The Cattery

The Cattery

Customer Service Broke My Brain

14 September 2005
Filed under Life, Technology, Text

To change from one ADSL provider to another should take two phone calls and a total of about 30 minutes including hold time: one call to the ISP with whom you’re cancelling an account, and one call to the ISP who you hope to join. My switch has cost me several phone calls, several hours of hold-time and several weeks of web connectivity; it’s also taken several years off my life.

Without going into the ghastly details, the problem has revolved around the provisioning codes that an ISP places on your phone line to allow you to connect using their service. Upon cancelling my original ADSL account (by fax, no less, since you can’t cancel over the phone) and then following up my cancellation request with a phone call, I spent two weeks hassling the new ISP about why my connection was taking so long, only to be told tonight - after literally six previous calls during which they could have given me this information - that my old ISP hadn’t removed their codes from my line, and so the new connection couldn’t proceed. At no point did anybody think to actually call me and let me know that there were problems.

When I called the old ISP to ask them what the fuck was going on, I was so hysterical I was on the brink of those terrible rage-induced sob/hiccups that seem to go hand-in-hand with endless automated phone menus and hold music. By the time I got through, I had steam coming out of my ears, and when the girl on the other end of the phone told me it’d take 5-7 working days to even try sorting out the problem, I let out a silent, but very much physical, howl. My blood pressure’s still waaaay up.

Herein ends my Annual Day of Slagging Off Telecommunications Companies and ISPs. Thank you.

Views from the Floor

fabien. says:

I think the changing of xDSL provider is everywhere a real pain. Here - in France - I did it twice, in addition to time & phone calls hassles, usually we have a minimum time of 12 or 24 months with the impossibility of cancellation without pay extra fees. Last year, I paid 90euros (about $110) for be able to change, but it was worth, my previous ADSL provider sucked really.

Speak, friend, and enter


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