Saturday, October 22, 2005

1-300-88-9515

If you have called this number before, you should be able to understand my frustrations. Not only is it virtually impossible to get through to someone who can attend to your call and assist you with your TMnet Streamyx problems, they will always put the blame on you, as the customer for any problems you are facing. As a technical know-how and tech-savvy person, it's even more frustrating to hear the ridiculous suggestions that they offer as remedy for your connection woes.

I've been having some problems with the upload stream on my Streamyx connection for the past few weeks but refused to go through the hassle of reporting the matter and hoped the problem will be resolved in due time. Unfortunately, it has been really crippling my productivity online lately (even causing my blog to be corrupted due to a severed connection while I was halfway through updating it!) so I finally decided to make a report. While I was troubleshooting the computer at my grandparent's place, I decided to call up TMnet's Customer Interaction Centre to highlight my connectivity problems. It took more than 10 minutes for someone to take my call and the music (and message played at intervals) were excruciating annoying!

Finally when someone was able to take my call, he put the blame on my system settings for the slow connection. Firstly, he asked me to change from an auto-dialer to a manual dialer. Huh?!? What does that have anything to do with the slow connection? Next, he asked me to disable all my protective softwares such as firewalls, antivirus and antispyware. WHAT?!? Is he out of his mind? This is totally absurb! This has to be two of the worst ever ideas to rectify a slow upstream connection! What does the type of the dialer have anything to do with it and how is it that disabling my protective softwares would help or even be relevant when they have been find all these while, even on different computers I'm using elsewhere?!? If TMnet's solution is for everyone to let their guard down and get their systems infected by viruses and all the scum of the internet, wouldn't that cause a massive problem to their servers and systems instead? Silly, really!

I wasn't able to entertain him by following his 'procedures from the manual' since I was not at my home to test his methods out (which I clearly know makes no sense at all). I insisted on him to file my report/complaint and give me a report number but he insisted that I try out those methods first before he proceeds with issuing me a report number. I had no choice but to hang-up the call and rush back to my home in the rain to try those lame methods.

As I've predicted, those nonsensical methods didn't help one bit. I immediately called back and had to go through the tedious wait for my call to be attended, being 'entertained' by the music and a voice recording. Finally, J picked up my call. I related to him what has transpired earlier and told him I insisted that he file my complaint now and give me a report number. He went through a list of the methods that his colleague had earlier requested that I try out first and for every method, I told him it did not help. Then he asked me if I've configured the DNS for my dialer. Huh?!? Say what? I wasn't asked to try that method out by his colleague. He gave me two DNS addresses (202.188.0.133 and 202.188.1.5) but when I tried that on the manual dialer, it still didn't work. He claims that both the dialers were clashing and that is the cause of the manual dialer not being able to connect me to their servers.

When I switched back to the auto-dialer, my internet connection was totally screwed! I couldn't get online at all now! Worse still, he now claims that he cannot proceed with my earlier complaint of slow upstream connection and had to file a no connection complaint instead! Arghh!!! The frustration! I told him that he must not do that and that I will get the connection back myself. He should instead file my earlier complaint of a slow upstream connection so they will be able to rectify that problem! I told him that if he insisted on filing the no connection report, he must also include that I was experiencing slow upstream connections before that so they will look into both issues instead of just the no connectivity and still leave me with a slow upstream connection. After much haggling, he finally conceded to put both complaints in the report.

After he finally took my particulars and gave me my report number, I realised that I was on the phone for over an hour! That's truly good money for TM when in the first place, the problem was at their end, not mine. I also realised that and I still haven't taken my dinner and it was already close to 11pm. I have to commend J for being very patient and helpful as I can be really a pain-in-the-ass in such situations.

The next morning, I received a call from someone enquiring about my internet connection. I told him I've got it back up myself the previous night but the upstream is still a problem. He immediately told me not to worry as it is a server problem and it has nothing to do with me or my system and they will look into the matter and resolve it soon. Isn't it shocking to hear this after they kept on putting the blame on my system, kept me on the line for more than an hour and worse still, it turns out that what I've been trying to tell them all this while was something I've known all along? Shhhheeeessshhhh!!!

TMnet must rewrite their manuals so that it doesn't always put the blame on the customers when 9 out of 10 situations, the problem is with them and not the customers. TMnet have to rethink on their ridiculous methods that directs their customers to disable their protective softwares and switch to manual dialers instead of using auto-dialers. TMnet must also shorten the waiting time (or provide a FREE customer hotline instead) and increase the speed in handling any situation put forward to them. TMnet must ensure that their technical staff are technical enough to serve such requests. This is not the first time I've faces problems with them when I call this number. I do hope this is the very last time I have to do so.




2 comments:

  1. wow...pity u.
    and yeah, their choice of music is awful...

    ReplyDelete
  2. still having the upstream problem and no one has called up to report on the progress yet! terrible!

    ReplyDelete