The end of internet customer service.

[MC39693]

Moderators can delete.  Best I not rant about internet services.

[billybob]

Dang...

[MC39693]

Ok, I’ll offer this experience.

We use two communications service providers; A for cell and home security, B for internet and TV. We live in a cul-de-sac where the development is no more than 11 years old, aka somewhat recent communications services all in ground buried cables.

Contractors for provider A were in our area putting in fibre optic cable.  Poof, our provider B services went out.

I asked the provider A workers, hey guys any chance you dislodged a cable for my internet and TV from provider B.  No way was the answer.

Wife saw provider A guys working in two different in ground conduit/junction box locations right at the time the provider B services went poof.  Hmmm.  Provider B works over the ether and checks our in-house gear and says they can’t see anything, aka, can’t get communications to our house.  Hmmm.

I call provider A, every single number I can find.  No one, not one human being can tell me anything about the work in our cul-de-sac, or get a field foreman to come and check things out. 

I reached out to the PR folks of provider A and told them the situation.  They passed along to escalation folks.  One escalation manager assures me their field techs could not have affected our house because, provider B doesn’t have any in ground cabling.  Wow!  Provider B provides services essentially Canada wide.  This guy could tell, without looking at my house or checking installation diagrams that I have above ground cabling, even though there are no above ground cables within miles and miles.  He just blew me off.

Provider B sends tech to our house, 11 days after the incident because they laid off too many field techs during Covid.  Field tech fixes the problem in 2 minutes when he finds the location of our in-ground cable and tells me the original connector was forcibly removed.  Hmmm.

I am still waiting for the provider A escalation managers to return my third call to them to ask why their people a) caused the problem, b) lied to me about the installation of provider B’s cables, c) were completely rude to me.

I hope no one ever goes through this type of issue.  Major pain with family trying to work from home, do job interviews over the internet and oh yeah, we missed the Olympics because we had no TV.

 

I don’t expect satisfaction, provider A is not on my Christmas card list.

[billybob]

By forcibly, B could have been accidentally removed or on 

purpose unlikely. Likely caused by A, as wife noted.

In any event, would send corporate a response, and ask for a price reduction or something for the

Inconvenience.

Fwiw...

By forcibly, either an A employee may have disconnected by mistake and did not reconnect.

Or, it happened from underground by A.

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by billybob

[MC39693]

I am really trying to make direct contact with an "escalation manager" to discuss compensation.  But more so to get them to understand their people have been completely negligent in causing the problem, in providing meaningful resolution contacts and in follow up.  Next message is to the PR person again, with draft letter I'll send to communications commission.

[billybob]

I edited my post above.

Understand and let them see your 

CC to commission.

 

 

[babadono]

@MC39693 I gave you a sad face on your post. I fell ur pain. They all suck. Unless you are a lawyer and have unlimited time on your hands I predict you will get no satisfaction. But curious they did not do the same thing to any other of your neighbors? Assuming it was malicious.

[MC39693]

@babadono, we appear to be the only users of provider B in our cul-de-sac at least for land line services.  My wife is a retired lawyer. We have a very strong history of winning law suits. Hmmm? Never tell the opposition your background. 

[babadono]

Lawyer...check

Unlimited Time.......Retired lawyer....check

Give 'em hell.

[Bozo73]

At least you have two providers to choose from, we have one. I have been after my service since May trying to get consistent service. Five different techs have been out wasting my time, changing every splitter and amplifier in my system, some were changed several times in the last year. One crew even changed the connectors on the cables to the TVs? I requested and received two refunds, so far. Maybe I should send my wife to law school.

[MC39693]

To make a more generic point, in this wireless day and age, we should not forget that sooner or later a cable generally comes into the overall communications channel, and how much our lives depend on this is pretty amazing. My wife and I have essentially unlimited cell data so we did hot spot internet but it wasn’t very consistent and was much slower.

[MC39693]

@Bozo73, I feel your pain. I’ve had field techs put signal boosters in, then others take them out. The best seems to be to disconnect as many outlets as you can in your house and eliminate their signal boosters if possible. 

 

Law school wasn’t inexpensive! But handy, although I’ve never gotten out of a traffic citation even with my lawyer in the car at the time.

[MC39693]

So they finally reached out and offered about $50 in restitution.  Wow.  Thanks.  I gave them a lengthy lecture about customer service.  Oh well, I'm sure it went right on the floor or waste basket.