150841 - benjaminmoore.com - disallows non-IE browsers.

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect, P3)

Description

[Mike Palumbo]

I don't think this one has been reported yet, nothing showed up after a Bugzilla
search.

Try visiting http://www.benjaminmoore.com/ in Mozilla or NS6 (I havent tested
yet with Opera or Konqueror), and you'll be redirected to
http://www.benjaminmoore.com/retail/global/1033/no_browser.html , which gives
you the following message:

"Welcome to BenjaminMoore.com
This site has been created for usage requiring Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or
higher.

If you do not have Internet Explorer, you can download a free copy here. "

I guess Linux users don't ever buy paint?  This is the worst type of shut-out.

Comment 1

[Mike Palumbo]

Here is contact info for Bejamin Moore:

"You can also send e-mail directly to [e-mail], call
1-800-344-0400 or write us at Benjamin Moore & Co., 51 Chestnut Ridge Road,
Montvale, NJ 07645."

I will be writing them a polite letter about their website's policy.

Comment 2

[Sonny Day]

I wrote [e-mail] describing my inability to access their website
with Mozilla and got the following response.  I'm pretty sure it's a form letter
because the response came in about 2 minutes and in my email to them I mentioned
Apple, but said that I was using an MS operating system but chose not to use IE.
Basically their answer is that I should use Opera.  Here's the email.
___
Thanks for visiting the New Benjamin Moore & Co. web site. 
Just let me say that I do understand your situation and would like to offer a
possible solution for viewing our web site with another browser other than IE.
I don't like to recommend this to all of our customers due to the fact that I
don't think that anyone should have to go to any effort just to view a web site.

Try downloading Opera for MAC. 
http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?platform=mac&force=5.0 

The legendary speed of the Opera Web browser is now available on the Macintosh
in two flavors: PPC and Carbon. Opera for Mac is not only fast, but flexible and
easy to use, with a bright clean interface implemented according to the Apple
Design Guidelines.
Once loaded, this very small size browser (2 MB) will load our web site. To
access all the links in each page, simply click on view and scroll through all
of the links within each page.

Hope this helps you out and perhaps will convince you to continue to use
Benjamin Moore Paints.

Again, thank you for visiting www.benjaminmoore.com
Regards,
Mark Lamborn
Product Information Representative
Benjamin Moore & Co
Flanders, NJ
[e-mail]

Comment 3

[Mike Palumbo]

I too contacted [e-mail], about 2 weeks ago.  Mark Lamborn
replied, and told me that he had forwarded my letter to Eileen McComb, who is
the director of communications.   I have not heard anything back since then.

I believe I may call Ms. McComb later this week.  If anyone else would like to
contact her in regards to this matter, the numbers are:
201-573-6620
800-344-0400 ext. 6620 

What intrigues me is this portion of the response to Sonny Day:
"Hope this helps you out and perhaps will convince you to continue to use
Benjamin Moore Paints."

This is interesting because I made a specific point in my letter of noting that
neither I, nor any of my friends (several of which are painters) will be
purchasing any Benjamin Moore paints until they correct this issue with their
site.  Makes me wonder if I had any impact on this yet.

Also, I do not believe that Mark's letter was a form letter, as his response to
my letter was definitely personal.

Comment 4

[Chuck Orgel]

I have just received a phone call from Ms. Eileen McComb, Director of
Communications for Benjamin Moore.  She assured me that the web site will be
fixed probably within the next month.

Comment 5

[Mike Palumbo]

That is *excellent* news!  Congratulations!  Hopefully we can mark this off as
resolved within a few weeks!

Comment 6

[Damian Yerrick]

I can verify Chuck Orgel's findings.  As of today, the deny page reads:

"Coming soon: Users will be able to directly access the Benjamin Moore
site with their Netscape browser.  Thank you for your patience."

Comment 7

[Frankie]

Page now works, even the dynamic menus (although they return some errors)

Comment 8

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

tech evang june 2003 reorg