We still don't have a landline so we are using wireless internet from Claro.
Every month I pay RD$2,595 pre-pago for my "banda ancha" - a cruel misnomer because the connection speed is dial-up quality most of the time. Every month I pay 2 days ahead of the cut-off date to ensure continuity, as advised when I took up the service in January.
For the last two months it's been cut off anyway.
I phone customer service to see what's happening - two hours later I've used up my quota of free calls from a cellphone because before I can get anywhere with the three or four operators I finally manage to speak to the calls get cut off, as happens with most calls from Claro cellphones these days.
Remember, I haven't got a landline and paid calls from a cellphone are not an option when you have to spend 10, 15, 20 mins just waiting for an operator to take the call, which is almost certain to be cut off anyway.
This month the reason given was that I didn't call customer service to confirm that I had made the payment - which seems unnecessary and unreasonable after having made the payment, got my receipt and watched the employee enter the details into the system.
I didn't sacrifice a goat either. Maybe that would have made the difference?
Apparently their payment receiving mechanism is not sophisticated enough to tell the system that I've paid. I thought computers and stuff were able to do that sort of thing?
They aren't able to restore the service for some reason, so I make my way down to my local office, which is a 'dealer', not an actual Codetel office. They establish that what has happened - absurdly - is that although Claro's system was not able to register my pre-payment enough to restore my service, it was miraculously able to register it enough to be able to deduct ~RD$50 pesos from the RD$2,595 "for the attempts you made to connect after your cut off date" - so now that my balance is "only" RD$2,548 it is no longer able to give me the full month and I have to top it up. No, I say, you have to give me extra days for the day without service, seeing as I paid.
They haven't got the authority to override this, so I accept their limitations and drive 6km to the nearest 'main' Codetel office (Ver?n) and a minor meltdown later the folks there seem to accept the unfairness and PROMISE the service will be restored when I get home. It isn't. Late in the afternoon I have to make several more calls to customer service and of course, just as I manage to get somewhere, the call cuts off. It takes about an hour and a half to get a result.
So, this is a customer who has paid in full, two days in advance, but still has to spend a full working day each month, getting upset and frustrated, letting down clients and losing earnings in order to fight for the restoration of the service they paid for.
I'm not the only one - a couple I spoke to at the office who were also complaining about some aspect of the service told me that the previous three customers who had come in had ended up losing their tempers. It can't be nice for the employees to be on the frontline of this when it's clearly the way the system is set up with all these flaws that is to blame.
Next month in order to prevent this from happening the advice is to pay as early as possible on the same day it cuts off (i.e. live dangerously). If paying at a dealer, follow it up with a phone call to customer service to confirm the recarga OR go to the main office in Ver?n, pay at the cash desk and then stand in line to see a customer service operator so that they can 'confirm' the recarga.
So you still have to spend several hours of your working day to ensure that a simple thing gets done - either a 12km round trip to the main office when there is a sub-office 5 minutes walk away or spend half the morning making calls to customer service - why, when as we found - the system does actually register the payment and it's all a load of BS anyway?
At this rate we'll have to start a "Codetel sucks" sub-forum.
Every month I pay RD$2,595 pre-pago for my "banda ancha" - a cruel misnomer because the connection speed is dial-up quality most of the time. Every month I pay 2 days ahead of the cut-off date to ensure continuity, as advised when I took up the service in January.
For the last two months it's been cut off anyway.
I phone customer service to see what's happening - two hours later I've used up my quota of free calls from a cellphone because before I can get anywhere with the three or four operators I finally manage to speak to the calls get cut off, as happens with most calls from Claro cellphones these days.
Remember, I haven't got a landline and paid calls from a cellphone are not an option when you have to spend 10, 15, 20 mins just waiting for an operator to take the call, which is almost certain to be cut off anyway.
This month the reason given was that I didn't call customer service to confirm that I had made the payment - which seems unnecessary and unreasonable after having made the payment, got my receipt and watched the employee enter the details into the system.
I didn't sacrifice a goat either. Maybe that would have made the difference?
Apparently their payment receiving mechanism is not sophisticated enough to tell the system that I've paid. I thought computers and stuff were able to do that sort of thing?
They aren't able to restore the service for some reason, so I make my way down to my local office, which is a 'dealer', not an actual Codetel office. They establish that what has happened - absurdly - is that although Claro's system was not able to register my pre-payment enough to restore my service, it was miraculously able to register it enough to be able to deduct ~RD$50 pesos from the RD$2,595 "for the attempts you made to connect after your cut off date" - so now that my balance is "only" RD$2,548 it is no longer able to give me the full month and I have to top it up. No, I say, you have to give me extra days for the day without service, seeing as I paid.
They haven't got the authority to override this, so I accept their limitations and drive 6km to the nearest 'main' Codetel office (Ver?n) and a minor meltdown later the folks there seem to accept the unfairness and PROMISE the service will be restored when I get home. It isn't. Late in the afternoon I have to make several more calls to customer service and of course, just as I manage to get somewhere, the call cuts off. It takes about an hour and a half to get a result.
So, this is a customer who has paid in full, two days in advance, but still has to spend a full working day each month, getting upset and frustrated, letting down clients and losing earnings in order to fight for the restoration of the service they paid for.
I'm not the only one - a couple I spoke to at the office who were also complaining about some aspect of the service told me that the previous three customers who had come in had ended up losing their tempers. It can't be nice for the employees to be on the frontline of this when it's clearly the way the system is set up with all these flaws that is to blame.
Next month in order to prevent this from happening the advice is to pay as early as possible on the same day it cuts off (i.e. live dangerously). If paying at a dealer, follow it up with a phone call to customer service to confirm the recarga OR go to the main office in Ver?n, pay at the cash desk and then stand in line to see a customer service operator so that they can 'confirm' the recarga.
So you still have to spend several hours of your working day to ensure that a simple thing gets done - either a 12km round trip to the main office when there is a sub-office 5 minutes walk away or spend half the morning making calls to customer service - why, when as we found - the system does actually register the payment and it's all a load of BS anyway?
At this rate we'll have to start a "Codetel sucks" sub-forum.