Update on the JustGiving site – Saturday 27th June

heatherbird

Posted on: Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Update on the JustGiving site – Saturday 27th June

The site is now stable and most donations are going through. We know that some people are still experiencing problems and we are very sorry about that. We are developing and testing the fixes for the remaining bugs and the phones are being manned over the weekend.

If you are having problems with the site please check this list for our current advice:

1) Making donations – As of today we have fixed this issue and everyone should be able to make a donation successfully. If you are still having a problem please contact the help desk at help@justgiving.com or call 0845 021 2110 (local rate).

2) Not receiving a donation confirmation email – Most people are now receiving these emails. However, we’re finding that there are problems in a limited number of cases and we are investigating why this is happening. If you make a donation and are unsure as to whether it has gone through or not please contact the helpdesk at help@justgiving.com or call 0845 021 2110 (local rate).

3) Having trouble uploading images or editing my JustGiving page – It appears that there are still some people who are having these issues and we are really keen to investigate them. If you are experiencing problems please let us know your name, the web address of your JustGiving page and the email address associated with your JustGiving account. Please either send this to the helpdesk at help@justgiving.com or give us a call 0845 021 2110 (local rate) so that we can get this fixed for you.

4) Cannot view a fundraising page – If you are one of the people for whom this is still a problem we are very sorry and understand that this is very frustrating. Again, we are keen to investigate each case so if you could send your name and JustGiving page web address to us we will look into the issue. Please either send this to the helpdesk at help@justgiving.com or give us a call 0845 021 2110 (local rate). This is our top priority and we hope to have it fixed early next week.

5) Creating a new fundraising page – As from today there are some problems with new fundraising pages created. We advise that if possible you should hold off from creating a new JustGiving page until Monday.

Thank you so much for bearing with us, we are really sorry for the frustration that the problems are causing.

http://www.justgiving.com/richardwarriner Richard Warriner

I have moved over to http://www.charitygiving.co.uk – took about 2 minutes to get the page setup
http://www.justgiving.com/halliwellstrek Tiffany Marshall

I am trying to upload pictures and it wont let me.
Dawn James

I am astounded at the comment made by Craig F. To suggest that people are using the imcompetence of Just Giving as an excuse for not fund-raising is beyond belief.

Some of us have very high targets to reach. Therefore we have to go way beyond friends and family to raise cash. In the week before the upgrade (which incidentally there was no warning about) I spent three solid days emailing, writing letters, and making appeals including have a story in the local paper.

I was beginning to get a good response to this when the site went down. What is wrong with a good old-fashioned sponsor sheet you ask? Well I am currently working full-time and also training upwards of twenty hours a week in order to be fit for my challenge.

I’m sorry Craig F but your remarks are extemely hurtful. The reality is that Just Giving advertises a service that we are just not getting. My page has been down for over a week now.
http://www.justgiving.com/eionaroberts/ Eiona Roberts

Geting worse by the minute. I just stood over watched a friend donate online and witnessed her typing her name and message – it shows up as ANON – and I can’t access my account to change it.
http://www.justgiving.com/sueguy1 Kevin

For Tim who commented at 11am.

Good luck in February – hope the weather is kind for you.

Sue and Judy are currently about half way between Newcastle and Carlisle after 3 hard days. Scenery is apparently stunning. You will enjoy it just make sure you do the training and get some long walk under your belt.

As for her page; I now have no problem viewing it but no idea if there are any problems donating. BigDave was the last to donate and Sue is totally astounded that a total stranger would do that for her.

You’re the man Dave :-)
Adam

And still no word from JG for three days now. The least they could do is post to their own blog each day. And put a notice on their homepage saying they have problems and linking to this blog. Without that as a minimum how can anyone possibly say they are doing all they can to keep users (their customers) informed.

At this rate there will soon be more stories on El Reg about this than blog posts from JG on their own site.

Does anyone else get the impression that JG have stopped reading their own blog?

Moderation delay on these comments was turned off after the first post. What does that tell you?
Rod Dalton

I cannot believe you didn’t adequately test a change of this magnitude before going live with it.
Why when it bacame obvious it was a complete disaster didn’t you revert to the old site till you had fixed the new one or even put up a link to the old one for people in trouble with the new one?
As for all the claims that most people can now access and donate, I don’t know a single person who can access the site even now! I do know a lot who can’t.
This will affect thousands of potential donars, my partner for example has had hundreds of flyers printed and distributed around local pubs etc, The day they were sent out your site went down so most people taking home a flier will have tried for a couple of days then lost the flier or got bored and frustrated. Worse, some have been in touch to say the link on the flyer doesn’t work and have asked what the correct link is, for every one who has asked there will be 10 who have just given up.
kate

Aaaaarrrrggghhhh – so frustrated with this site!!!!!! Any updates on this?????
I work in charity fundraising and am seriously thinking about switching sites if this goes on much longer!
http://www.twitter.com/bigdavesb BigDaveSB

Guys, seriously, I have had no issues. I know this makes me fortunate, but, have you tried using different machines?

In previous posts, I promised donations to people that were having trouble with their page, which they couldn’t access, or their friends couldn’t. Yet, they loaded fine for me, and on both occasions I was able to painlessly make a donation. Alas, I do not have the funds to offer this again. But I would, and if I had the funds, I’d also place a charitable wager that I’d be able to donate painlessly again!

Given that, it shows whislt it may not work on one machine, it is working on another. Have you tried going to a friend’s house, your local library, your work pc etc? It maybe that that the machine your using isn’t a happy bunny, but that you do have access to another that is fine.

Given that I think Justgiving took in some £2 million whilst “everyone” was having problems, it clearly shows it was still working for a lot of people.

I suspect that the people that are moved to comment are those that have problems. Sadly, people are more likely to complain about a bad job, than sing the praises of a good one. Whilst I know the upgrade went awry, and a lot of people had problems, there are evidently a lot who didn’t.

I’d love to see the stats on the proportions of users that had problems to those that didn’t.

The other thing that gets me is lots of people complaining, but few people suggesting ways around the problem. Phone your charity, they can help you. It’s their job.
http://Mark&Ben'sWallWalk Mark

This is an absolute disgrace.

The site is still not working dispite claims to the contrary…

Potential sponsors are telling me they can’t donate properly.
I can’t edit the thing without sitting watching the egg timer for what seems like eons.
I can’t add offline donations.
I can’t add the photos I want to.

Our charity walk is now over. The opportunity is lost. I reckon we’ve lost a fortune in sponsors who’ve just lost interest and gone away.

I’m so disappointed! Shame on you Justgiving!

Mark
Nigel

One of the most disappointing things here has been the lack of response to individual phone calls and emails to JG; the CEO has been completely anonymous. And for those saying give them some slack, I would if their model didn’t rely wholly on web-based donations; ie a phone back-up service (with appropriate message to Customers telling them how to donate) would help. Like many, I’ve had countless people trying and trying, and not surprisingly then giving up. This has been badly handled I’m afraid, and exacerbated by the complete lack of personal response to individual queries.
heatherbird

Hi Nigel,

We have been working very hard to respond to each and every query that has come into our helpdesk either on the phone, voicemail or email – everyone from the company who isn’t involved in tech work has temporarily joined the help desk to deal with the volume. As our more recent posts says, we know that this may be taking longer than usual but we will respond to every single request.

Please see the video and message from our CEO here:
http://blog.justgiving.com/2009/06/25/new-on-justgiving/zarine-ceo/

Thanks
Heather

JustGiving blog

heatherbird