BROADBAND: A CAUTIONARY TALE.
Be very careful who you choose as your provider. See if you can follow the thread. This was my last (as of today anyway) e-mail to the customer service department of Talktalk. I've had Tiscali for the best part of two years and it has been wrong from the outset. I have summarised the story, so ignore your queries as to why didn't he?/couldn't he have done this or that etc. Just enjoy and be appalled. I was trying to close my account and was having problems. He was very sympathetic and sorry to hear of the trouble I've been having, and recommended a helpline that I had already attempted to use in the past day or two. This was my reply:
"
If I followed the advice of the customer helpline, cancelling the account is going to be impossible.
First, to recap: package requested -- broadband +24/7 telephone. Package charged for -- TV + weekend calls.
Result: initially no service at all because the broadband people thought I'd got the router etc from TV people. Then router arrived and only when monthly statements arrives am I puzzled. It took 20+ minutes online to Manila call centre to get the theoretical correction but nearly 2 years later, I'm still being invoiced for TV + weekend calls and like you, everyone is desperately sorry for all the inconvenience etc etc etc.
Back to now: advised to contact the appropriate helpline, I tried broadband: sorry, you have TV and we can't help you because that's a different section. "We'll connect you" led to the usual automated program -- repeated twice and the line went dead. (I am quadriplegic and use voice-activated system for PC -- but cannot press buttons on the phone.)
Undaunted, tried the TV line: sorry, don't recognize the number because you have no TV from us! Yes I do, that is what you are charging me for! No, you cancelled that service in 2008! No I didn't -- you are charging for it. Sorry, but we have no record.
Brainwave! I called head office reception and told them I was mightily pissed off with the whole situation: summarised and asked if there was any senior management available because I needed to talk to somebody about this who was in a position to do something. I'll put you through to somebody who can help you. Sounded promising, despite the piped music. Eventually I was through -- to a bloody call centre somewhere in Asia. (Back to Manila?) I summarised the story for her and she asked me whether I had a talktalk account. No, but I do have a Tiscali account. Sorry, she couldn't help because I didn't have an account. So, why the hell did the nameless person at head office put me through to her? She had no idea, but she couldn't help me because I didn't have a talktalk account.
It's a great story isn't it? Tell me, you think I should copy this letter to someone at the Daily Mail or Which? While you're pondering that, there is still the matter of closing my account as from midnight, Thursday June 17. Please advise."
The (mostly) temperate ravings of someone desperately treading water in a world which has become a sea of idiocy.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
THE BUTTOCK IMPORT CONUNDRUM.
Why does Britain continue to import buttocks?
It's not as if we weren't extremely successful in growing fat bottoms of our own, as can be seen in many classrooms and shopping centres. This place seems to be a magnet for those with grossly disproportionate gluteal endowments.
Cecilia (name changed to avoid legal embarrassment) must have won awards somewhere for her assets. I swear that light bends around her, such is her gravitational effect. I rather suspect that constructing her must have contravened her home country Gambia's building, safety and planning regulations. However, Newton's 3rd law operates, even here, in a care home (in a fashion)! Nothing is without consequence: despite the energy generated by her enormous calorie consumption, so much of that energy and effort is being directed towards maintaining her structure that very little is left to support brain activity. That must be the reason she has difficulty grasping concepts like "the key on the keyboard with an arrow pointing to the left", "the other one", "on your left", "my left leg", "the grey one goes underneath the red one" and others.
I mustn't be too critical though. The agency concerned may have a great store of as-yet-undiscovered buttocks to send here in the guise of "carers".
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