Pldt Sucks!!!

[jode]

About 17 months ago I decided to rent a house in Mandaue. I wanted internet of course and went to the company that serves that area-The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. After filling out their lengthy application form I was told that I would have to sign a 0ne year contract. I said I was only going to be in country for 5 months and is there any way I could just get service for that length of time. After passing the question and my form around the office and much discussion I finally got to talk to the office manager.

He said he would make an exception for me if I was willing to pay 6 months in advance. I signed a contract stating that and paid up and waited my instalation. It took a couple weeks for them to make their first appearance. Someone out of a PLDT truck messing with the nest of wires on the pole outside the gate.

Several days later their truck is finally at my gate wanting to get in to install my internet, and the phone you are required to take whether you want it or not. Three guys get out and while two find shady spots to relax, the guy in charge looks around and says he won't do it. He says there is no way to get the wire into the house. I pointed out to him a good spot and said just drill a hole right here. He said he needs permission from property owner. I said she is right over there ask her. He says his drill is broken.

He stands there with his arms folded, basking in the glory, of his power and authority for awhile. Perhaps waiting for me to pull some incentive for him out of my wallet. Which I don't do and he gets in his truck and leaves.

Another trip to the office and taking a number and waiting. Finally get to air my complaint, actually about three times to differant underlings before finally talking to man in charge again. He calls his installation manager and after a long wait for him to come in from the field, there is a long and slightly heated discussion between the two.

A few days later the truck is back and they put the wire through a window and hook up my unwanted phone and the modem. The speed of the cable connection is slow and the service intermitant. By the way, why do you still have to pay for the times when you have no connection? Why don't they deduct the time when the service is out from your bill? If they had to do that perhaps the service would be more reliable.

In five months, and couple days before my flight back to states, I call them and tell them to disconnect my service. I ask them if I can bring their equipment back to their office myself (as that is what the policy is back where I am from). They say no they don't do it that way. I have to fill out a form and mail it to Manila to get permission to be disconnected. I said I have a plane to catch and don't have time for all of that, and to just disconnect me and the guard will let them in whenever they want to get their phone and modem.

I thought I was fine as I had paid for 6 months, only used five, and given them notice and offered to return their stuff before I left. But no such luck.

Seven months later, my months back in USA over and I am back in Philippines. I get a text on my cell phone. It is from a lawyer advising me that he represents PDLT and that unless i paid the 6,000 pesos plus that i owed them that legal action will be started against me.

I went to the local office on Mactan and after explaining the situation, was told that I would have to see the person in charge of my kind of complaint, at the office in Cebu City. I took the long taxi ride there and was ushered through a warren of offices to the complaint center and to the woman i was told to see.

I explained my side of the situation and even offered to give them 2,000 pesos to make this problem go away. She said that for whatever reason, i was charged for 2 months after the 6 month period and that there was a 2,000 peso disconection penalty because I had it disconnected before the one year minimum or something like that. she wouldn't budge on her position and said the only way I could possibly make that 6,000 plus peso charge go away was to be reconnected to PLDT. I said I would rather be connected to electrodes on my nipples and she pulled the switch than be reconnected to their %#@& company and i would never pay!!!!

So far no further word from them. However now every time I go to emmigration to get my visa renewed I wonder if I will end up in their holding cell upstairs over this.

[Dzighnman]

Jode, thanks for sharing your experience..... it makes us even mort thankful that we gave up on them based only upon our experience with their rude and ignorant (of their services and product) phone staff before ever getting close enough to establish service.

:wt-hell:

[billten]

So far no further word from them.

An elderly friend of mine had a very similar situation with Globe, wnt in and told them that he was heading back to Canada for the summer and would not be using his Globe postpaid account and could they suspend the service? "No problems sir, be happy to, just call when you return and the bills will continue sir..." When he gets back he gets a bunch of nasty legal letters demanding payment for all his bills while he was away. He goes into the Globe office and actually talks to the person who said "No problem". Gets told, ignore that nonesense, and he got signed up with a brand new post-paid account. Hillarious...

[sonjack2847]

I have had similar problems here with different companies. Imo you cannot trust anything they tell you even if it is in writing I would be dubious about it.

[MikeB]

When I signed my year's contract with PLDT I asked the sales rep what happened if I had to leave before that, being a tourist and all. She said, "Do what everybody does, just leave" so I followed her advice. After the Ondoy flood in Manila my friend's Globe modem was under water, along with everything else. It took 4 months before internet service even started to work in his area of Marikina. They insisted he pay all the months that he didn't have service because of the flood, then finally relented after 6 weeks of phone calls and "it will be working in 24 hours, sir". But their system would not allow them to "unbill" the flood months so they deleted the old account and created a new; same name, address. That's how they fixed it. They're all equally bad.

