The problem is, nobody seems to know how to get there. Most of this is Pogo’s fault, they’ve hidden it deep under an “Email Us” link with no mention of Live chat anywhere on their site. Here’s a detailed, step-by-step instruction guide to reaching Live Chat so you can get the help and answers you need from Pogo:

• In the upper right hand corner of any page on Pogo’s site, click on Help. That will open the Support Home Page.
• From the left sidebar of the Support Home Page, choose “Email Us”. You may be prompted to log in again. Do that.
• Choose your game and category using the dropdown menus.

Here’s where it gets tricky. IF Live Chat is available, the option to either go to Live Chat or Continue with Email will show up below the dropdown menus. It looks like this:

If the Live Chat option doesn’t appear, then Live Chat is not available at the time. You can either continue with an email or repeat the process above during the Live Chat hours of operation: 6am to 10pm Pacific.

Hope this helps. May all of your customer support problems be resolved!

For those of you who missed the great chat fiasco of 2010: on April 6 Pogo updated their game chat window. After an overwhelming negative response from the community, Pogo allowed us to vote for our choice of chat color starting on April 17. By a landslide, the red color came in first. Today, the changes that were implemented more or less return the chat text to the way it was prior to April 6.

Chat Changes

To start, the Editor responded to numerous complaints about the chat changes, telling us of their plans to change the chat once again:

Thanks to you, and to all those who spent the time putting together letters to the Editor regarding the recent changes to the chat format. As anyone who watches chat knows, we made some changes, and then we made some more changes.

And guess what? We need to make a few more changes to make the chat flow as well as it used to. Thanks for your patience on this. We do expect that the chat format will be changed again soon, hopefully to everyone’s liking.

So we’ll be seeing more change to the chat colors in the coming days. So far we have no idea what they’re planning, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the chat colors change back to what they were, since that seems to be the overwhelming request from Pogo’s fans.

Spoofing

Also discussed was “spoofing”, something that our very own regular ELL had happen to her and described in our last weekend open thread. (ELL, was that your letter?) Unfortunately, Pogo’s only solution is for you to report the offending account so they can delete it; beyond that, they claim there just isn’t much they can do.

IE6 Must Die

Pogo is no longer going to support IE6 — this doesn’t mean you can’t use it to access Pogo, it just means if there’s a problem their Customer Support can’t help you. They encourage everyone to use IE8, Firefox, or Chrome. If for no other reason than your own security, you should ditch IE6 for something that won’t leave your computer vulnerable to attacks. “Just like not updating your virus software can get you riddled with spyware, not updating your browser can be a gateway to attacks. There are even code snippets that will shut down IE6. I won’t tell you what they are, but you can find them on Wikipedia. It’s unstable.”

And Clue!

The UK Letters to the Editor this week covers chat changes, Pogo UK pricing, and this little gem, perhaps the best news of all:

CLUEDO Secrets & Spies, to give it its full name (CLUEDO is called CLUE in the US) will be out real soon! All being well, it’ll be up before the next Letters to Editor column…

Looks like we’ve got a scheduled release date of April 20th for the Clue/Cluedo hidden object game — mark your calendars and keep your fingers crossed that nothing holds it back! To tide you over until Tuesday, check out the How to Play file or get more information on Clue: Secrets & Spies in our archives.

These Pogo surveys are always interesting because they give us a hint of what Pogo might be considering for the future. For example, this one discusses prizes and jackpots, member benefits (even a question about getting download games for half off!), annual rewards for paying members, referring friends to Club Pogo, Pogo vs. Facebook games and Pogo on Facebook, Pogo games on iPhone, iPod Touch and/or iPad, and more.

Did you take the survey? If you could make Pogo implement one idea of yours or one idea from their survey questions, what would it be?

- Sex-Charged Cyberchat Spirals Out of Control
- Cyber Love Triangle Fuels Murder
- ‘MarineSniper’ and ‘Talhotblond’s’ IMs

We’ll post a link to the video of last night’s episode when it becomes available on ABC’s web site. The video clip embedded in the teaser articles includes a short clip of the riveting interview with Thomas Montgomery, aka MarineSniper, 46, who pretended to be 18 years old on Pogo.

