I totally forgot to post to let people know about updates on my situation. I'm so sleepy that I can barely keep my eyes open at the moment, so I'll just get straight to the point.

Firstly, I want to thank Gary for sending a note to TC's customer care team in Christchurch. Here is what happened in the last couple of days. On Wednesday, Orcon was having a problem with its call management system, so its call centre was basically not functioning. I urgently needed to find out my asid, so I decided to just go to their physical office, and also go to TC's office while I'm on it.

Everyone was busy at the Orcon office, so I quickly obtained asid number, asked a receptionist to arrange someone in charge to call me later that day. Then, I headed to TC's North Shore office, and that's when finally some things started happening. After waiting at the reception area for a while, I met one of technical team leaders in the building. I will just refer to him as Mr G in the following.

It took him about only 10 min to get his team working on the case and get briefed on the situation. We had about 20 min conversation. He said he had suspicion that Orcon might have cancelled my line (more on this later), said that the setting up of my line and service seemed to be due for completion on the 31st Jan (after numerous phone calls to TC's customer centre, this was the first time I was told about the exact date). He said that he would request that the provisioning team start working on it, send a complaint to a complaint officer, and get back to me later that day. The entire meeting was quite pleasant and fruitful.

A couple of hours after that, this time, someone from Orcon called me. He informed me that someone actually cancelled my line (seriously, this could have caused soooo much trouble). This was very weird because when I called, I emphasised and double checked that they cancel my service but do not request cancellation of my line because it's to be ported to TC. He said he will trace down the conversation and get back to me on Friday. 

Right after this, I sent a txt to Mr G saying that Orcon cancelled my line. He replied pretty much right away, and to my surprise, he said that he actually got the provisioning team working on it and might even be able to connect me up before the 31st.

Yesterday, I got call from Mr G in the morning. And... ... ... he told me that the work has been scheduled and I can probably get connected on Friday!!! 

In the afternoon, I got a call from one of TC's complaint officers. This call lasted about 40 min. He gave me a sincere apology, informed me about the actual details about what actually happened and was happening, and offered to negotiate some sort of compensation. I asked for compensation to cover costs that the situation incurred (mostly coming from the dongle I bought), and he said okay straight away.

So there it is folks. As long as everything goes as I was informed yesterday, I'll be a very happy customer of TC. Finally, I would like to bring to the attention the summary of exactly what happened and some tips. Oh, and I would like thank the team leader, Gary, and the complaint officer.

SUMMARY (according to what the complaint officer told me)

I sign the contract with TC and send Orcon service a cancellation notice on the 14th or 16th of Dec (sorry, I cannot remember exactly which). TC sends a porting request pretty much straight afterwards. However, Orcon does not pick this request up and no acknowledge is sent back to TC. This request is pretty much forgotten by both the parties and sits there until the actual porting date.

I call TC's call centre (I believe this is actually in Manila) on last Friday to raise an issue. On Sunday (which was the porting date), my connection is working most of the time, and I assume that the porting was done. On Tuesday, I, out of old habit, check my data usage on Orcon website and find out that my connection is still with Orcon. I call to see what has happened. (People seem to think that I explicitly requested my service to be cancelled here, but I actually did not.) A customer care person informs me that there was no porting request from TC and also I only gave Orcon cancellation notice, but no cancellation order. I'm OFFERED to have my notification taken as an order, and (thoughtlessly) accept it.

I make numerous calls to TC's call centre to get the problem sorted and ask for compensation. After a few hours spent calling and talking to various people (including someone from "retention team" as well), I basically get to nowhere. 

Wed, I waste the entire morning making calls to TC and Orcon call centres again. In the afternoon, I head down to their physical offices. 

Thu, I'm informed pretty much everything's been sorted and also my complaint is properly handled.


TIPS

TC has their main customer care team in Christchurch. I believe my problem would have been sorted a lot sooner if I called them straight away. If you call the toll free number, you are calling the call centre in Manila. So if you ever find yourself in a situation similar to the one I was in (i.e. if you are having trouble even figuring out what is happening, and talking to the people in Manila is getting nowhere), try calling Christchurch one or just going to the nearest physical office. Seriously, it's totally worth the little effort. 

Don't take everything that customer care people (at the bottom level) tell you at face value. Of course, they wouldn't lie on purpose, but they might be as misguided as you are (I think that the biggest misguiding bit of information I was given this time was Orcon customer care person telling me "there hasn't been a request from TC.").

Well, I'll try to let people know the rest of the progress tonight. But I think this topic can be pretty much closed now.