Enough of PLDT and its DSL
Iloilo City
October 14, 2014
The least that I want as far as thriving in the IT world is cut off ties with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone, Inc. (PLDT) which as the word suggests is a telephone utility company. I have been subscribing to its services since 1996.
PLDT expanded to DSL services which I grabbed immediately because it saved me from Internet service providers which often gobbled up pre-paid cards let all be their erratic and fainting signals.
This afternoon, I am left with no choice but proceed to its office in La Paz, Iloilo City. It is no longer the PLDT that I used to know: it is now a monster, a spoiled brat which Has perfected the craft of putting one over its clients for the sake of bragging super profits. I went there to deliver a brief letter asking to unsubscribe.
For over a week, my landline and DSL were dead. I did notify the company which has honed the habit of tormenting complaining clients by pitting in infinite discourse with robots and wait for eternity before a human voice picks up the phone.
Of course the voice at the other end of the line, whether a woman's or man's, is cute, polite and articulate being trained to be that he/she should as call center agent who courteously assures you your "concern" will be referred to the technical department for action. Sorry, sir, for the incovnience and thank you for notifying us, goes the canned parting words of the PBO agent, a non PLDT organic employee.
The repair crew fails to disappear so the next day or so, you call up PLDT anew and under the same ordeal of talking to robots until you get the human voice who politely takes your call and courteously let off assurances again, and bids you adieux with profuse apology only to find yourself gritting I rage seeing your dead phone and dead DSL waiting for the second coming of Christ to rise from the dead.
I have these sad experiences coming again and again, the penultimate one finding myself having to cough up more than P1,500 as payment for the modem (my old one was still functioning) that the repair crew installed without my permission.
Despite my new modem, the phone and DSL conked out again and that was it: I have to cut and cut
quickly.
At the PLDT office, I told the guard I only wanted to have my letter notifying my decision to unsubscribed stamped "received and dated". The guard gave my the wait list number 1141 (the customer service was 1102. The office was crowded. All th seats are occupied, more are standing.
I never had experienced having to elbow my way to the customer service window in PLDT La Paz. I used to pay my bills there and the entire procedure was automated, no need to ask for any priority number.
Well, that was in the ''90s when Toti Querubin was still its general manager and before Salim Group took control of what was erstwhile a jewel of the Filipino people (yes, it was owned by Pinoy taxpayers before a certain Ason Aquino privatized it for a song to her relative Tony Boy Conjuangco who I turn sold it at hefty price to Salim Group, a holdings company owned by Indonesian dictator
Soeharto.
At the time of Toti Querubin, PLDT expanded fast and its parking lot had always three or four maintenance vans staffed by organic crew on standby to respond immediately to calls for repair.
That's is no longer the case now. It's a miracle to find a single service repair van on standby at the PLDT office which has retrenched all its organic repair crew and replaced them with outsiders or subcontractors.
Salim Group appointed Manuelita Fangilinan president and CEO of PLDT. Drastic changes were implemented since then, foremostly, mass retrenchment, and abolition of regular positions and divisions particularly repair and maintenance and the complaint desks.
When I delivered my letter notifying it of my unsubscription, I found it an eye opener: I was not alone, there were many of us. Some even fared worse because on top of their dead phones and DSL (to include Smart) which lasted for weeks they were also overcharged. They too, repeatedly called up to complain of their disconnected phone and DSL services all of which were unacted upon.
Well, that's an outcome of Manuelita Fangilinan's policy hiring call center agents in lieu of organic personnel attending to complaints.
The sluggish repair work is also an outcome of Manuelita Fangilinan's policy of outsourcing repair and maintenance, of subcontracting trouble shooting job to outsiders who, unlike organic employees, just come and go and are not imbued with company accountability and loyalty.
Manuelita Fangilinan, Mutya ng PLDT, ilansang sa krus!
October 14, 2014
The least that I want as far as thriving in the IT world is cut off ties with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone, Inc. (PLDT) which as the word suggests is a telephone utility company. I have been subscribing to its services since 1996.
PLDT expanded to DSL services which I grabbed immediately because it saved me from Internet service providers which often gobbled up pre-paid cards let all be their erratic and fainting signals.
This afternoon, I am left with no choice but proceed to its office in La Paz, Iloilo City. It is no longer the PLDT that I used to know: it is now a monster, a spoiled brat which Has perfected the craft of putting one over its clients for the sake of bragging super profits. I went there to deliver a brief letter asking to unsubscribe.
For over a week, my landline and DSL were dead. I did notify the company which has honed the habit of tormenting complaining clients by pitting in infinite discourse with robots and wait for eternity before a human voice picks up the phone.
Of course the voice at the other end of the line, whether a woman's or man's, is cute, polite and articulate being trained to be that he/she should as call center agent who courteously assures you your "concern" will be referred to the technical department for action. Sorry, sir, for the incovnience and thank you for notifying us, goes the canned parting words of the PBO agent, a non PLDT organic employee.
The repair crew fails to disappear so the next day or so, you call up PLDT anew and under the same ordeal of talking to robots until you get the human voice who politely takes your call and courteously let off assurances again, and bids you adieux with profuse apology only to find yourself gritting I rage seeing your dead phone and dead DSL waiting for the second coming of Christ to rise from the dead.
I have these sad experiences coming again and again, the penultimate one finding myself having to cough up more than P1,500 as payment for the modem (my old one was still functioning) that the repair crew installed without my permission.
Despite my new modem, the phone and DSL conked out again and that was it: I have to cut and cut
quickly.
At the PLDT office, I told the guard I only wanted to have my letter notifying my decision to unsubscribed stamped "received and dated". The guard gave my the wait list number 1141 (the customer service was 1102. The office was crowded. All th seats are occupied, more are standing.
I never had experienced having to elbow my way to the customer service window in PLDT La Paz. I used to pay my bills there and the entire procedure was automated, no need to ask for any priority number.
Well, that was in the ''90s when Toti Querubin was still its general manager and before Salim Group took control of what was erstwhile a jewel of the Filipino people (yes, it was owned by Pinoy taxpayers before a certain Ason Aquino privatized it for a song to her relative Tony Boy Conjuangco who I turn sold it at hefty price to Salim Group, a holdings company owned by Indonesian dictator
Soeharto.
At the time of Toti Querubin, PLDT expanded fast and its parking lot had always three or four maintenance vans staffed by organic crew on standby to respond immediately to calls for repair.
That's is no longer the case now. It's a miracle to find a single service repair van on standby at the PLDT office which has retrenched all its organic repair crew and replaced them with outsiders or subcontractors.
Salim Group appointed Manuelita Fangilinan president and CEO of PLDT. Drastic changes were implemented since then, foremostly, mass retrenchment, and abolition of regular positions and divisions particularly repair and maintenance and the complaint desks.
When I delivered my letter notifying it of my unsubscription, I found it an eye opener: I was not alone, there were many of us. Some even fared worse because on top of their dead phones and DSL (to include Smart) which lasted for weeks they were also overcharged. They too, repeatedly called up to complain of their disconnected phone and DSL services all of which were unacted upon.
Well, that's an outcome of Manuelita Fangilinan's policy hiring call center agents in lieu of organic personnel attending to complaints.
The sluggish repair work is also an outcome of Manuelita Fangilinan's policy of outsourcing repair and maintenance, of subcontracting trouble shooting job to outsiders who, unlike organic employees, just come and go and are not imbued with company accountability and loyalty.
Manuelita Fangilinan, Mutya ng PLDT, ilansang sa krus!
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