All posts tagged: Customer

The water companies using bailiffs to collect customer debt more than 6,000 times a year | Money News

The water companies using bailiffs to collect customer debt more than 6,000 times a year | Money News

Published by skeptic

Some water companies are instructing bailiffs as they try to recover customers’ debt more than 6,000 times in a single year, new data reveals. The information gathered by a committee of MPs has not been freely available before and reveals huge variations in water companies’ use of the tactic. Wessex Water have not been using bailiffs at all over the last decade, and Welsh Water has used them less than 1,000 times in every year from 2019 to 2025. But Southern Water instructed bailiffs 15,707 times in 2019, more than 6,000 times in 2020, more than 5,000 times in 2023, more than 8,000 times in 2024, and more than 4,000 times last year. The figures collected by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee show Yorkshire Water, United Utilities and Severn Trent as the other companies to have used bailiffs more than 6,000 times in a year. And the MPs also highlighted South West Water/Pennon and Northumbrian Water as being among the most prolific bailiff users. Money blog: The cheapest day of the week …

Gushwork bets on AI search for customer leads — and early results are emerging

Gushwork bets on AI search for customer leads — and early results are emerging

Published by skeptic

As AI-powered search tools reshape how businesses are discovered online, India-founded startup Gushwork is helping companies capture customers from platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — with early traction that is beginning to draw investor support. The two-year-old startup said Thursday it had raised $9 million in a seed round led by Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Lightspeed, with participation from B Capital, Seaborne Capital, Beenext, Sparrow Capital, and 2.2 Capital. The round values Gushwork at $33 million post-money, up from about $7.5 million following its Lightspeed-led $2.1 million pre-seed in July 2023, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The latest financing brings Gushwork’s total funding to $11 million, the startup said. The funding comes as AI companies including OpenAI and Perplexity begin to chip away at traditional web search, prompting incumbents like Google to roll out AI-generated overviews and other conversational features across their search products. Gushwork is betting this shift will create a new opportunity to help businesses surface in AI-driven discovery channels using its automated marketing agents. Founded in …

Indian pharmacy chain giant exposed customer data and internal systems

Indian pharmacy chain giant exposed customer data and internal systems

Published by skeptic

A security lapse by one of India’s largest pharmacy chains allowed outsiders to gain full administrative control of its platform, exposing customer order data and sensitive drug-control functions, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The issue affected DavaIndia Pharmacy, the pharmacy arm of Zota Healthcare, which operates a large network of retail outlets across India. Security researcher Eaton Zveare told TechCrunch that he discovered the flaw after identifying insecure “super admin” application programming interfaces on DavaIndia’s website and privately shared details with Indian cybersecurity authorities. The bug is now fixed, and Zveare disclosed his findings. The exposure comes as Zota Healthcare rapidly scales DavaIndia Pharmacy’s retail business. The Gujarat-headquartered company operates more than 2,300 DavaIndia stores across India, including 276 new outlets announced in January, and plans to add another 1,200 to 1,500 over the next two years. Zveare told TechCrunch that the flaw stemmed from insecure admin interfaces, which allowed unauthenticated users to create “super admin” accounts with high privileges. With that level of access, an attacker could view thousands of online orders containing customer information, …

Airbnb says a third of its customer support is now handled by AI in the US and Canada

Airbnb says a third of its customer support is now handled by AI in the US and Canada

Published by skeptic

Airbnb says its custom-built AI agent is now handling roughly a third of its customer support issues in North America, and it’s preparing to roll out the feature globally. If successful, the company believes that in a year’s time, more than 30% of its total customer support tickets will be handled by AI voice and chat in all the languages where it also employs a human customer service agent. “We think this is going to be massive because not only does this reduce the cost base of Airbnb customer service, but the quality of service is going to be a huge step change,” CEO Brian Chesky said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call this week. This seems to suggest he believes the AI would do a better job than its human counterparts in resolving some issues. The company also touted its recent hire of CTO Ahmad Al-Dahle, poached from Meta for his AI expertise, and its plans to create an AI-native experience. With his guidance, Chesky said that Airbnb was poised to introduce an app …

Popular snack bars recalled in US after customer falls ill

Popular snack bars recalled in US after customer falls ill

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Multiple popular snack bars have been recalled after it was found that they contain two ingredients that were not included on the label, resulting in a customer’s allergic reaction. Juniper Granola, LLC, based in Rochester, New York, has recalled its Chocolate Cherry and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Junebars because they may contain undeclared milk and soy, according to a press release shared Thursday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Since the two ingredients aren’t listed on the snacks’ label, customers who are allergic to soy or milk “run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction” if they consume the products, per the press release. Juniper Granola became aware of the undeclared allergens and opened an investigation after a customer reported having an …

Lululemon pulls new leggings line after flood of customer complaints

Lululemon pulls new leggings line after flood of customer complaints

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Lululemon has halted online sales of a new leggings line in the U.S. after customers complained about the fabric being see-through. The athletic apparel company said Wednesday in a statement that it “temporarily paused sales online” in North America of its Get Low leggings collection to “better understand some initial guest feedback and support with product education.” “Our Get Low collection is designed to support our guests as they train and features seamless technology to provide a sculpted look and feel in a weightless, fast-drying fabric,” a Lululemon spokesperson told The Independent. “We expect to bring the collection back to our North America e-commerce channels soon and the collection continues to be available in other markets.” Still, the spokesperson noted that “the collection remains …

Listen Labs raises M after viral billboard hiring stunt to scale AI customer interviews

Listen Labs raises $69M after viral billboard hiring stunt to scale AI customer interviews

Published by skeptic

Alfred Wahlforss was running out of options. His startup, Listen Labs, needed to hire over 100 engineers, but competing against Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million offers seemed impossible. So he spent $5,000 — a fifth of his marketing budget — on a billboard in San Francisco displaying what looked like gibberish: five strings of random numbers. The numbers were actually AI tokens. Decoded, they led to a coding challenge: build an algorithm to act as a digital bouncer at Berghain, the Berlin nightclub famous for rejecting nearly everyone at the door. Within days, thousands attempted the puzzle. 430 cracked it. Some got hired. The winner flew to Berlin, all expenses paid. That unconventional approach has now attracted $69 million in Series B funding, led by Ribbit Capital with participation from Evantic and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Conviction, and Pear VC. The round values Listen Labs at $500 million and brings its total capital to $100 million. In nine months since launch, the company has grown annualized revenue by 15x to eight figures and conducted over one …

iPhone SOS: Verizon Apologizes for Outage, Promises Customer Credits

iPhone SOS: Verizon Apologizes for Outage, Promises Customer Credits

Published by skeptic

Verizon today experienced a major outage, which it now says has been resolved. To make up for the inconvenience, the carrier has promised that all affected customers will be credited an unspecified amount, with more details to be shared soon. “Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry,” said Verizon. Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry. They expect more from us. We are working non-stop and making progress. Our teams will continue to work through the night until service is restored for all impacted customers. We will make this right -… — Verizon News (@VerizonNews) January 15, 2026 iPhone users with Verizon service were generally unable to make phone calls, send text messages, or use data over 5G or LTE due to the outage. iPhone users typically see “SOS” in the status bar when a carrier experiences an outage. Apple explains what “SOS” means in a support document: If you see SOS or “SOS only” in the status bar, …