to discover how many invoices I had left to use. One customer we use insists on receiving invoices via OB10, I find it takes 3 times as long to raise an invoice on OB10 then it does on paper! So, what’s the point? The helpdesk is via an 0870 number, and I have now spent 20 mins trying to find out how many invoices I have left before I need to buy more. More frustratingly, if an invoice is “wrong” or a customer wants it changed, you cannot call an invoice back to edit it.
Posted on 14-Nov-08 at 9:32 am | Permalink