November 2007

A few days ago, I wrote about why Skype felt it had no choice but to recall and replace about 8,000 London-based 0207 SkypeIn numbers. Our colleagues in customer support have pulled in extra resources and are totally focused on making the transition as smooth as possible.

Hardest hit were users who had subscribed to the affected SkypeIn numbers for 12 months. (SkypeIn subscriptions are available for 3 or 12 months). We know that small businesses are among them and that their trust and confidence is a precious, fragile thing. It’s with them that we’ll have to work the hardest to win back their confidence.

So here’s where things stand at the moment. Our customer support team has been working round the clock to assist everyone affected. At the moment, they've responded to over 75 percent of those who’ve required additional support. And we hope to sort out the remaining inquiries this week. (If there are any outstanding questions, please send an email to sichange@skype.net If you'd like to explore the possibility of retaining your number outside of your Skype account, please contact GCI Telecom on sales@geonum.co.uk).

Everything is being done to keep this from happening in the future. We’re no strangers to crises and major issues like this help us learn as a business. We’ll use the knowledge wisely. Have faith in us.

Due to a technical problem, many credit card payments made from within Skype software failed between November 24 and 10:30 AM GMT on November 26. The users' credit cards were not charged for those failed orders.

Unfortunately, users affected by this received misleading automated emails which said "Your order is being processed" instead of acknowleding payment failure.

Because of the nature of the payment systems used, these users will be unable to make new credit card payments from Skype before December 1.

(Edited at 13.00 GMT, Nov. 23)

During the past couple of weeks, we've been talking to a number of SkypeIn users, asking them to change their London-based 0207 SkypeIn number. We don't like doing this any more than those who'll be losing their number. But we hope this post will help explain why we've had to resort to these unpleasant measures.

As you may know, Skype obtains SkypeIn numbers from several telecoms operators. That's because Skype itself is not a telecommunication company. We make software. So when it comes to things that involve the "plain old telephone system", we are also someone else's customers. Mostly, this works out without a hitch. We obtain rights to use the numbers and provide them to our users as a neat, inexpensive way to bridge the telephone-Skype divide through SkypeIn.

Sadly, this simple approach has been hit by a reality check. We spent months in discussions with a telecoms operator to see if we could keep the SkypeIn numbers we rented from them, confident that the issue could be resolved. Hence the somewhat late notice to our users -- we never thought things would get this far, given the time and effort put into resolving the situation.

Obviously we know that asking to replace some 0207 SkypeIn numbers causes our users a lot of grief. To make up for some of this, we've given all affected 0207 SkypeIn users a new SkypeIn number. This number will be free for 12 months along with free voicemail.

We’re very sorry for the trouble and (perfectly justified) swearing that this has caused. Our people are doing their best to make sure that these kinds of unpleasant surprises won’t happen again.

If you have more questions or need help, please send an email to sichange -at- skype.net. Some questions may already have been addressed in the FAQ, so you may want to take a look there as well.

We are performing a scheduled maintenance for Skypecasts this Wednesday, 21st of November between 9:00 - 11:00 GMT.
During this time period, Skypecasts will be unavailable.

We have been informed that ClickandBuy payments will undergo scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, 20th of November between 4:00 - 5:00 GMT. During this time window, you may face problems registering with ClickandBuy and making payments via your ClickandBuy wallet.

Our colleagues from Skype customer support are reaching out to some of you to discuss your subscription. Thanks to everyone who has taken a few minutes to talk to them. We appreciate your kindness!

Auto-Recharge payments will undergo scheduled maintenance on Saturday 17th November between 03:30 and 08:30 GMT. All Auto-Recharge payments will therefore be processed with delay.

During the maintenance period, feel free to use other methods of payment.

Due to a technical mix-up you may receive an email stating that you've made a purchase on skype.com and that your order has been delivered.

Instead, you should have received an email stating that your Skype credit has expired and that the Skype credit has been removed from your account.

We are sorry for the mess-up and will update this post once the issue has been resolved.

We are suffering a technical problem with Giropay payment method.
Due to the issue your Giropay payments will be refused.
At the moment we are investigating this issue and once it is solved we will let you know.
Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this issue has caused to you.

Luxembourg, November 6th, 2007 -- Due to increases from our suppliers prices for SkypeOut calls to USA - Alaska will increase slightly. Changes will be effective at 08:00 am GMT, December 6th, 2007.

Destination: USA - Alaska
Current price: 0.017 (€ per minute)
New price: 0.038 (€ per minute)

It has come to our attention that some Skype for Windows users have been affected by a piece of malware that masquerades as a chat message aimed at finding a lost girl.

Please do not follow any internet links you may receive in chat messages that resemble the following: "Please help me to find this Girl".

Clicking on the link will lead you to download a worm that is currently best described here.

Currently, this piece of malware -- a new strain of the Stration/Warezov worm -- can be detected by the following antivirus software: AntiVir, ArcaVir, AVG Antivirus, BitDefender, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Norman Virus Control, Panda Antivirus, Sophos Antivirus, TrendMicro, VBA32.

Due to a technical problem, some credit card payments attempted after 18:40 GMT on November 4 have failed. During this period, users received the following error messages: "Could not start your payment" or "Server not found".

The issue was resolved at: 21:10 GMT.