Typing Up A Document For Work
<div class="IPBDescription"> - what am i missing?</div> hey, typing this up for work, what do you think i'm missing or should add?
here's the doc:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This article was typed up during my personal day off so that no paid time was used in the development of these arguments and solutions.
The current Policy for activating a phone with an expired activation card needs to be changed and or modified to prevent exploitation from cellular dealers.
The current procedure is to take the package back to the dealer that you purchased the phone from and exchange it for another phone. There are no instructions for us to give to the dealer that recived this phone as a return. In many cases, if a cellular dealer is calling in to activate a phone for a customer and the activation card is expired, agents on the floor confirm the number, and get supervisor permission to activate the phone with a $0 pin, and credit the account for the amount on the activation card.
There are several problems that are caused by this policy/procedure. Most of these problems are caused by cellular dealers. Once a cellular dealer knows of this policy, and they have an expired activation card. It is possible to activate a phone with only the information on the outside of the box. We then find that people are purchasing already-activated phones that are still in the box, and their activation card was not used to activate their phone. This pre-activation with an expired activation card process denies the customer the power to verify two out of six pieces of information on their account, as they would not have possession of the activation card used on their account, or the date of birth placed on the account during the activation.
The problem is not mainly focused with pre-activation as a whole. But the exploitation of technology and the policy for expired activation cards.
First, the technology side of the problem. As the world becomes more accustomed to having cellular phones, there begins to be a wave of new ways to steal people’s SIM cards, phones, minutes, and accounts. There exist pieces of hardware that can detect a phone’s SIM card number as it connects to the cellular network, and duplicate it onto a blank/dummy SIM card. The basic version of this device, allows you to manually type in the SIM card number, and project it onto a blank/dummy SIM and use it in your phone. The biggest problem with the second device, is how to get that SIM card number, easiest way to get that information, is off the SIM card itself, or on the bottom of the box.
This is where the exploitation of policy becomes the problem. People can activate a phone, with an expired activation card, get the $10 applied to their account, and use their new piece of technology, to use that SIM card, without ever opening the box. This leaves Boost Mobile at a loss, because it leaves our customers with an active account, and most of the time, at a zero balance.
There are two possible ways that I see to counter this exploit of the Boost Mobile policy.
First, would be to escalate these problems using the activations escalation form. This is not the preferred way to fix this problem, as it would add more strain to the current workload of the escalations team. The escalations team is currently in charge of managing the database of already used reboost pin numbers, this expired activation card process would have close to the same effect on the workload of the team.
Second, would be a shared database on the boost mobile website. The process and programming of this shared database would be simple. A page would be coded to accept activation card numbers and check it with the current list to see if a phone had been activated with that expired card before. The page would search the list, output results of the search stating that the card has not been used, or has already been used to activate the phone, and also add that card number to the list after it checks, so that it cannot be used again. The code for the program/tool is very simple and would not take much manpower to create the tool. The tool would need to be in a public web space that all boost mobile call centers can use.
The creation of the tool and change to the procedure would save Nextel and Boost Mobile money because we would not have to use the $0 database for the duplicated pins used to solve this issue, and we would also not have to spend the man-hours we currently do fixing this problem (ex: escalating, or getting supervisor permission). The creation of this tool would mean that there would only be one activation per expired activation card, which saves Nextel and Boost Mobile time during activations, and also expenditures on the actual use of the phones that have been activated with a duplicate expired activation card.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
example of the system that'll be used: <a href='http://www.mm1swebcreations.com/dev/t2k/sql/boost_insert.php' target='_blank'>http://www.mm1swebcreations.com/dev/t2k/sql/boost_insert.php</a>
numbers already inserted 123123123 / 123123122
here's the doc:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This article was typed up during my personal day off so that no paid time was used in the development of these arguments and solutions.
The current Policy for activating a phone with an expired activation card needs to be changed and or modified to prevent exploitation from cellular dealers.
