This website is a wonderful service. Too bad it's frequently messed up. Today I could not place an online order--wouldn't let me get to the 'Submit Order' page of the process. Server issues. And now, I can't get to the weight loss forums. Server issues. What's up with this?

For a while the Forums were unavailable for most of today.
They must be having server problems.

Yes.. from time to time there are server issues and updates that may effect the site and function.

"from time to time".....yeah, right. Today I tried to place my order AGAIN--same problem. You guys really should get this fixed, because I'm just about ready to order from another company. This was going to be a long-term AUTOSHIP order. And I'm sure this same thing happens to other people. The truth is that 50% of the time there are server problems either on the forums or in ordering. One expects better. Just sayin'.

If ever you have a problem please call our Customer Service line 800-404-8171. This way we can better understand the issue. Without a clear understanding of what happen during a problem it is difficult to know what it is. Some server problems can be like finding a needle in a hay stack....

Best suggestion is when you do experience a problem that you call us while you are online... By calling 800-404-8171 when you experience a problem... we can take you step by step through the process and if there is a server problem it can be located and addressed.

I had posted a joke about this, that joke was deleted (sorry techie). If the server is down, and you are unable to reach customer service because you can't access it from the website (because it is down), you can always try calling 411 to get the phone number. :)

If the tech support keeps deleting various posts even though they are actually innocent, it makes me suspicious of how honest people can be here on these forums, how much of the "whole picture" is being presented, how unbiased the information is. Just a comment for the tech support to hopefully consider.

It makes me feel like there's no room for disagreements etc sometimes.

Sarah

Don't worry, Sarah! They are doing the best that they can. If the forums were not moderated, there would be so much junk posted, that it would be difficult to know quality info from junk.

Oh, really, there's that much junk?

Hmm ... well, that's a valid point. :-)

Natty

Sarah, at times there have been a lot of spam posts. Not so much now, since the forums seem to be better moderated.

Or, if someone is being outwardly rude. I think there is a difference between getting your point across and being rude about it, and that is the tech support's role to determine if the post was meant for good information, or if it was inflammatory.

I had a chat with a moderator yesterday, gained a lot of insight. I see his point, my post was meant to be funny, but if someone else was reading it, maybe they wouldn't have taken it that way (I might have offended a member who also works in IT, for instance). So, no worries. I can deal with it. ;-)

Seems like the server is functioning well, now. So hopefully the server issues are minor and don't interrupt things too much. Also, at least it went down on a Sunday, which isn't usually a busy time in the forums!

Hi Cranberrycat,

It sounds like the chat with the moderator was very helpful for both you and the moderator. Maybe you'll be more flexible, and s/he'll be more flexible too.

That said, I do think that when posts are deleted just because they have email addresses etc being shared to help people, it isn't necessarily the right thing to do. Also, constantly over-emphasizing the Zone products can backfire, leading people to wonder--how biased are these forums? So letting there be mention of other products would create more of a feeling that this is a forum focused on doing the right thing.

I still think letting disagreements happen is important too.

I keep meaning to email you and John by the way ... it's been crazy with my being separated, trying to take care of myself, etc., but this week ...

Sarah

Yes, I do feel that we came to an understanding on this issue. BTW, one of the forum rules is not discussing moderator decisions, I have copy/pasted it here:

"Public posts debating these rules and/or moderators' enforcement of such, will be removed without comment. We encourage feedback, however, and invite you to use our suggestions and comments thread if you have any questions or concerns.",

so we probably should not be focusing in on this issue here, but if you need further clarification of the moderator's actions or decisions, you could probably just contact the zone support number and bring it up there.

[quote]
Posted By Sarah on 28 Mar 2012 05:33 PM
Hi Cranberrycat,

... NOTE: portions of the quoted post was removed from the quote (by me) for brevity ...

I keep meaning to email you and John by the way ... it's been crazy with my being separated, trying to take care of myself, etc., but this week ...

Sarah
[/quote]
No worries, Sarah!
We all have busy and quiet times, i am waiting for a quiet time, looks like not until eom April,
after I return from a required business trip to Singapore.
NOT looking forward to 25 to 30 hours of travel!
But once there, I will have one day at the end to explore the city, before again enduring (barely) the tortuous airline travel of 30 hours in cattle class ...
I am very much looking forward to the end of that ...

