We recently succumbed to advertising and signed up for the T-online "Call and Surf Comfort" package which has been rammed down our throats from every media source in Germany for the past months. It seems like an OK package, Phone + DSL flatrate for about 50 Euro per month.We signed up and the nice wireless router arrived in the mail with all the cables and such:
I plugged it all in to the phone splitter, then to the LAN card on our PC, flipped the big switch and... nothing. My first instinct was that I connected something incorrectly as my reading of German manuals is a bit suspect.So I went and enlisted my native speaking helper, who according to a quiz in "Freundin" Magazine is technically minded:
Claudia read through the book with me and confirmed that had indeed connected it all correctly. We double and triple checked, then consulted the troubleshooting section of the book to decipher the blinking lights. it seemed that the light meaning "DSL Connection not available" was blinking, so Claudia placed a call to T-Online to inquire. The help people confirmed that our DSL service had not been switched on, which was odd, since we paid for Nov 1 connection and at this point it was Nov 12. Anyway, it was after hours, so they could not do anything and we would have to wait for the next day.Several days and several phone calls later, the DSL was still not going. Claudia was getting more and more angry with T-online and we had no internet in my house.
I was telling this story to my work colleagues, and a guy in my group, mentioned that it took T-online "about 2 months to get his DSL running." oh no...
But that evening SUCCESS! The light was not blinking! I quickly jumped on the PC and set up the account.... SUCCESS! DSL worked, Firefox was browsing away at lightning fast DSL speeds. I set up our firewall, virus, spyware software and then configured Claudia's email account. Everything was going fine. Then it was a bit late so off to bed.
Next day... DSL not working.... Light Blinking... damn... Claudia back on the phone to T-online and the person there actually said "Oh, I see from your file that this is your 12th call on this topic." For reference, that is not the best way to endear yourself to my wife. Claudia had a short nasty conversation with them.
Next day SUCCESS! DSL! one day following... BLINK BLINK BLINK. no DSL. Phone call #13.
Today T-online is sending a technician to our place to see what the problem could be. The house we currently live in is only 7 years old, so it is not like the wiring is likely to be the problem.
The best part is, we will move in spring and have to get DSL connected at the new house! Hooray for reliving the adventure!
5 comments:
I would like to ad the story when Ryan moved to Stuttgart to a new house and the Telecom was supposed to set up our phone line. THREE times they connected someone else instead of us. So when you called the phone number, that was supposed to be ours, you always reached someone else, who also lived in the house. But of course WE were paying for the phone calls... In the end even the Telecom people had to laugh about their bad service... But only when I called their press office they were able to fix it....
Having dealt with company complaints for a few years, my suggestion would be to either by-pass all the low-level lemmings and go to either a VP or President.
A nicely worded letter with lots of "I have been disappointed given your company's reputation" tends to go further than "You bastards better fix this".
The CEO's office kept track of all the complaints, including getting confirmation that the problem had been resolved.
Guess you won't be playing Warcraft anytime soon.
I did not even pick up WoW... I thought it was too dangerous a thing to bring into my house.
Maybe once I have moved and things calm down a little I can think about computer gaming again.
I wish I had a console, I played Guitar Hero a few weeks ago and that game is BIG fun.
Dave, does your warcraft character fight in the nude?
Ponter
Welcome to the group of exasperated T-online users. I went thru more or less the same experience - DSL wouldnt work for 2 weeks after Telekom said it would, then the connection kept dropping every 3 minutes. Bought a new DSL modem and router but that didnt work, then about 3 dozen calls to T-online, then a joker came to our place and went to the corner post where the cables run and did something funny - our DSL workd fine now. The funny thing though is that they billed us from the time they said the service was on - took us two months to get that charge reversed.
Easily the most idiotic organization I have dealt with
Anurag
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