Webkinz outage, part IX: They're baaa-aack!

My apologies to the legions of frustrated Webkinz parents who were following this blog in the wake of the Christmas Webkinz outage. I had a terribly busy week, and things only returned to normal yesterday.

I have good news and bad news to report. The good news: Our daughter's Webkinz is back to normal. She can get into the room and interact with her pet just like she did before December 23. Here's a shot of her yard, newly tricked out with a pool and other decorations:

The bad news: A lot of you are still struggling with your accounts, judging by the continued traffic to this site driven by Google searches for "webkinz account issues", "webkinz loading", and "webkinz technical difficulties." There have also been a few new comments on earlier entries reporting problems with the site, such as this one from yesterday (January 14, 2008):

They can't even respond to emails or have live people pick up the phones. What a joke of a company...

I hope someone from Webkinz actually cares that they are losing customers. I WILL NOT ever buy another Webkinz again because of this. IT stinks because we invested so much money already, but they will not get another dime from me ever again. This includes their parent company, GANZ. I will never buy any of their products again due to their poor customer service.

There was also another comment a few minutes ago:

This back and forth, we can get in we can't get in. Sometimes the site is working, sometimes its not. We will be looking for new internet pets to buy. We have decided not to invest anymore money than we already have into this company. They would have to pay us to stay at this point. Yes, the customer service is maddening. Like it was your fault? They didn't see why you were having the problem? They are denser than I thought. Or was that just a lame excuse for having a poor product that doesn't live up to it's claims? It's a fun site when it's up, my child really enjoys it (when he can get on), but to not be able to log on consistently is still causing trauma to these children as they try to take care of their animals. The very nature of this program makes it necessary for Ganz to get itself together! Wake up Ganz!!!

At this point, it's worth explaining the interactions I had with Ganz prior to my daughter's account returning to normal. It may help others get back into their accounts.

On Saturday, January 5, I followed the recommendation of one of the commenters on an earlier post. He/she said:

Go to Customer Support on the Webkinz home page. Click on "I keep getting an error message" and at the bottom of the list on that page there is a option,"I cannot load my room". You can enter your name and such - they claim they will get back to you w/in 1-3 days.

Here is the link to the Webkinz "error message" page. The "cannot load room" link is the last one. I clicked it. I filled out the form, and shortly received an email which read:

Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 23:51:41 -0500
To: ianlamont@++++
Subject: I Cannot Load My Room
From: "Webkinz Support"
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.

This is an automatic response to let you know that Webkinz World has received your information.

A Customer Support representative will respond to your request in approximately 1 to 3 business days. Please note this time estimate may change without notice if we are receiving a high volume of requests.

Webkinz World Update: For more information about Webkinz World and the Clubhouse, please visit the Parent's Area on the Webkinz World homepage at www.webkinz.com.

After three days, there was no improvement. On the fourth day (January 9), I received this message:

Subject: Webkinz Customer Support - About your room
From: support@webkinz.com Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Hello from Webkinz World!

--- Ticket # (private)

We are sorry about the problem you experienced. Since that time, we carefully checked your account, and made it work again. If you continue to experience difficulties please feel free to contact us again.

Thanks again for contacting us and we hope you enjoy Webkinz World!

Your information:

(private)

Now, after seeing this message, we were very excited. We were cured!

Unfortunately, our hopes were misplaced. We had the same problem attempting to get into our daughter's Webkinz room that night, and for the next few days.

However, on Saturday, January 12, we were once again able to get into the room. My daughter was very happy, and proceeded to blow all of her Kinzcash on decorations for her pet's room. But her pet was sick -- despite spending lots of Kinzcash on "medicine", her dog was hurting -- the "heart" and "hunger" scores were low, because she hadn't been able to care for it during the outage. In my opinion, Ganz should have reversed her medicine expenditures during the outage and upped her heart and hunger ratings to 100.

Nevertheless, we're still very happy that she's back online. I don't know if we'll be buying any Webkinz next Christmas, though ...