Um, small rant about a large telephone company.

[Tali]

I'm so sorry Ben. I actually PRINTED out the Expat Manifesto and SIGNED it in front of all my friends but I really have to have a vent about Telefonica who have wound me up to breaking point on the sixth consecutive phonecall since we had a line put in last August. HOW can a company this large be so utterly utterly useless? My bill was due to be paid on the 6th Jan ie 37 minutes ago. I've been away for Christmas and generally not very attentive to all the post piling up, so I admit that the situation is TOTALLY my fault. I agree that I am a wee bit silly in that I am solely responsible for this and am expecting disconnection come Monday....however, Telefonica just make the situation 300 times worse when they make facetious comments like "well madam, you have had a whole month to pay it" and "well madam, you can avoid this by direct debiting your bills" (when I have just explained to them that this is not actually possible for me at this moment in time) and when asking them what can I do to not get cut off for the next 15 days and/or avoid paying a 15 euro reconnection fee their answer is "nothing" (their actual words). Having had several jobs in Customer Service departments, this jars on my nerves ever so slightly, but also I NEVER get shirty with Customer Service staff. Except with Telefonica. I reckon they have a training lesson there called something like "Facetious, Sarcastic, Smart-a*se Smug Comments 101".

OK thats it. Rant over. I'll get back to digesting my Roscon de Reyes and proper chocolate caliente. Happy Reyes everyone! xx

[deecree]

It's not that they are useless, it's that they are the Anti-Christ.

[landlady]

I've heard so many complaints about Telefonica, their poor business skills and their non existent customer service, I could write a book about it. Can't wait for more competition to come into the market and knock them off their perch.

[Jerezano]

Don't hold your breath!

We've always called it "Timo-fonica"!

[Ben]

Don't worry Tali, the expat manifesto can always be broken in the case of Telefonica!

[Tali]

Thanks Ben! Good to know that the manifesto is a little flexible ;) I also thingk they should change their Customer Service number from 1004 to 666. At least that way people are forewarned.

[deecree]

My internet connection had been non-existent for almost a day because the DNS servers of Telefonica seemed to be down.
Calling Telefonica was no help - they completely refused to listen to what I had to say - the reason as to why I couldn't access the web. Raising her voice she said that I must first turn off the modem and wait ten minutes before turning it back on and call back. "That won't fix YOUR DNS servers", I stated. I got a lot more "This is the process, you must follow the process". Before she said she will send out an engineer to fix my router:confused:, told me a time, and abruptly hung up.
The engineer is 3 hours late now, but Telefonica seem to have rebooted there 2 DNS servers.

[gary]

My internet connection had been non-existent for almost a day because the DNS servers of Telefonica seemed to be down.
Calling Telefonica was no help - they completely refused to listen to what I had to say - the reason as to why I couldn't access the web. Raising her voice she said that I must first turn off the modem and wait ten minutes before turning it back on and call back. "That won't fix YOUR DNS servers", I stated. I got a lot more "This is the process, you must follow the process". Before she said she will send out an engineer to fix my router:confused:, told me a time, and abruptly hung up.
The engineer is 3 hours late now, but Telefonica seem to have rebooted there 2 DNS servers.

Call centres are call centres - at least you werent routed to the southern hemisphere....

[Culebronchris]

Well I think Telefonica are lovely. Kind, courteous etc. I've now put in four different lines, added a couple of ADSL connections and they've always turned up on time, done more or less what they said they'd do etc.

When you all complain about Telefonica I just come back about CajaMurcia.

Question by email: Can you tell me why you've charged me 10.85€ on an account I closed 6 months ago?

Answer: According to 16 article minister rule law ECO/734/2004 of march 11 about departament bank clients (B.O.E. 24/03/2004), we inform you that to attend your consult you need to have electronic signature according to the rules law 59/2003 of december 19, about electronic signature (B.O.E. 20/12/2003).

[rod]

I also thingk they should change their Customer Service number from 1004 to 666. At least that way people are forewarned.


666 is already taken - by NTL in the UK (or should that be NTHell?). I won't go into the details of my latest problem with them: just to say that they made what turned out to be a really routine repair job into this massive obstacle course including expensive mobile phone calls re-routed to Indian call centres (with the telltale annoying delay). I am convinced that many telecommunications and computer companies deliberately make it difficult to contact them in the hope that you will first a) give up or b) die.

And NTL has competition (allegedly), so the idea that competition stops companies from being rubbish is I think wishful thinking.

Rant over.

[Culebronchris]

I tried really hard to pay NTL before I left the UK but they were too stupid to be able to take money from my credit card.

[Tali]

Well I think Telefonica are lovely. Kind, courteous etc. I've now put in four different lines, added a couple of ADSL connections and they've always turned up on time, done more or less what they said they'd do etc.

When you all complain about Telefonica I just come back about CajaMurcia.

Question by email: Can you tell me why you've charged me 10.85€ on an account I closed 6 months ago?

Answer: According to 16 article minister rule law ECO/734/2004 of march 11 about departament bank clients (B.O.E. 24/03/2004), we inform you that to attend your consult you need to have electronic signature according to the rules law 59/2003 of december 19, about electronic signature (B.O.E. 20/12/2003).

Not wishing to state to obvious but may this not be due to the fact that you live in the campo??? There's probably only about 5 of you in a space the equivalent of Malaga or something! There might even be 10 Telefonica engineers to every person up where you live you lucky man!

For the rest of us, Telefonica continues to be employed by people with horns and pitchforks, whose sole purpose on earth is to enfuriate otherwise incredibly calm ADSL users. But, for the record, I have yet to be cut off. Which only proves how the call centre monkeys know NOTHING about their procedures, and therefore enfuriating me even more because that just proves I am right!

[Culebronchris]

Fair enough. That's what it must be!

[saiguanas]

In the US, many households are dumping their home phone service and using their cell phones exclusively. Not a majority by any means but more and more all of the time.

Is that practical in Spain?

The draw back is that your mobile phone is mobile and in an emergency it's good to have atleast one phone that is attached to the wall so that you can find it. Also if you are going to have a phone based internet provider you need to have a phone line, of course. If you have cable it doesn't really matter.