uboot.com > Reviews > UBooted

Author's product rating:   

Navigation	Satisfactory
Features	Need improvement

Advantages:	Cheaper text messaging
Disadvantages:	Server problems, slow support, impossible to change registered number

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I've been a member of UBoot since it started towards the end of 2000, and the service was great. Recently though it has become problematic and nigh on impossible to use.

The original premise was great. Free text messaging and e-mails delivered to your mobiile phone (although these had to be 140 characters or less) and for a while this worked fine. Then, as the SMS services proved costly to run, they phased out the free messages and replaced it with a few options. One was the UBoot virtual credit card which you can add money two in a number of ways, One was dialling a premium rate phone number, paying £1 and you get around 20 messages for this (each message costs 5p and is 'debited' from your account) or joining something called Club UBoot which had a various price plans starting at £3.99 for 2 months of up to 200 messages a month.

At first I decided to use the £1 option as it allowed me to send enough messages and it was still 50% cheaper than what I was paying, but as my text messaging increased I decided to join Club UBoot. This is where the problems started. One payment option was to pay via the premium rate phone line which gives you a 7-digit code to type in and I chose this one rather than have the hassle of typing in credit card details. I did this, entered the number (which was wrote down) and when I submitted it I was told the number wasn't valid. I tried twice more and assumed that the number was written wrong. I called it again, but this time put the phone on monitor as I wrote it down and got a friend to write the number too. We had the same number so once again I submitted it and lo and behold - same error. Not happy with wasting £8.00 I sent an e-mail to customer support. Now fair enough they activated the subscription and credited me with £4 to my account, but it took them 3 weeks and several e-mails for them to do so. The support time was silly.

The next snag is something that is not explained in the help section. You get an e-mail 14 days before your subscription runs out asking you to remember to re-subscribe using your virtual credit card. I thought this would be straight forward and just mean that I had two months after my initial two months. No. It resets the system so your two months starts from the point you re-subscribe. I had over 100 text messages unused when I resubscribed and lost the lot. I was not happy and since then I've stuck to free messages from my mobile service provider and only use UBoot occasionally as needed and top up using the £1 option.

The other problem I've had is since I've changed my phone number. When you register you get asked for your mobile phone number and they send a validation code to it. If you change your number it's the same scenario. It's so they can verify you own the phone. I've now tried changing my number several times and not got a response so they have a number on their files that is 18 months out of date and I don't have access to. I fired of another e-mail and got directed to the page where you can do this. I gave it one last shot before sending an e-mail last week and have heard nothing.

The server speed isn't great either. There have been several times that the server has timed out and even though I'm on a 1Mbps connection, sometimes I wonder whether it's reverted to 2400 baud.

I personally think that UBoot may have become too succesful and the upshot has been a degradation in performance and usability. I'll keep my UBoot account as it comes in handy if I need to text someone desperately and I'm at a PC, but as for joining up with them? I wouldn't.