The original content of this article was removed on September 27, 2012. That article described a poor customer service experience I had with Anthony Tseng,…
The path less traveled.
Category: Rants
Rants — Bitching and moaning
I’m looking forward to a future in which I no longer need to do business with dinosaur enterprise software companies like PGP, and their recent acquirer, Symantec.
My encryption needs have always been simple — I’d like to selectively encrypt files that I keep on a company-accessible server, and I’d like to be able to occasionally encrypt the text of an email message. I could do this easily with earlier versions of PGP — around version 6, and back when PGP felt like small company.
But then they turned their sights on the enterprise, and everything has gone downhill since.
A thoughtful iTunes user awards our product—one star.
Having tracked my personal finances and investment transactions in Quicken for Mac since around 1992, I was keenly interested in an email from Intuit, with…
How to best organize a society is certainly an area in which I’m hardly qualified to offer opinions. That said, having studied economics for a couple of years, what I’ve heard that makes most sense to me are the free-market, small government ideas of Milton Friedman. For that reason, I tend to gravitate towards conservative political candidates like Ron Paul.
The thing that most bothers me about the conservatives, however, is that they seem to assume their “market” is composed of uneducated dimwits, and as such, the best communications strategy is to speak to them as simpletons attending a Saturday-night Baptist revival.
My brother, who lives near Atlanta (United States), visited an Apple store last week to check out some odd behavior with his MacBook. The technician noticed that his battery has physically expanded, and needed replacing. Seeing that my brother’s computer was covered by AppleCare, he said, “Hey, let’s take the opportunity to see whether anything else needs fixing/replacing, since your AppleCare expires next month.” As a result, my brother walked away with a new battery, trackpad, keyboard, and display.
Recently, some bureaucrats in Germany decided that business owners who employ contractors — even those, like me, who’ve been in business more than a decade — should provide certified proof that they (the owners) are not criminals.
After an unbelievably bad experience trying to get an iPad microSIM from Vodafone, I decided to change gears and go for a pre-paid microSIM from Orange, as advertised on their special iPad web page. I visited a local Orange store, bought the microSIM, loaded it with 50€, took it home, installed it in the iPad, and verified that it all worked.
Great! …until I decided to confirm the 50€ balance, and that’s when things started heading south with Orange.
I am about to tell a story that, for me, is simply surreal. If it hadn’t actually happened to me, I probably wouldn’t believe it. It’s about my recent attempt to acquire a microSIM card for my iPad, from Vodafone España.
I recently contacted Bank of America regarding the refinancing of my home. (I’m hoping to take advantage of the relatively low rates currently available.) Refinancing involves speaking with a loan officer. Loan officers generally are compensated, at least in part, through commissions.
Version en Español (English version follows)
Problemas con Vodafone, España
Llevo siendo cliente de Vodafone, España desde hace siete años. Durante los ultimos cuatro años, he tenido contratadola tarifa plana de 39 Euro/mes data plan, que me daba conectividad al internet desde mi teléfono.
En Marzo del 2008, recibi un SMS de Vodafone donde comunicaban: “la modificación de su plan de datos ha sido realizada con éxito”, sin embargo, nunca habia pedido ningún cambio a mi contrato.
Llamé a Vodafone, y mirando mis facturas, confirmaron que habían cometido un error, e immediatamente cambiarían la configuración al plan original que ya tenía antes. (Hay que tener en cuenta también, que cuando se llama a Vodafone, España, hay una conexión, via a VoIP con la peor calidad que se pueda imaginar, a un centro de llamadas en Argentina. Es torturoso intentar explicar el problema cuando apenas se oye nada.)
Vodafone, intentando reestablecer el plan anterior, no lo encontraban y no sabían como se llamaba. Uno podría imaginar que tienen almacenado un historial de los servicios de cada cliente, pero no. No sabían el plan que yo tenía. El plan mas usado se llama Navega y Habla donde te dan un número y una tarjeta de datos para el ordenador. Insistían en que esa era el plan y no podían entender que yo quería datos en mi teléfono y no el ordenador.
Estuve llamando durante una semana, intentando activar mi plan de datos anterior y finalmente lo hicieron.
Cuando llego la factura cobrada en Mayo, me doy cuenta que Vodafone me ha cobrado 400 Euro (mi consumo medio por mes es 60 Euro.)
Immediatamente llamé a Vodafone para que corrigiesen el error. Entonces me dicen que no tienen acceso a mi factura y que tengo que esperar hasta que reciba la factura por correo antes de llamar y explicarles el problema. Me informan que solo tengo 30 dias para comunicar cualquier queja.
Esperé, y la facturas dejaron de llegar por correo. Llamé de Nuevo para comunicar que no recibia las facturas y me prometieron emitir copias y mandarlas de nuevo añadiendo una nota explicando que aunque los 30 dias habian pasado, tendría derecho a reclamar el cargo en el banco dadas las circunstancias.
Estamos en Septiembre, no he recibido ninguna factura desde entonces. Ahora tengo acceso a las facturas on-line pero solo las dos últimas, no tengo acceso a ninguna antes de Junio 2008.
Vodafone no me permite ninguna reclamación hasta que no tenga la factura. He intentado preguntar en una tienda de Vodafone de mi localidad pero lo único que hacen es hacer la llamada a atención al cliente desde la tienda.
Aquí esta el gráfico de mi consumo sacado de la página de Vodafone. Vodafone no quiere reconocer que hay algo anormal durante el mes de Marzo, aunque reconocieron su error, y no me resuelven mi problema. Siguen insistiendo que necesita la factura.
No se que hacer ahora para solucionar esto. No quiero seguir llamando (no anotan los problemas, asi que como cada vez que llamo hablo con alguien diferente, tengo que contra la historia completa una y otra vez.) Como nada está escrito no hay evidencia de ningún acuerdo, como por ejemplo la promesa de enviar las facturas o el ampliar el plazo de reclamación.
Esto es realmente lo que yo llamo mala atención al consumidor.
I’ve made an interesting discovery — Skype Support is run by a buggy computer system, code named “Sandra Valle”, that attempts to use artificial intelligence…
I hope everyone gets the chance, at least once during their life, to experience trying to get something done in Spain. We’re involved in the…
I don’t know whether it was the anonymous email I got from someone at Apple, or the fact that [my article][1] was backlinked by some…
I’m writing this article in the hope that someone at Apple USA might read it, and come to understand what kind of service your customers…
After what happened to me today, I will do my best never to do business with Telefonica (the main Spanish telecoms provider) again. Today I…
