Anyway, all those promises of Streamyx of it being so cheap and affordable and opening the windows to the world, and their promise of fast internet connection...what happened to them when the connection at my house come to a grinding halt?
Well first of all, those promises went out the window. Windows which were opened by themselves in the first place, I suppose. Me being the 'computer wizard' that I am, amazingly got Bea to do all the work in trying to solve our Streamyx woes. Unfortunately, Bea happens to be an incompetent apprentice and she, in turn, tried to get Customer Care to figure out the problem. And just like so many automated telephone responses you get nowadays, that was practically useless and expensive and got Bea nowhere. One of the suggestions they gave was to unplug the telephone from the socket. After doing so, Bea had to call them using her handphone just to tell them that there was no improvement in the speed (which was around 128kbps at that time)
I then waved my magic wand and got my second son to solve the problem, thinking that since he belongs to the IT generation, he should know a thing or two about kilobytes. Mind you, I belong to the BSJ (batu sejam) generation. I'm still struggling to adapt to kmph and now they are forcing me to understand kbps. It's too much I tell you.
My children don't go out that often so the computer is somewhat their 'gateway' to the outside world. And since my second son is the one who makes full use of the internet to socialise with his equally IT-literate friends, he tackled the job rather enthusiastically, I must say. Sadly, enthusiasm alone does not get you around much when it comes to slow internet speed. He failed miserably to have the problem sorted out over the phone.
I was beginning to run out magic. But wait! I still had one last trick up my sleeve - my eldest son. So I conveniently pulled him out of a black top hat, pretty much the way magicians pull out rabbits out of theirs, and sent him to do battle with those evil trolls at TMnet.
And my, did they have some ugly looking trolls.
On Saturday morning, my eldest and I went to the nearest TMnet shop (or TMPoint, as my son pointed out) to complain in person. Stepping into the spanking clean building, we were greeted by the cheerful receptionist who cheerfully asked "Nak bayar bil ke pakcik?" to which I quipped back "Bil saya tak pernah tertunggak. Sentiasa berbayar. Saya datang ni nak complain pasal perkhidmatan". She then dully handed me a number.
To be fair to them, I was attended to promptly. The unfortunate thing was that I was attended to by an ugly male troll who's smile resembled something like this.
Yes, I am being mean but I'm just refering to his smile and it really looked like that.
Anyway, I said politely that I wanted to put in a complaint concerning the slow speed of our internet which has persisted for the past few months. Before I could even elaborate, he quickly replied "Saya tak boleh buat apa-apa" and asked whether I had contacted Customer Care. My son answered back saying that we had already tried that numerous times to no avail and that a technician should be employed instead to solve the problem. Again, the troll gave another number. I was starting to get annoyed and told him that his numbers did not help at all.
It was at this point that two lady co-workers sensed imminent danger and come to the troll's rescue. One of them asked how slow our connection was while the other suggested a complaint form be given for us to filled in. The troll got up and disappeared into the back.
While waiting, I couldn't help but to blurt out rather loudly "Yang cekap hanya dalam iklan sahajalah". One of the female co-workers might have overheard my comment and shifted around uneasily in her seat. The troll came back, a form was filled and a promise was made that action would be taken latest on Tuesday.
Despite all that, Tuesday came and still there was no improvement. Since my eldest was back in class, the next best person who could keep pycno blog-happy i.e Bea, called them up and asked about the promised service. The operator then asked Bea for a complaint reference number. How were we supposed to know about a reference number when we had already given our address and telephone number? So, like it or not, another complaint had to be made and this time Bea insisted for a 'nombor rujukan'.
At long last, the next morning a technician was sent while we were in office. Guess what? The matter was attended to in just a few short minutes. When I told my eldest about the incident, his simple reply was that this is what happens when ducks and chickens try to talk to each other.
What I suspect is that those people at Streamyx do not have enough manpower to attend the problems of the customers every single time. So they try to get the users to solve their own woes over the phone, guided by some operator who might as well be digging his nose as he reads out the troubleshooting guide from his computer. And most of the time, they know that customers like me will not understand and thus put the blame on themselves or the computer.
My advice is to personally go there, fill in a complaint form and most importantly remember to take the blessed nombor rujukan aduan. Equally important would be to keep calling them, reminding them about the complaint which has been made and to read out loud the NOMBOR RUJUKAN ADUAN. Maybe it's also worth threatening to terminate your subscription and ask them for other alternative ISPs. (That's Internet Service Provider for those of you who don't know what it means)
And a final note to Mr Troll: Do try to smile. Even limping Mayo knows how to make someone feel warm and fuzzy inside by smiling.
