I'm posting this while I still have access to the Internet, I'm hoping I'm posting this in the right section in the forum. Also, I'll be making the same posts in other forums, so I'm sorry if anyone is offended by this behavior. I believe that I have been wronged by TelstraClear, and their quality of service and trying to express my opinion and hear about other people's opinions. I used to be with Orcon, and I decided to move to TelstraClear last month (you know, there is that 30 days notice problem). I talked to both the parties a month ago, and expected there to be no problem with porting the line or to be informed if there is one.
I had a bad feeling that something might have gone wrong last week, as I had heard nothing from TelstraClear when I was supposed to start using there service within a week. I rang them a couple of times on Friday, talked to a couple of representatives. Apparently, the order was there, but for some reason it wasn't being "forced through the system." They made the request then, and told me to expect to be contacted from the provision team.
The line porting was supposed to be done on the Sunday, and I had no problem using the connection so I assumed that the porting was done successfully. Today, I did habitual usage checking on Orcon website (I was doing that just to be sure that its service was discontinued) and found out that I was still using their line. And here is the crux of my story.
I called their customer care and found out that I had given them the "notification," (including the date that I want the service to be discontinued) but hadn't given them the "order" for cancellation. Honestly, I don't see the difference, but it didn't matter that much. They were gracious enough to "backtrack" to my notification and treat it as a cancellation order. And they informed me that they haven't received any "porting request" from TelstraClear, which was a bad surprise.
So I called TelstraClear this time. I was told, "there is a problem with your order. It's not being forced through in the system. I just escalated the issue, and you should expect to hear back from us within a week as it might take a week. Meanwhile, call back Orcon and tell them not to discontinue their service for a while."
... Gosh, I called Orcon again this time to make the request, but was met with "sorry. Your cancellation order was backtracked to the day you notified us, and was put through. It has been done and the system says that your service was discontinued on the 24th of January. And sorry, we cannot put you back on service." Hmmm, that didn't make me feel any better, but it was certainly an understandable reply.
So what should I do now? I guess I will just buy a dongle (mobile Internet) to last me a week and ask TelstraClear for the compensation for the inconvenience caused by the delay. My next action was to call TelstraClear with that plan in my mind. I called them, and a customer service representative (sorry, I can't remember her name) answered. Her first reply was, bad luck there, but we've done everything we can and you just need to wait. Wait, what? Really? So I brought up the subject of compensation for the inconvenience caused. Here is the response that really surprised and angered me. I will use C for the customer representative. And please understand I'm only reenacting the gesture of the conversation and the following conversation is not verbatim.
ME: Regarding the matter, can I get some sort of compensation for the inconvenience?
C: Sure. There is nothing we can do now, so you will need to wait for the matter to be solved first.
ME: Okay. Just for argument's sake, how much compensation can I expect?
C: Let's say that because of this problem, you are left without Internet connection for 7 days. Then, at the end of billing cycle, your compensation will be paid in credit according to our compensation scheme. You will be paid back 7 * (monthly bill/30).
ME: ??? what about the compensation for the inconvenience and extra cost incurred because of the delay? At the moment, I actually won't have Internet connection for I don't know how long exactly.
C: NO. We ARE compensating you for the inconvenience. We are not charging you for the exact number of days you don't get to use the service.
ME: Let me give you an example. What if I really need to use the Internet during this period and by a dongle, or mobile Internet, which might cost me anywhere around 100 dollars? Can I expect to be reimbursed for that?
C: Well, if you decide to buy mobile phone (I'm just deriding her a bit here, because she didn't understand mobile Internet or dongle and thought I was talking about buying mobile phone to use the Internet) because of the inconvenience, that's your choice, we will still give you the compensation for the 7 days.
And then, the conversation went nowhere from there. I was saying that that's not a compensation for the inconvenience caused and she kept saying, "no. Instead of charging you for the whole month, we are compensating you back for the days you didn't get to use the service." I asked to talk to someone with more authority, but her supervisor wasn't there and she said that I would get exactly the same reply.
Because I originally signed up for 12 months contract, and I didn't like the look of it already, I tried to talk to someone from the "retention team" and see if I can get out of contract. I was trying to see if I can get out of it if I didn't like the service later. I was talking to her about getting out of contract, and I asked if I could get out of contract. She said that I should be able to before the connection was setup, but I would need to do it quickly. At that point, I gave up on even asking if I can try for a couple of months and then get out of contract.
Well, the bottom line is, I was told, "sorry. The problem is at our end. For that, we will be gracious enough not to charge you for the service for the days you don't get to use our service." Honestly, they acted like I was an unreasonable customer, and was making too much fuss out of it. Was I that unreasonable for asking for a small compensation for the inconvenience? Sure, these days, no one uses the Internet on daily basis, so it's unreasonable to ask for THAT MUCH compensation (it's not like I asked for a couple of thousand dollars).
I would like to hear other people's opinions on the matter.
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