[Mike S]

Although I have had my problems with Globe .... getting a refund when their service is down due to what ever reason is not one of them .... last year my service was down for 3 weeks ... the 2nd month following the renewed service reflected the reduction in cost for the length of time the service was down and I have always found their service guys and office workers to be nothing but polite and courteous when dealing with them in person

Where we used to live there were over 100 apartments and all the cable wires from PLDT were run through the top or bottom of the windows ..... so they are definitely aware they can do that ...... choosing to do so maybe another thing .....

[Dave Hounddriver]

OK, here's my horror story with Smart.

My 2 year contract is up. So I went all the way to the Smart office at SM Cebu to cancel my account. She said: Sorry sir. Your 2 years are up on MAY 20 and you only have a 5 day window on either side to cancel. It means you have to come back to the office between May 15 and May 25 to cancel.

I said it would be 1,000 each way for the trip and 1,000 for the hotel to come back and do that and she said: Sorry sir. I cannot process your paperwork now and we are not allowed to hold it until the cancellation date so come back in 3 weeks. (Yes I had offered to pay all charges in advance up to the date of cancellation but it is the "paperwork" that matters.)

Anyway, I smiled sweetly and told her it was a good thing that she was the one to take care of me as some people get very grumpy dealing with foreigners. She said: For you sir, I will be the one to hold your paperwork on my desk and put it through for you on the required date.

We shall see.

[Mike S]

Wow ..... those are some experiences with Smart ...... when we moved from where we lived to where we are now we had Smart ..... my asawa simply went do to their office and told them we were moving (the account was in her name then) and as we had been with them for 2 years they said no problem and killed the service on the day we moved out ....... we had to pay them something like 600p for partial service ........ now you guys have me wondering if I will get a letter in the mail from some lawyer demanding payment ..... oh well .... I guess I'm stuffed if I do .... just have to pay it I guess ...... :th_unfair:

Edited April 24, 2012 by Mike S

[Jollygoodfellow]

now you guys have me wondering if I will get a letter in the mail from some lawyer demanding payment ..... oh well .... I guess I'm stuffed if I do .... just have to pay it I guess

Just because a letter might come from someone claiming to be a lawyer on behalf of the phone company does not mean it is, could be just one of those situations where they sell the debt and the company that buys it tries to recover it to make a profit.

Use it to light the fire with, hmm maybe not a good idea in the Philippines, use it to fan the face.

[Call me bubba]

when I hear about customer service of PLDT, I think of waterboarding. pins under the nails.anal probes and other unmentionables.

What I have had to when dealing w/the circus (clowns) :551: is to tell them I am recording the phone converstaion, I do ask for permission,

as when you call. you hear a message that THEIR calls are recorded too.

this way if I have any,.. ANY at all of "issues" or sorry sirs BUT i cant help or do this.

you have your own "record" of the exchange with the CSR as they supposely have their own record too.

I used to pull out the RECORDING (at pldt office) when I had service issues and when played (you should see how their skin turned so white and they had no whitening lotion/creme) it help resolve the "issue" in my favor(usually not always)

once my service was not working, so i called the "repair"number, was told someone would come on a few days, OK, no problem,, so I called again the next day to confirm that there was a "SERVICE REQUEST" regarding my issue,, Guess what .. NO RECORD no list of my past call. So i made another report,, To make the long story short and not have anyone to fall asleep reading this.

IS that I flagged down a service truck when he was on my street doing another repair,

he had no service "repair/request" but He would check on it after the current call.

he came back short time later, started on the "repair". found the ISSUE that was source of the problem, and it was fixed by the new day as it involved another "junction" to be fixed,

I offerred his a small "gift" for his outstanding service but he did accept a can of juice and cookies.

what I have done since this issue and other issues that I may have is to use

complaint web sites to post my , gripe. ,

after I make a post I will make a copy , then if I have to go to the "office" of that business that gave poor service I may leave a copy of my past experience so they will know that

" i will not accept the song and dance they give,, sorry sir & the other manure"

pissedconsumer.com complaintsboard.com/bycountry/philippines.html

are 2 sites that I have used in the past,

just maybe they will listen ?? :508:

Edited April 24, 2012 by Call me Bubba