doms useful stuff

January 31, 2011

Please note: This is a long review but I feel necessarily so. Many of the problems we face in this country are more like a thousand grains of sand than a solid wall. The devil is in the details.

I did not start out angry at the Bahamas Telecommunications Company. I did not love it but I was trying. It had some things going for it.

It had a customer service number that was easy to remember and free to call from your cell phone: CALL-BTC (225-5282). What a convenience! I could call when I was on the move and ask about a bill or even add options to my account.

I committed to a post paid account and am still the only person I know that was willing to try the unlimited data plan. For a year I paid $25 every month so that I was online all the time.

So why the frustration?

I think the best way to explain the BTC experience is to tell you a specific story, my story. It is a personal example and has its limitations. Still, I feel it is a fair representation. And if you disagree go ahead and leave a comment below. But, onto the story. . .

I recently needed to go into the BTC office - the agent at the previously mentioned CALL-BTC number had told me that I would have to go in to solve my problems. My problems were a question about my bill and the desire to downgrade my mobile phone service. I was disappointed that I had to go in because I felt the issues were simple enough. Worse, the woman on the phone seemed annoyed and in a rush in that way that government workers (and many from the private sector) often do.

But in I went. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the customer service desk had been improved. A line was in place to keep things orderly and to prevent pushy people from crowding the counter. Better yet, it was moving quickly. I was only waiting a few minutes before I stated my concern, was told to have a seat and my name was called to meet with an agent.

So when I sat down with Ms. H I was feeling pretty good. Sadly that feeling evaporated when Ms. H’s attention remained fixed on her computer screen with barely a greeting, if any. Eventually she managed a strained, “May I help you with something?”. 

I explained my problems with some difficulty, since every time I began to speak I was interrupted as Ms. H assumed she knew what I was going to say and ran over my point with some irrelevant something or other. Eventually though, I was able to state my questions. 

Q: Why were there charges on my bill that were then credited immediately after with no explanation? Example: A charge for $11.29 followed by a credit of $11.29?

A: I was credited for payments I made in the previous month. This was not entirely shocking since in the previous month I had been credited $5,817.24 out of a $5,999.57 charge, a mistaken overcharge by the company. 

The $5,000 bill charge was disturbing on it's own. What happened? How do I know I’ve been charged correctly now?  It’s a mess that, as usual, we the consumers are being punished for. I would in fact like to recommend a new national public works motto: “We make mistakes, you pay for them.”

Q: Why was I put on the $59.99 plan when I had requested the 29.99 plan?

A: This was –surprise- my fault. But first, some background.

I thought I would be clever and change my account over the phone. I was elated when I upgraded my service in a short conversation. Surely this proved BTC was evolving. Never mind that the call had been a little difficult. This was 2010 and I could make changes to my account with my cell phone via bluetooth, Hello future!

How fleeting was that joyful moment. Sadly, I was upgraded to the $59.99 per month package, more than three times the value of my previous package, one I had just barely outgrown. Of course I did not find this out until I got my bill in January and saw a surprising $59.99 charge next to the description ‘New VenusPac Monthly Rental’.

Okay I thought, not great but not terrible. Maybe they will remove the charge since it was only one month and, looking at my billing history, it should be obvious from my call volume that I was upgrading to the $29.99 package. I hadn't used anywhere near the minutes of this massive VenusPac. Try not to laugh at my optimism. I did not have high hopes but I thought at worst I’d have to pay $60 for one month.

Ha! Of course it’s not that simple. There is a penalty for downgrading. Yes, that’s right, A PENALTY FOR DOWNGRADING. How much you ask? $5, $10, $20? No, no noooooo. The price for getting a smaller package is 50% of the plan you are downgrading from plus the cost of the package you are downgrading to. For me, that added up to a $60 charge. Simple, no? It's sounds like the terms of a Mafia loan.

I was not told of a penalty for downgrading when I decided to upgrade. But then this did not seem to be common knowledge. Ms. H, who told me there was a penalty, also told me it was no more than $10, so I’m not surprised that they left out the specifics when I changed packages.

So, there I was. I was a bit annoyed that I would have to pay a fee for downgrading my service, annoyed that I was not told there would be a fee but annoyed most of all because I knew I had not requested a $60 package.

I told Ms. H my concerns. This was met with more interruptions , mainly consisting of “Did I get the name of the person I spoke with” and an admonishment that I “Should have asked the agent to fax me a copy of the changes”.

The second one was especially frustrating. I was expected to know that I should request a fax from a BTC agent. That’s forgetting the fact that I don’t have a fax line. Is that the norm now?