The current procedure is to take the package back to the dealer that you purchased the phone from and exchange it for another phone. There are no instructions for us to give to the dealer that recived this phone as a return. In many cases, if a cellular dealer is calling in to activate a phone for a customer and the activation card is expired, agents on the floor confirm the number, and get supervisor permission to activate the phone with a $0 pin, and credit the account for the amount on the activation card.
There are several problems that are caused by this policy/procedure. Most of these problems are caused by cellular dealers. Once a cellular dealer knows of this policy, and they have an expired activation card. It is possible to activate a phone with only the information on the outside of the box. We then find that people are purchasing already-activated phones that are still in the box, and their activation card was not used to activate their phone. This pre-activation with an expired activation card process denies the customer the power to verify two out of six pieces of information on their account, as they would not have possession of the activation card used on their account, or the date of birth placed on the account during the activation.
The problem is not mainly focused with pre-activation as a whole. But the exploitation of technology and the policy for expired activation cards.
First, the technology side of the problem. As the world becomes more accustomed to having cellular phones, there begins to be a wave of new ways to steal people’s SIM cards, phones, minutes, and accounts. There exist pieces of hardware that can detect a phone’s SIM card number as it connects to the cellular network, and duplicate it onto a blank/dummy SIM card. The basic version of this device, allows you to manually type in the SIM card number, and project it onto a blank/dummy SIM and use it in your phone. The biggest problem with the second device, is how to get that SIM card number, easiest way to get that information, is off the SIM card itself, or on the bottom of the box.
This is where the exploitation of policy becomes the problem. People can activate a phone, with an expired activation card, get the $10 applied to their account, and use their new piece of technology, to use that SIM card, without ever opening the box. This leaves Boost Mobile at a loss, because it leaves our customers with an active account, and most of the time, at a zero balance.
There are two possible ways that I see to counter this exploit of the Boost Mobile policy.
First, would be to escalate these problems using the activations escalation form. This is not the preferred way to fix this problem, as it would add more strain to the current workload of the escalations team. The escalations team is currently in charge of managing the database of already used reboost pin numbers, this expired activation card process would have close to the same effect on the workload of the team.
Second, would be a shared database on the boost mobile website. The process and programming of this shared database would be simple. A page would be coded to accept activation card numbers and check it with the current list to see if a phone had been activated with that expired card before. The page would search the list, output results of the search stating that the card has not been used, or has already been used to activate the phone, and also add that card number to the list after it checks, so that it cannot be used again. The code for the program/tool is very simple and would not take much manpower to create the tool. The tool would need to be in a public web space that all boost mobile call centers can use.
The creation of the tool and change to the procedure would save Nextel and Boost Mobile money because we would not have to use the $0 database for the duplicated pins used to solve this issue, and we would also not have to spend the man-hours we currently do fixing this problem (ex: escalating, or getting supervisor permission). The creation of this tool would mean that there would only be one activation per expired activation card, which saves Nextel and Boost Mobile time during activations, and also expenditures on the actual use of the phones that have been activated with a duplicate expired activation card.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
example of the system that'll be used: <a href='http://www.mm1swebcreations.com/dev/t2k/sql/boost_insert.php' target='_blank'>http://www.mm1swebcreations.com/dev/t2k/sql/boost_insert.php</a>
numbers already inserted 123123123 / 123123122
Comments
here's the doc:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
The current Policy for activating a phone with an expired activation card needs to be changed and or modified to prevent exploitation from cellular dealers.
The current procedure is to take the package back to the dealer that you purchased the phone from and exchange it for another phone. There are no instructions for us to give to the dealer that <b>recived</b> this phone as a return. In many cases, if a cellular dealer is calling in to activate a phone for a customer and the activation card is expired, agents on the floor confirm the number, and get supervisor permission to activate the phone with a $0 pin, and credit the account for the amount on the activation card.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
example of the system that'll be used: <a href='http://www.mm1swebcreations.com/dev/t2k/sql/boost_insert.php' target='_blank'>http://www.mm1swebcreations.com/dev/t2k/sql/boost_insert.php</a>
numbers already inserted 123123123 / 123123122 <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just noticed that typo. Besides that it seems fine <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
SEMI-COLONS.