Greyhound.ca is a piece of shit website that is probably convincing people to buy cars.
From: Jeremy Clarke <jer @si….ing.com>
To: <webmaster @greyhound.ca>
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 19:49:45 -0500
Subject: Greyhound.ca is completely broken if you haven’t noticedHi, I am a person who likes to use the bus as well as the internet.
Your site has been broken for years now and makes it harder to take
busses. Lately it has become completely broken. You can’t search for
any bus schedule without incurring an error.Please try using your site and notice how broken it is, then fire
whoever is in charge, hire someone who knows how to program a website,
then make sure they fix the website. If you cannot handle this task
please fire yourself, you do not deserve to be answering the
‘webmaster’ address at this domain.
Anyone who rides the intercity busses in Canada has probably noticed that there is no way to get the Greyhound site to give you a proper quote on a bus fare, its been like that for years: they actually told me once at the terminal that I shouldn’t trust times and prices on the site because it is innacurate.
What’s new is that it now shows an error any time you even try to find the times that the busses leave. This means that the Greyhound.ca website is now 100% LESS USEFUL than the flyers they print out and offer a bus stations with departure times.
It’s pathetic and frustrating. They end up making you call them and waste human phone time instead of fixing their site. While getting angry I noticed a link on the site saying “have a problem? Email webmaster@greybound.ca”, so I sent them the message above.
Their response?
From: <postmaster @firstgroup.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 7:49 PM
Subject: Undeliverable: Greyhound.ca is completely broken if you haven’t noticed
To: jer@si….ing.comDelivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists:
webmaster@greyhound.ca
The recipient’s e-mail address was not found in the recipient’s e-mail
system. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for
you. Please check the e-mail address and try resending this message,
or provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator.________________________________
Sent by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
Thanks for the confirmation, assholes.
Jer, which browser are you using? I am not home right now so I cannot test Safari/Mac but I am at work using Chrome/Windows and it works just fine. I am sure you know what you are talking about, and it would not surprise me that the site is broken, since I have come across a lot of broken sites over the years, but I have yet to find an error. I was using the Kirkland station going to toronto, ottawa, sudburry, etc.
Ouch. Fail on so many levels.
Props for calling them out on their bullshit. Too bad the whole ‘e’ level of their business is underwater :P
I have to say that was a rather poetic ending. Maybe print it out and mail it to them. A lot of companies have legal obligations to respond to written letters (in Australia anyway, not sure about Canada).
Louis: Yeah. I tried it again and it worked for ottawa->montreal but not for montreal->magog. Mira says it never works for her and that’s what I based my statement on, but I guess it just often doesn’t work, but manages to have the most popular routes semi-functional.
That said, if you try to have it actually help you understand pricing and discounts I think you’ll find it decidedly broken in various subtle ways that make it untrustworthy and horrible to use.
Jer: Yes, I see what you mean. I have only ever used the website once, a few years ago but understand now if I had to use it on a more frequent basis that it is pretty broken.
Actually, right after posting my comment, I checked a few other searches and found most of them had a “problem with my request”.
Also, I think it is hilarious that the webmaster’s email address is unmonitored and unused.
so here I am months later – and totally frustrated by the website as described above. I google “why is the greyhound website a piece of shit?” and got a surprising number of hits, not to mention the above commentary – too funny, I am less mad right now because I am laughing.