Eventually I managed to get Ms. H to admit that BTC was at least partially responsible for keeping a record of the upgrade. In fact, she said, they could easily check to see which agent had made the transaction but then it would then be a matter of my word against theirs. So then I asked why did she think I should have gotten the agent’s name? She then switched back to the “you should have requested a fax” answer.

I pointed out that I check my bills online and that it did not seem like a complicated matter to post a notification there of what changes were made to the account. It was about then that she suggested I speak with Ms. W. who is a manager. After more than an hour with BTC and a full bladder I was skeptical but determined.

After some back and forth I was shown into Manager W’s office. Again I was presented with a busy face staring at a computer screen and barely a mumble of acknowledgment.

Now, I had the impression that Manager W had shown an interest in hearing my point of view. I thought of myself as an objective, helpful customer who could selflessly explain why I thought it was unfair to punish people for downgrading and why I thought BTC was sending the wrong message. Charge me, I thought, but change the policy so that others may not suffer. Selfless, right?

But sitting there as Manager W stared into her computer screen with a stern look on her face I realized that I had little hope of doing much more than finding out how much the penalty was, if that. I had thought of explaining my position as News Editor at Bahamas Local and telling her I was interested in sharing important information with my readers. But as the uncomfortable silence grew between us I decided it would be more revealing to see what kind of treatment a regular BTC customer could expect.

Eventually Manager W asked me what she could do for me and I explained that I felt I was incorrectly upgraded. I told her that I had some concerns and had been told by Ms H that I should pass them along to her. Without a word her attention returned to the computer. The silence was frequently broken by loud, shrill rings from a phone on her desk that remained unanswered for several painful rings at a time.

Between what she said during one of the phone conversations and the fact that she told me she was writing an email to the relevant department I got the impression that she was doing something about my problem. Eventually she asked me for my number and told me that I would get a call. I asked her if that was it and left.

That was about 1:30 pm on Friday. I have not yet gotten a call and don’t really expect to. More than an hour of suffering with so few results. Maybe something will happen today.

I was left with what I think is a very common feeling here in The Bahamas. It happens in the private sector but government offices have refined the process with uncharacteristic efficiency.

It is a feeling of smallness ,hopelessness. Several times during my conversation with Ms H she made it clear that I should have done things differently. I should have gotten the agent’s name. I should have requested a faxed copy of my upgrade even though I was not offered this option, had no idea there was anything faxable and had no reason to think that a BTC phone agent would be able to fax me anything. Still, whatever happened, it was clearly my fault.

There is the feeling that every single point, every tiny detail will be a battle. A battle you will nearly always lose. 

And this, as has been stated during talk of the C&W purchase, is why nobody cares who buys BTC, even though we should. Nobody thinks it can get any worse. Nobody thinks that BTC has their best interest at heart. Many of us think BTC is, at best, lazy and ineffective and, at worst, an evil monopoly that is robbing us blind.

Which brings me to some other general issues. The reason I cancelled my unlimited data plan is because it was, in practice, very limited. For those of you that remember dial-up internet  connections, think of the slowest connection you have ever had. Now imagine watching that in slow motion. The data downloaded over BTC’s unlimited data plan was much, much slower than that. Why is that?

Why are we still using EDGE technology when other nations have moved to 3g and 4g? How dare BTC use commercial time on Cable Bahamas to say that they have always used the latest technology? When did that happen? Maybe I didn’t get the call because it was a Friday and every Friday cell phone service goes wacky with what I assume is overload.

Does BTC think we have forgotten the back-and-forth doubletalk that happened as mobile phone service switched to GSM? Or maybe the time that phone service went out for a weekend? Or when they accidentally charged customers $5,000? There are so few examples.

I have been on BTC’s side many times. I have told many people to use the CALL-BTC number. It’s easy and free I said. Show some support I said. There were a few times I was really grateful for my unlimited data plan. There was no other service around and it was great having BTC, even if the connection was really slow. Alas, I cannot justify paying $25 a month for service that is too slow to browse the web on.

Most of all though, HOW DO YOU JUSTIFY CHARGING PEOPLE TO DOWNGRADE?!@$? Are you serious? At a time when BTC should be encouraging customers to shop around, to experiment, they have chosen to punish us for trying to spend less? UNACCEPTABLE.

We need to demand more from the entities that bear our country's name. They reflect on us all. 

Communication is changing the world and the world is returning the favour. And amid this change we limp along with yesterday's new thing as our Caribbean brothers and sisters breeze past, lapping us, perhaps for the second time.

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