This is more than just a story of love gone bad, it becomes so twisted at the end — you’ve got to either watch the video or read the whole story. Take a look at this Wired magazine article from 2007, which details the whole sordid affair from beginning to end.

In addition to the Wired story two years ago and last night’s 20/20 episode, there’s a documentary called “TalHotBlond“; it’s available on Amazon
for download rental, download purchase, or DVD purchase if you’re interested in checking it out.

A quick check of Pogo for user profiles matching these folks’ screennames comes up with nothing for MarineSniper1000, but non-Club accounts for Beefcake1572 (created in 2005, including profile information filled out including a link to his myspace page) and TalHotBlondbig50 (created in 2003, but with less than a million tokens and sporting a male mini). It’s eerie to see them still ‘active’ and publicly accessible.

What do you think of this story? After hearing about what happened, does it change at all how you’ll play at Pogo in the future? Leave your thoughts in a comment below.

Thanks Austin for the heads-up on this one, we’d almost forgotten about it entirely.

*We love this. The site states “Let us know what you think! What games do you love, which games could be better? We welcome and encourage any feedback you might have.” However, there’s no link to contact them near that paragraph or anywhere else on the site. We guess you can just send your thoughts to editor@pogo.com.

Here’s some information if you’re unfamiliar with the beta-testing process:

Become a Pogo™ Beta Tester!
We’re looking for players to help us identify problems and give us feedback on games before they go live on Pogo. You’ll be a part of the super secret society whose goal is to make Pogo games more fun! Okay, so maybe it’s not a super secret society, but it is an opportunity to preview Pogo games and to take part in making the games you play everyday! As a Beta Tester you will get to:

* Play Pogo games before they are released
* Provide feedback and opinions on specific game features and game play
* Alert us to game bugs (problems)
* Hang out and play games with other Beta Testers

Good luck to everyone with your applications!

The next PBA in development is Spike’s Casino. It’ll probably be released in January, but I’ll keep you posted if I hear otherwise. I will post the badges and their requirements later.

There’s a sweepstakes going on in Pogo Bowl for another few days. Play Pogo Bowl daily between December 15 – December 20 for chance to win $1,000 for you and a $1,000 for your favorite charity or a Portable Media Player and $10 gift card.

Several folks have written in wondering if Pet Society on Facebook is the replacement for Pogo Puppies, or at least the reason it’s retiring. “In the world of Pet Society, you and your pet can play games, decorate your house and even bring gifts to your friends! Enjoy many games and activities– play ball, jump rope, treasure hunt and partake in contests against other pets at the Pet Stadium!”

Until December 26, Pogo is having a sale on select Mini items and badges. It looks like you can get a lot of stuff for 25% off, including select M-n-M badges and all of the Premium Badge Albums (except Take a Trip).

Last, but not least: thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has sent in news and rumors so far. You guys rock! And keep ‘em coming! And thank you SO MUCH to everyone who sent in well-wishes and congratulations. We’re doing great, and just downright smitten with our new addition. Tired tired tired, but smitten. :)

So… I’m going to be taking some time off for myself and my family. This is only temporary and only for a short period of time.

This notice will remain at the top of the BadgeHungry home page until I’m back — don’t forget to scroll past this post for the latest news.

Things around here won’t change much for most of you, but the most frequent visitors will notice a few changes for a little while:

The Trivial Pursuit and Crossword Cove answers will still be posted regularly, however probably not as promptly as you’re used to. If the answers for the day haven’t been posted, please feel free to come back and try again later.

Weekend Open Threads will be suspended until I have time once again to devote to moderating the comments. If you have questions, please use the search box (on the right sidebar) to search for answers and information.

News may not be posted as immediately as you’re used to. I’ll do my best to gather the news and rumors that you send in and make informative posts as often as I have time. I’ll be relying upon all of you to help me keep our community of Pogo fans up to date! In addition, new threads won’t have comments open until I once again have full time to devote to the site.

And last, but not least, I won’t be able to answer email as promptly as usual and probably — for a little while — not at all. If your email doesn’t require a response, let me say thank you in advance.

I appreciate your understanding and patience while I’m more or less “afk” and I hope you all have a great holiday season.

With much love and happiness,

Lura

PS: it’s a boy! He arrived on 12/12! Thanks again for your patience while I take care of my new little man. :) Thanks for all of the well-wishes and congratulations!