Same Shit, Different Year

A few months ago, I had a bad experience with my mobile phone service provider’s customer service as I couldn’t seem to get through to any of the representatives and had to speak to several of them in order to get my problem resolved. I’ve been receiving sms-es from the company asking me to reload RM10 and have my credit validity extended. The most recent one was received on 28th December 2013 and it goes like this:-

“RM0 Just4u! Reload min RM10 from 28/12-30/12 & enjoy EXTRA 25days credit validity. Bonus will be credited on 01/01”.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. Like the fool I am, I reloaded RM10 on 30/12 and 01/01 came and went without any confirmation that my credit validity had been extended so I called the company’s customer service representative on 02/01 and the woman blithely informed me that the validity would be extended after 06/01 (which is when my current credit validity expires) despite what their sms said. Yeah, right! I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. So I said to her, “If it isn’t extended, I’ll have to call you again?” and she said “Yes” but of course she would say that just to get me off the phone and besides, when I do call again, I am unlikely to speak to the same person again since they have so many representatives.

I wasn’t buying any of that so I called again this morning and another woman took my call and after checking, she said the sms which promised me the extended credit validity wasn’t in their system and could I kindly send it to their 28882 number so that they could confirm I had indeed received it. I told her the same thing had happened to me a few months ago and when I’d been told to send the sms to the said number, the sms bounced back with the message that the number was invalid and could I please try again so any further attempts to send the sms to the said number were a total and complete waste of time on my part.

Any further suggestions? She said she would consult with her supervisor. Long story cut short, all in all, I was on the line for more than 20 minutes with no satisfactory conclusion as she said a report would be filed and could I please call back within 3 to 7 working days to check?

The next time I receive a sms from this company asking me to reload RM10 for an extended credit validity, I am just going to ignore it because obviously they so don’t mean what they promise. For the record, this isn’t even the 2nd time this has happened. The incident in October isn’t the first time either as I remember them not extending my credit validity on other occasions but as I’d deleted their sms asking me to reload, I couldn’t call and complain. No proof  means no further action will be taken. Such is the ever declining standard of customer service here. It’s alarming that no one seems to care about customers any more because we’re just supposed to take whatever shit comes our way. Even if promises aren’t kept, they just hope we will stay silent. Musleading customers certainly isn’t the way to prolong customer loyalty and speaks volumes for the credibility of the company itself!