Instant Science

Here you can find some personal reflections on issues concerning my professional interests.

These include Business Process Management, Organization Design, and the use of information technology in a wide sense.

Disclaimer: This blog is not an official Gartner publication. The content represents my personal point of view, but not necessarily the official standpoint of my employer.

Any comments are welcome!

Thursday, April 03, 2008

DSL upgrade - Disappointed by Telekom

At home, I have a DSL connection provided by Telekom since 2001. Until February this year, I had a 6 mbit connection with DSL and phone flatrate and I virtually never had any problem with regard to availability. The cost was maybe somewhat higher than with some competitors, but the service lovel made me stay.

Then I was called by a customer representative and offered an upgrade from 6 -> 16 mbit, in combination with a hotspot flatrate. The flipside was a 2 year contractual obligation, but I considered this as acceptable.

A few days later I received the order conformation and another couple of days later the DSL connection was dead. When calling the service center I had to learn that my DSL modem was not capable of a 16 mbit connection and that I would need a new one at the cost of 49 €. I was also told that the cost could be offset against my monthly fee, since I had not been informed about the additional cost.

A few days later, I received the new modem that nowadays is combined with a wireless access point, installed it and functionality was thus restored. I then sent a mail to Telekom customer service, told them about the issue and asked how to handle the refund/offset. I also told them that I would not pay the invoice for the port, until the issue was settled.

Today, I received a call where I was told that a refund or offset is out of question and that I should pay the invoice. The reason given was that 49 € is the price and since they could not confirm that I had not been informed about the fact that I would need a new port, there was no reason to waive the invoice.

I then tried to revoke the upgrade. No, this wasn't possible either since the cancellation period is two weeks. This despite the fact that I had contacted them regarding the issue within this period and the handling time caused the delay.

Well, what I am supposed to do now? Probably send a harsh letter to Telekom manangement, try to enforce the revocation of the contract and then change the provider. So far, my impression of Telekom's service offering has been positive, but this has really disappointed me.

1 Comments:

  • At 12:05 AM, September 15, 2010 , Blogger Kai said...

    After sending a letter of complaint to a member of the executive board, I received a call from an executive assistant, who informed me that the issue would be resolved. And it was ... within a few days to my complete satisfaction.

     

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