DON’T WANADOO.
My non-service Internet
provider, Freeserve, aka, Wanadoo, aka Orange Broadband, continue to jerk
around with my Internet connections, cutting me off arbitrarily at their end
through inability to find line faults, perpetual ‘engineering tests’ and
‘service improvements’. Quite how not giving me a service at all for several
days a month amounts to an improvement is beyond me. They continue to take my
money from my debit account though – money for nothing.
To
paraphrase their own advertising campaign, The Future is shite. The Future is
Orange.
Phoning
the Orange helpless helpline is one of the most depressing and distressing things you can
possibly do. They have the usual inevitable list of sub-directories for you to
call, i.e., if you want account information press 1, if you want to be laughed
at press 2, etc… These numbers change
from time to time so that you have to listen to the full electronic monologue.
Orange know that persistent callers (Those like me who they let down frequently)
will simply dial the main number and then the extension numbers right away to
cut through the turgid spiel so they swap things around. You are running up a
premium phone bill all this time.
Another
bizarre touch is when the electronic voice tells you that it didn’t quite catch
the number you pressed and asks you to press it again, after re-reading the
whole menu – as an electronic devise it is perfectly capable of hearing you the
first time. Such deceptions really make orange show their true colours. The
idea is to keep you talking to generate more revenue, which is all they care
about.
You
will then be told that the service is very busy right now (Probably true given
how few satisfied customers they have), and you are subjected to themes from
the songs interspersed with adverts from orange for their free cinema ticket
offers if you buy more of their services. You are effectively a captive
audience to his or her own advertising campaigns, (As if you would buy more
from them, given the poor quality of what you have already purchased from
them).
You
will also be told that your call is being monitored and recorded for training
purposes. This is a lie of course – the call is policed in case your fragile
patience understandably snaps and you start getting angry or abusive towards
the people who speak as slowly as possible and leave long pauses that leave you
wondering if they have cut you off the phone before they speak again. Even
Gandhi would think angry thoughts if he was subjected to this.
After
an eternity, you get through to a human being, often on a very poor line,
sometimes with the sound of other phone line chats going on in the background.
The person you speak to May or may not be able to speak good English – you are
probably talking to someone in Pakistan. S/he will tell you his or her name,
(first name only as they won’t want you complaining). They will then
understandably ask you your phone number, name and then they ask for the 2cd
and 4th digits of your password. I usually snap these at them before
they ask for them – it saves time and helps reduce the phone bill they
accumulate for you by talking as slowly as possible and frequently taking their
time to read or update your case files. They make a lot of money from keeping
you on the phone as long as possible.
The
assistant will now want to know what your problem is and will then start
routinely rolling through a standard diagnostic trouble-shooting script – fine
if it’s the first time you call, but 1/. The list is geared up to assuming that
you are at fault and stupid. 2/. If you call again with the same fault, having,
from knowledge done all the diagnostics you can without phoning in at all, the
assistants will insist that you repeat the procedures.
Take
my most persistent problem as an example – My speedtouch modem has a flashing
green light on the right hand side. The light should stay solid. That it blinks
tells me that the modem is disconnected from the phone system. It generates an
‘Error 680 – no dial tone’ message to confirm this. The diagnostic starts by
telling me to make sure the modem is plugged in correctly, has the right
filter, etc. The diagnostic invariably
begins with asking me to unplug the modem, switch off and restart my computer,
plug the modem back in. This invariably makes no difference whatsoever to my
situation.
They
will then try to blame the problem on outside interference from Sky Satellite
dishes, other phone lines, etc.
This whole diagnostic is something I can do all by myself without phoning up Don’t Wanadoo, but some assistants insist on endless repeats of this exercise from inability to see from their notes that it has already been done ad infinitum, or knowing what to do next. I now generally insist on telling them loudly that the process is wasting my time.
Finally, the assistant will accept that there might just be a fault at their end (no shit Sherlock). They now request an ‘engineering test’ on the phone line, which is supposed to take 24 hours and in effect guarantees no service for you for a whole day. You are asked to phone back after this time. When you call back, you usually get a fresh assistant, though even if you get the same one, they suffer short-term memory loss, and try to talk you into going through the whole diagnostic procedure again. I usually insist on the result of my line test right away, which they usually do not have at hand. This can mean phoning a third or even fourth time or more. The different assistants you ring will then tell you a variety of contrary stories. 1/. The engineers are still testing the line. 2/. The test is complete and no fault was found so could you unplug your modem again? A fault was found / suspected. It will be fixed in 4, 8, 24, 48 or 72 hours. All of these answers have come my way in response to the same ongoing fault. A supervisor called Megan who I complained to about this told me that none of the helpdesk staff have permission to even give such deadlines, but she seemed reluctant to take disciplinary action against them. Megan also invited me to ask the help-line workers to actually phone me whenever they get any engineering updates - she would not do this for me or tell them for me - I had to phone back again at my expense to get that done - the first person I called asked me to spell my own name to her slowly and phonetically, not once, but four times. I hung up and phoned again, reaching a man who refused to do what Megan asked me to tell him to do and then tried to put me through the whole diagnostic process again. I hung up again.
At
this point I generally threaten to leave the service, and I have even requested
my MAC Code, a means by which I can shut down Orange as my server. With my
e-mail address linked to a 1,000 pages on my website I don’t want to change
them all by hand so I am probably bluffing. The bluff usually at least
generates a temporary stay of execution when my modem suddenly comes on. It
often goes out again within a few days though, as he ‘engineers’ are supposedly
really busy trying to resolve my crisis for me. This situation has gone on since January now. Reconnections have
occurred, usually right after I threaten to take my business elsewhere – quite
a coincidence - some reconnections last a whole week, others mere minutes. It’s
like playing Russian roulette. A bullet is coming – you just don’t know exactly
when.
At one point in a recent call, a Wanadoo rep cut into my conversation to offer me a month’s free service if I stay with them. He then offered me further assistance by telling me a special number to phone – as he gave me the number I realized it was the very phone number I had called in the first place for technical support before being routed towards him. He was under the delusion that he was doing me a favour. As I write this, on Monday 14th May 2007 at 10.30 AM, I still have a flashing green light. I have just been informed that the engineers will have me back online at 3 PM this afternoon. I will log the time of reconnection (temporary or permanent, with no way for me to know which when, and if it ever occurs.
On Tuesday 15th May I was invited to send the
issue up to the next authority which I reasoned should have been done well
before now. Once I did request this I was told that it will take up to five days
for any higher authority at Wanadoo, whoever they might be, to intervene.
I now seem doomed to a lack of service until Sunday May 20th. The lack of
service is utterly disgusting.
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
LINK TO THIS
PAGE http://arthurchappell.me.uk/dont.wanadoo.htm
LINKS TO OTHER PEOPLES PAGES E-mail arthur@chappell7300.freeserve.co.uk
UPDATES MYSPACE - http://www.myspace.com/arthurchappell
FACEBOOK - http://profile.to/arthurchappell/
FACEBOOK BLOG http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blogpage.php?blogid=85623
MY BOOKS - http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=952521