Bugs, Peculiarities Abound in Coupon Program Startup

We wanted to probe the system’s ease of use and its robustness against waste, fraud and abuse (coupon requests can’t be made from a pay phone, we found). We found NTIA’s system performed well at times, inconsistently at others. In seeking to apply for coupons by phone, we dialed NTIA’s “consumer hotline” (1-888-DTV-2009) expecting to be connected to a live operator. To our surprise, the process is highly automated, especially for those who dial from home phones bearing listed numbers. That’s because NTIA’s IBM vendor and its subcontractors have linked that phone number to a name and an address.

All that’s required of such callers is to verify that the name and address are correct and to “self-certify” that “all or some” of the TVs in the household are connected to cable or satellite, or none at all. Under NTIA rules, at first all households are eligible for two coupons each in the current phase of the program, whether they subscribe to cable or satellite or rely exclusively on over-the-air reception. However, once supplies of the first 22.25 million coupons are exhausted, a “contingent” phase of 11.25 million coupons will be available only to households that attest they're over-the- air only.

One of our staffers called from a land-line in a home where his mother lives with relatives. The mother has a separate phone number from the home-owner and has no cable or satellite subscriptions, although the homeowner does. When told the caller had no pay-TV services, NTIA promptly approved two coupons for converters. It then provided a reference number for the approval, and correctly advised that the converter boxes were not available in stores now but would be in late February. It also advised that the coupons expire in 90 days, and lost or stolen ones can’t be replaced.

But minutes later, when phoned from the homeowner’s different land-line, NTIA rejected the coupon request. Our tester had inadvertently punched the code for “no pay-TV services,” and NTIA’s automated system immediately said its records indicated otherwise, and rejected the coupon request. It gave a reference number for the rejection, and advised the caller to mail a letter of appeal to Portland, Ore. That’s the home city of Epiq Systems, the IBM subcontractor that’s handling coupon requests.

From this we first thought NTIA rejected the request because we had inadvertently said that the home was not connected to cable or satellite and it found the home on a database of pay-TV subscribers. But when we tried reapplying, NTIA’s reason for rejection became clear. It said that the address already was approved for two coupons -- the limit per household. This seems like it could have bearing on single homes that have been split into multiple rental spaces -- not uncommon in areas with large immigrant communities.

One of our team, though he had reference number in hand as proof his application had been accepted, nevertheless was concerned that the phone procedure gave him no option for entering his apartment number. Beginning late New Year’s Day and again on Wednesday, he tried several times to reach live customer service reps to rectify the problem. What he found suggests either the call center was inundated with coupon requests or was short-staffed on the holiday. In each try, he was placed on hold for a long time, was accidentally disconnected or received the recorded message, “We're currently unable to assist you in applying for a coupon.” It suggested that he try the coupon request website, www.dtv2009.gov, or to call back later. “We should be able to assist you soon,” it said.

Long waits for customer assistance did no favors for several of our team who tried to request coupons over their cellphones. There, the process is different than for those called in over a home landline. A voice prompt first asks the caller to state his or her zipcode, then the street address. But several had problems getting the system to accept a spoken last name, even one of our team whose name is a single syllable and not uncommon. Despite repeatedly stating and spelling that last name, the system didn’t quite get it right. It then gave our caller an example of how to properly say and spell the name, “Smith.” Again, he tried it, but again no luck. After several more failed attempts, the system transferred our caller to a customer service rep, but after 10 minutes on hold, he gave up. The experience begs the question of how well the system will cope with more obscure or foreign names.

As for requesting coupons online, applying for them Wednesday was a breeze upon reaching the DTV coupon website. But getting to the site was no picnic. A Google search for it turned up the NTIA DTV coupon site (www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon), which until midday Wednesday apparently had no links or any other reference to the actual application site. And the actual application site (www.dtv2009.gov) didn’t show up at first in several Google searches. By early afternoon, the bright orange icon for www.dtv2009.gov was prominent on NTIA’s home page.

At www.dtv2009.gov, repeated tries were necessary to get access to what appeared to be a very busy server. For one applicant, the connection timed out at least a dozen times before a successful connection was made, for another it took three tries. Another got through on the first attempt. It appeared to be the luck of the draw. But the site was a dream once getting there. One applicant finished the process in less than a minute.

Not so for another of our team who got hung up when the system rejected his address as insufficient for reasons it didn’t say. Another error message rejected the city name he had entered, saying it could only contain “characters” (he hadn’t entered any numbers). Finally, it bounced him back to the home page with the error message: “We're sorry for the inconvenience. An unexpected error has occurred and has been logged.” We had encountered that same error message when trying to apply online early on New Year’s Day, but the problem disappeared by afternoon.

Those who successfully submitted applications were given six-digit reference numbers. By 4 p.m. Wednesday, assigned reference numbers had climbed past the 611,000 mark. Whether that’s an accurate count of the number of consumers who had applied couldn’t be determined, as NTIA couldn’t be reached for comment on our findings.

Successful applicants were told not to expect their coupons in the mail until late February or early March, when sufficient retail inventories of boxes were expected. That’s consistent with recent NTIA statements that it would begin mailing out coupons on Feb. 17, one year to the date before analog service goes dark. But online applicants in languages other than English or Spanish were being told differently. Links in French, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese and Tagalog bring the applicant not to a version of the online form available in English or Spanish, but to a PDF application form. Applicants can print out the form and mail or fax it. But the top of the form says coupons will be mailed out in two or three weeks.