John, looks like I am coming up to a very busy time, as well. Lots of things going on at work, while getting ready for a week's vacation. I have 2 days to cram in a bunch of things so that my desk is clean enough to give to my vacation coverage, and then today I had to sit in on a 3.5 hour meeting and now I have another project to finish before vacation!

Vacation is going to be a couple of days at bowling tournament, then a couple of days at a waterpark with the kids and my sister's family. Then, maybe a few days at home to unwind. Also looking at adopting a dog (I am a cat person, but have fallen in love with a special dog).

So, I don't know if that all will leave me enough time to check in, but I do have an android, so maybe there's a possiblity!

Hi John and Cransberrycat,

Whoops! Did my posts (above, in this thread) scare you away to the point that you're nervous to correspond with me now???

I know I'm interested still in emailing back and forth, it's just a very emotional time for me right now and I have more limited energies as a result.

Sarah

Ha-ha, no way, you can not get rid of us that easily!

LOL!

Thanks for the laugh John. Must be my imagination being overactive.

I'll be in contact next week ...
h
Sara

So, today, again, I am on the website trying to navigate around the forums to figure out why my fish oil solidified in the freezer overnight, and I can only access the first page of posts that come up when I did a search on freezing fish oil. The other 20 pages are not accessible. I called the Customer Service line, as instructed, and discover that it only answers Monday through Friday, during business hours. Great. I frequent many websites of organizations that have active forums and busy product ordering pages and do not encounter this problem. On this website, I encounter it every single time I visit. This is YOUR problem to fix, not the website users--not the people who buy the books and products, and who tell everyone they know to become acquainted with Dr. Sears' work and the products he sells. Does Dr. Sears know that the server is functioning badly??

To order my FO and Poly stuff, I finally had to do it over the phone last week. I DID tell the customer service rep about the inability to complete the purchace online. I told her what came up on my screen, etc.

Do you even acknowledge that there is a problem? If so, what are you doing to try to fix it? The 'from time to time' comment really got my dander up.....

Debbie;
I can get more than one page of results.

ZONE TECH: BUT the problem is I put in (for Debbie) "Fish Oil freezes" (sans the quote marks),
and I selected ALL KEYWORDS,
.
BUT the Search still results in finding ANY Keyword, so it returns pages and pages of useless results.
This should be fixed.
.
AND Debbie's question is still unresolved.
Does she have a bad batch of Fish Oil since it froze solid?

To determine the purity of any bottle of Zone Labs fish oil go to the IFOS website and view the report on the batch number on your bottle.

Sue?
Where are you coming from?
That has no relation to her problem!
She has a bottle of Dr. SEARS fish oil, and it froze solid on her.
She thought that DR SEARS BRAND is pure and therefore is NOT supposed to completely freeze solid.
She was trying to search the forums to confirm this.
You seem to be saying that she should check IFOS to see if her batch of DR SEARS fish oil is not pure?
I know that is not waht you meant to say ... lol

Checking IFOS might Tell if there's a problem with the batch, but it is highly unlikely that Zonelabs would release a bad one. I have had fish oil freeze up on me, as well, and yet the batch passed IFOS.

Still an unanswered question. But just thought I would share that as it is not an isolated incident.

Side Note: How'd your bowling tournament go?
How'd you do?
Regardless, I know you had fun ....

[quote]
Posted By John on 01 Apr 2012 04:20 PM
Sue?
Where are you coming from?
That has no relation to her problem!
She has a bottle of Dr. SEARS fish oil, and it froze solid on her.
She thought that DR SEARS BRAND is pure and therefore is NOT supposed to completely freeze solid.
She was trying to search the forums to confirm this.
You seem to be saying that she should check IFOS to see if her batch of DR SEARS fish oil is not pure?
I know that is not waht you meant to say ... lol
[/quote]


I'm letting people know that if they should happen to doubt the purity of their Zone fish oil they can check the IFOS report on each batch sold. If you ask me, and it seems you have, it totally relates. It's my understanding that the freezing test was originally spoken of by Dr. Sears in the context of applying it to your fish oil of unknown purity. Some additional info, I've recently heard Dr. Sears address a question similar to the one Debbie posed. I can't quite remember the occasion but it may have been during the February 2012 live chat about Omega Rx and brain trauma.