Complaints!

Call me a nitpicky typical Singaporean, who thinks that five cents of his can buy a mansion, but I have to complain. I don't know why I remain a faithful Singtel subscriber all this while (my residential line is Singtel, all except one mobile subscription in the family had and are Singtel, and our internet, from dial-up till the current 6mbps Mio Home bundle is obviously Singtel) especially when fellow telcos are offering handsets and plans at the same price.

Just recently a technician came down to my house to install the Mio Setup box and the latest 2Wire modem (which was so modern that it has no switch). All was well until he had to run a RJ11 cable from the modem to the Mio Setup box, which were approximately 10 metres apart. The techie simply clipped the cable to the wall using 3M hooks. I thought that was fine, and that the cable raceways had to be fitted ourselves. When Mum came home she was furious, so we called them up for a trunking job (cover the ugly cables up). But the other techie came down, and before i knew it, he was installing homeplugs! For the uninitiated, homeplugs are the alternative to wifi, making use of the exisitng electrical cables in your house to set up a network. It could be called wireless, but it is really wired. Okay I guess it solved the problem of wiring, and the techie had an easier job, except that now we have to pay an extra $5.35, excluding GST, per month for 12 months. Considering the market price of home plugs I can safely assume that it wasn't exorbitant, but think again, if the trunking was done properly in the first place, do I even need to arrange time for a second techie to come down, and pay that extra charges? These are what I call hidden charges, not even mentioned in fine print.

Also, Singtel staff told me a bigger truth. A trunking was arranged beforehand! But I had homeplugs installed instead, and now have unused hooks on my walls. (And the Mio channels are nothing to shout about. Really.) There was also a mistake on the techie's part, because he brought down a new 2Wire modem. Initially he thought he could just give it to us as a spare, and I thought it was Singtel's gift for loyal and pissed customers, but turned out he had to return it, so he came down again to retrieve it. Now, I am not sure if the modem has safely made its way back to Singtel because there wasn't documentation to state that we didn't take it. Also, I tried to call Singtel's 1688 customer service hotline. Wow, was it hot. I listened to 15 minutes of 'Our customer service officers are not available, are still not available' and 'You may wait or hang up'. What the hell?! Not the exact words, sure, but the message conveyed to me was just that.

Then I tried emailing, but I had to fill in a form. I don't know what is my 'ADSL number' so I didn't fill that in, but I was surprised that I had to key in all that rubbish for a general enquiry. Why couldn't I just emailed them using whatever email client I have, and also employ a better format in writing the email? What's more, after I clicked 'Submit', there wasn't a 'Thank you for your submission' page. I didn't know whether to send again to be sure, or trust that my submission hasn't dissolved into nothingness.