Apologies in advance for the length of this, aswell as the harshness of what I have to say, but I feel it needs to be said since there doesn't seem to many avenues to get your attention any more:
Why did Crackle stop treating it's Australian customers/viewers with respect in regard to
Days Of Our Lives, and start treating us with contempt, completely failing at any form of
Public customer service after July 2015 - the last time anyone got a response to comments &
Questions by an actual human being with a sense of humour? Since then, multiple people have
Asked for numerous technical issues plaguing your website to be fixed, with not a single
Response as far as I can see on the website. Nothing new has been posted since last year,
And our pleas fall on deaf ears, with many problems regarding mixed-up episode orders,
Missing episodes, a wrong (read: old & previously expired) episode in place of a correct
One, episodes being removed 1 week earlier than they should have been (happened this past
Weekend when 2 weeks worth of episodes were removed instead of 1, after I only noticed on
Friday that the expiry date for the newer episodes was the same as the legitimately soon-
To-expire ones, forcing me to watch 5 episodes in one morning so I didn't miss out on them, though another viewer in my household who was away over the weekend did, much to their distress & anger), failing to make the latest episodes available on the Monday when they are supposed to be put up (happened today, and still are not available at gone midnight), not to mention the constant problems even accessing the website lately.
It's been an uphill battle just to get Crackle to load recently, with at least 3 different
Error messages (Initialization Failure, Uh-oh, something went wrong, & Rats, this video is
Unavailable, even when the video is actually available right after the message appears)
Making it even harder to get through a week's worth of episodes in one day, not knowing if
Or when they would expire as there was no indication either way in advance as to whether
The accelarated expiry date issue was intended or a mistake. Emails to customer service
Via the website went unanswered as they always do, and no-one ever gets a response on
Crackle's Australian page anymore - it's like you just shut up shop and hope we'll all go
Away and find something else to do - you don't seem to want us to watch Days Of Our Lives
As you make it impossible to watch anywhere else on the internet, yet can't provide us with
A functional website much of the time. Crackle used to be fairly painless to watch most of
The time, and I appreciated being able to continue watching my favourite longtime soap, but
Lately it's become a massive pain in the arse, and the most frustrating thing is the people
Running it don't appear to give a damn about us anymore - it's like they've fired any
Competent social media staff they once had, along with a decent tech team to keep things
Running smoothly and fix problems in a timely manner (considering how time sensitive DOOL
Is with it's 4-now-possibly-3 week expiry dates, and replaced them all with a flawed
Computer programme & a bunch of greedy lawyers who spend their days removing any
Alternatives to watching the show on Crackle. We used to have a back up facebook page
Where we could watch lower quality copies of the 2015 episodes we are currently viewing, in
The event of a technical stuff up on Crackle where it was impossible to watch some
Episodes, but it was forcibly made to remove all episodes - thanks for nothing Sony. We
Can't get them through torrents anymore as there are no seeds left, and you also took them
Off YouTube, leaving us with nowhere else to see missed episodes.
Sometimes real life issues mean we end up falling behind with keeping up to date watching
Them on Crackle, and it's a struggle to catch up, so if you have now, without warning,
Reduced it to only 3 weeks worth of episodes at a time instead of a month, you have just
Made it that much harder to keep up with a show many of us have watched for decades. All
We ask is to be treated with respect, and if things go wrong, to be kept informed about
When they will be fixed - not if - when, since it seems lately that most major problems
Have not been fixed at all when it comes to episodes missing etc; they just expire and are
Never seen again. If something is Crackle's fault, it should be rectified and the episodes
Be made available again for a period of time. By making it all but impossible for us to
Contact you about complaints and get an actual response, all you are doing is giving Crackle, and Sony, a bad name, and ensuring that people will stay away from your products and services unless they have no other choice, like DOOL fans currently, who have no-where else to go unless we want to skip 14 months worth of episodes and fork out money most of us can't afford for Foxtel, with their up to date episodes.
What's next, are we to go to the website one day soon and discover you have shut it down
Without warning like in the UK, or just find that Days has been removed from the show list
For good, or at the very least, reduced to a shadow of it's former self with reduced
Episodes (it used to be 7, now 5 per week) and shorter durations of availability? I wouldn't be surprised at all, since you apparently seem to think nothing of alienating an entire Australian fan base. The only way you could possibly make it up to us at this stage is to start giving a damn, answer your emails, and have an actual presence on the Australian facebook page so we can get answers, any answers, in a more timely fashion, so when there are technical issues which could result in episodes expiring without being fixed within days of expiry, we have some reassurance that you are working on the problems, not turning your backs on them... It's really not much to ask, in exchange for putting up with repetetive ads (seriously, how can you expect us to sit through the same one every single ad break? It would drive anyone crazy) and fluctuating picture and sound quality, plus the endless frustrations of a website which doesn't even load properly half the time... Most importantly, you could maintain a happy fanbase of DOOL fans who will continue to watch it as long as it's running. At the moment though, your bad practices are making that very hard to achieve, and tarnishing the Sony brand!.
