Opinion
Raab is back - but does anyone still want to see him?
by Luca Fontana
Mimimi: 20 years of trouble with network operators
16.8.2018
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Thomas Kunz
Attention, this mimimi is a mimimimimimi, so it's quite long. But it also describes a tale of woe that spans 20 years. Suffering with mobile phone and internet providers.
My first WTF moment regarding telcos came at the end of the 90s. As a young student, I was looking for a part-time job and responded to an advert from diAx, a company that no longer exists. After several weeks, I received a reply saying that the person responsible was in the military and his deputy was somewhere where the pepper grows and that everything was a bit difficult at the moment and they would get back to me. But nobody got back to me, and I didn't know who to ask because the reply was signed with my own name.
When I became a Cablecom customer in 2002, the company's administrative chaos was already legendary. A year later, I reported a move and - of course - nothing happened. After calling around for a while, it turns out that a Cablecom employee had dropped the mail into my previous letterbox, which no longer had my name on it. I want to know why he did this. Answer: Because the post office no longer delivers the letters. Aaaaaaaaargh!
This move is comparatively harmless because, for once, I don't have to change supplier. I normally switch between Cablecom and Swisscom every two years. Sometimes the TV connections in my flat are not digital-capable, sometimes broadband Internet is not possible via telephone cable. Talk of "more competition" elicits a weary smile from me - I have to take what works at the moment. Nevertheless, I'm constantly bombarded with adverts by post, email, phone and on my doorstep - adverts for things I can't even use.
I'm not an isolated case, of course. In 2014, a work colleague was visited by a whole armada of pushy undercover salespeople disguised as technicians and made the fatal mistake of not throwing the first one out of her flat straight away. The drama, which is quite amusing for outsiders, is captured here.
The leaked business letter to Cablecom, which begins with the words "You're slowly shitting on me", also remains unforgettable. It speaks from people's souls.
After this PR fiasco, support and customer friendliness at the cable provider may be getting better, but better doesn't mean good. When dealing with our beloved telcos, we have long become accustomed to endless queues on the phone, until at some point a support employee picks up, who only knows the answer to the most common problems. I've learnt: as long as it's working, never change your plan.
What if you become a special case
I find out what happens to you if you have a more specialised problem at Swisscom, whose support is considered exemplary. I tested the brand new Swisscom TV 2.0 in April 2014. Of course, I had to activate the appropriate plan at home. This plan is about twice as expensive as my existing one, and I make it clear from the start that I want to go back to my old one after the test. But all my questions about exactly how long the trial period lasts and what exactly I have to do afterwards remain unanswered. Invoices and reminders for my trial subscription, on the other hand, arrive on time. After my 30th or so email to Swisscom, they suddenly try to switch off my luxury subscription and apologise for not being able to switch it off earlier.
I receive no apology for the fact that my telephone, internet and television have not worked for a week - simply because someone at Swisscom entered the wrong date in the registration mask. It's now June and the football World Cup has started. What's more, I'm temporarily only working from home at the moment and am urgently reliant on a working internet line.
What happens in the following days is very complicated and hard to describe in detail. I spend most of my time with Swisscom support, I get the set-top box for the TV again, which I already have, the phone still doesn't work. I get a microfilter, which is supposed to fix the problem, but it doesn't. Sometimes they say I can still use my router, then again they say I can't, then they say a technician has to come round. He comes, cuts the old phone line, says a bit of rubbish and leaves.
In any case, the Swisscom support staff can only solve my problem by opening a new customer account for me from scratch. Now I get all the hardware again (I have to send it back, of course), all the settings are gone (SRF1 on channel 342, invoices are sent by paper again), and I can still log in with the old account. A huge puff. For whatever reason, I can't go back to e-bill.
I only ever receive the paper bills a few days before the payment deadline. Swisscom either sends the invoices as C Mail or they are simply not sent on the invoice date. The payment deadline is shortened accordingly, and the reminder with a penalty fee of 20 francs goes out immediately, unlike the bill. Strange business practices.
Once I'm about to freak out on the phone - and I'm immediately transferred to another office, where a very friendly lady is extremely understanding. Even when I make a negative comment on Twitter, it takes less than 10 minutes for the support team to get back to me. Remember: always be as unfriendly as possible, then you will be treated kindly.
Yellow-red for Orange, pepper spray for Salt
The same chaos prevails with mobile phone providers as with landline providers. For over 20 years. I can avoid the worst disasters for a long time with prepaid offers. But only the worst ones. For example, Orange introduced a new, much cheaper prepaid offer in the noughties - without informing existing customers, of course. Why would you do that if you can continue to cash in on the old tariffs? All operators attract new customers with "welcome gifts", customer loyalty is penalised, for example with ridiculous "activation fees". Lack of transparency is part of the business model: the pricing models are deliberately so complicated that nobody can see through them and it is practically impossible to directly compare suppliers and their plans. Conversations about mobile plans fill entire evenings, even though the topic is deadly boring.
The admin chaos at Orange culminated in 2014 with many customers not receiving their bills for months on end. Nice not to have to pay anything, isn't it? Unfortunately, it was too early to rejoice: the bills did eventually arrive - and they were incorrect. As a prepaid customer, I couldn't care less. But I don't get any information about my mobile phone usage on the website, I have no idea what I'm being charged for and why.
I only joined Orange anyway because I bought a mobile with a SIM lock from someone - another customer scam. But switching to the competition doesn't help because it's the same crap everywhere. So I remain loyal to the supplier, even under the new name Salt. I now have a smartphone, and Salt's prepaid model is useless for regular Internet use (WhatsApp). I'm persuaded to take out a plan over the phone during a promotion. I also signed the contract over the phone and was told that the amount on the contract was incorrect, but I could ignore that. However, from the first month onwards, Salt charges double the agreed amount, as the verbally agreed discount was not mentioned in the contract. Salt not only refuses to grant the discount, but also refuses to cancel the plan as I have already started using it.
While I'm completing this article, Salt sends me a text message advertising a new plan.
Now I'm switching after all. Not the plan, but the supplier. Not that I'm expecting any improvement, more out of principle. My gagging contract and a 16-year customer relationship will end in April 2019. On that note: goodbye.
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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