I’m a long term Telecom customer for the past 10+ years, I can’t say I’m always satisfied with Telecom’s product and services, but at least there isn’t much reason for me to switch to other vendor.
I was very pleased with Telecom’s recent Bigtime boardband plan, I recommended it to all of friends as ‘the best boardbard NZ ever had’, and although I’m disappointed that Telecom terminated that product, but I totally understand the costing aspect, and I reckon Telecom at least deserve credit for trying, and I had the best boardband experience in the past year.
At sometime around June, just like everybody else I received a letter from Telecom officially announce Bigtime is coming to an end. Telecom offered me two options:
1. Switch to a 20G Telecom Boardband plan at 18th of Aug, and as a bonus, I’ll get 20G of extra cap at first two month.
2. If I didn’t contact Telecom by 30th of June, my plan will be automatically removed from BigTime, and switch to 20G Telecom Boardband by 8th of Oct.
At that time, I figured 8th of Oct is not bad, so I’ll keep on enjoy my BigTime plan till 8th of Oct. However today I suddenly found my plan been switched to the 20G Telecom plan.
So I called up Telecom Custom Service and ask, and it termed out, Telecom claimed they use the word “BY 8th of Oct”, hence it means my BigTime plan will end at 8th of Oct the latest, but it can terminate earlier. They keep on stress the letter use the word “BY”, not “AT”
I expressed my disappointment rationally, and I perfectly realise Telecom Customer Service reps don’t wrote the letter and they certainly don’t dictate Telecom policy. In the end I accepted that there is nothing the Service reps can help me, they are bound by their company policy.
But I personally felt I was mislead by Telecom. In the context of daily life language, if I call up my wife and said “I’ll be off work today by 5”, then it’s only reasonably for my wife to expect me finish off work at 5. If I know in advanced that I may be finishing off work between 3pm-5pm, then I won’t call my wife and say ‘I’ll be off work by 5’ and expecting my wife to miraculously guessed there is a change I could be finishing work at 3pm. Furthermore, if I know my wife need to make important arrangement base on the time I finish of work, I will definitely be more specific about it.
Now, lets look at Telecom’s letter.
Basically, if I switch to their 20G Plan by 16th of Aug, I got free 40G extra data. But if I don’t switch, I may just get normal 20G plan starting from 16 of Aug. But that’s the critical piece of information that wasn’t presented to me in the letter. If I know this information, it will certainly impact my judgement. Telecom simply said “my plan will be automatically removed from BigTime, and switch to 20G Telecom Boardband by 8th of Oct”. I don’t have a law background, and English isn’t my first language, I didn’t pick by the difference between the word “BY” and “AT”. But personally I felt I was misleaded.
Anyway, I remember last year I was happened to walk pass a Telecom office during the time Telecom’s XT network just launched and I saw some big posters hanging on their wall, saying the Core Value of Telecom is “Honesty” and “Integrity”. Well, it’s very ironic for a organisation that self-proclaimed to be “Honesty” and “Integrity” to treat a loyal customer with such deceitful language and misleading letters.
This strikes me that even at the point of time where Telecom is bidding for the coming 1.5 billion national optic fibre project, I would have thought publicity, integrity and customer satisfaction will be top on Telecom’s priority. But apparently, even just 2 month’s worth of boardband plan on a very small proportion customers is the profit they willing to make at sacrifice of their core value, honesty and integrity.
But again, I don’t have legal background at all, and maybe the fault is mine in misinterpreting Telecom’s letter. So I want some opinions. I wonder if my story worthy of complain toward Commence Commission and media? (Hearld, etc..)
Cheers
Bill
Trusted
