TOT Ikea click and collect

[alan_m]

I ordered something from Ikea and decided to use click and collect.

They sent a text to say that my order was ready. The text also said that they had sent an email but as the email goes to my laptop rather than my phone I didn't have access to that.

The idea is that when you turn up at the click and collect you don't get to speak with anyone. You stay in the car, fill in the form that is linked in the email and someone will bring te goods to the car.

First problem I don't have the email. Fortunately the instructions are written on the side of the click and collect building with a QR code that has to be scanned with a link to launch a web page (on the phone).

Enter my order number (sent to me by text). Enter my mobile number (the one they sent the text to). Problem "your phone number is not recognised" Check all details and resubmit Problem "your phone number is not recognised"

I managed to get further by using my the email address I had used to order rather than the mobile phone number.

Once I got to the final stage they confirmed my details including my mobile phone number. They had added, and were looking for, a phone number starting +44 and not just the number I had supplied!

[mm0fmf]

An international version of the number is next thing I'd have tried.

[SteveW]

Very poor programming.

[Tim+]

I’m confused. You have web access on your phone but no email access?

Why, or rather, why not?

Tim

[Scott]

Me too, and without any spaces. I have just looked at my VOIP billing and all the numbers are shown in international format. I have also entered all numbers in international format on my mobile phone for use abroad, though I expect the network would be able to interpret UK numbers.

[mm0fmf]

I believe it should when you roam. So an 0171xxxxx number on a UK phone rings a number in London when your are not roaming and it should be interpreted as a UK number when you have roamed. I remember seeing that my mates EE phone would do that when we were in Germany and he would get a London number but my Three phone would try and dial it as a German number. I always had to put the +44 in to get UK numbers when roaming.

There's a name for the this feature that I can no longer remember.

[alan_m]

I can send emails on the phone and have a gmail email set-up on the phone but elect to only have email client for all my private emails set-up on my laptop. I do not use web interfaces for email. I prefer to keep all my emails in one place.

In this case I was already travelling when I got the text on my phone. The email would only have been picked up by my laptop when I next logged on, at home.

When ordering Ikea only mentioned sending a text message when the order was ready, nothing about an associated email. It would have also been easy for them to have put the web page link in the text message - but that would have been too sensible.

[Scott]

Except that it's now 020 7xxx xxxx (unless newer format).

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well whatever did you want to do that for?

[alan_m]

The two pieces that I ordered and were not expensive. The quality of both is a lot better than I've seen elsewhere, at a comparable price.

I'm not a regular user of Ikea

[Tim+]

Struggling with this. I don’t “keep” my emails anywhere. I just access them with which device I have to hand whether that be Android phone, iPad or pc.

Now back in the dark ages of POP only access where I might have downloaded them to a device and deleted them from the server but since the invention of IMAP access I ditched that approach. I assume most folk do similarly.

Or accessible on your smart phone at any time…

Admittedly if email information was required for making the pick-up they should have explicitly said so.

Tim

[Tim Streater]

Nope. I keep them locally so I have control of them. And since mail on the phone is insecure, I don't ever have it there either.

[SteveW]

That's one of the reasons I have a home server. It downloads our emails from our domain host and sends our emails via it. That means our emails are stored locally and we have important ones from many years ago. The system is unaffected if we change ISPs. Our mobiles then access our server.

Why is it insecure on the phone? Mine uses encrypted connections and locks to physical access within 30 seconds of non-use.

[mm0fmf]

Yes, funny how the 0171 is burnt in my mind. Probably from working days.

01 became 0171 / 0181 in 1990 and it's when I'd be making plenty of calls to companies with 0171 numbers. But looking back, calling 0207/0208 numbers is something I never seem to do. I suppose it had all become email/web based. Checking now there is just one 020 number in nearly 200 numbers in my mobile phone.

[Tim Streater]

Apple's Mail doesn't give enough control over the downloading of images when the user views the mail. That is, you can either prevent that at all times or allow it at all times. When I wrote my email client I made it such that downloading was prevented when viewing the mail in the Preview area, unless the mail had been moved to another mailbox EXCEPT that such downloading is prevented at all times for mails in the Junk or Trash mailboxes. That prevents a spam mail from phoning home.

Since I'm not going to see the mail in the list of Inbox mails, then zoom off to the Prefs to prevent image download, then look at the mail and decide it's OK for images to be downloaded, and zoom off to the Prefs again to re-enable that. Result: I took my mail off the phone

[ken]

You can run the gmail and/or the yahoo app on your iphone and they allow control of that.

When I wrote my email client I made it such that

[SteveW]

Ah, Android (certainly the app I use) does allow individual approval of image downloads for each email, at the time of viewing.

[Tim+]

The native email app on my iPad certainly allows me to block all images by default and to then download them with a simple click of a link. I’d be surprised if iPhones were any different.

Surely “prevent at all times” coupled with a simple override is all you need?

Tim