John Linton
....not the words that immediately spring to my mind when describing Exetel's employees and managers.....but apparently I'm mistaken.
I dealt with three emailed complaints yesterday that used those three words and several more along the same lines caused by Exetel increasing the monthly allowance on several of its plans (by as much as 10 gigabytes of peak usage) and reducing the excess usage charges from $1.50 to $0.50....yes....increasing the value of the plans and reducing the cost is obviously the work of an ISP that is describable as "thieving", "cheating", "fundamentally dishonest" and is operated and managed by "total ****holes".
The three people I replied to used grossly foul language and one of them extended their peroration of righteous indignation to twelve paragraphs of vituperation. The reason for these expressions of total disgust with Exetel and all of its employees? Our plan changes that despite being advised to the customers on the web site pricing pages and via an email (to those who subscribe to "plan and service" changes) as becoming available from 1st January 2010 had taken the view that the additional allowances and reduced excess charges would be added to their current plans although the changes were only announced in the last few days of December. Clearly our attempts at making it clear that these new benefits were only available from 1st January 2010 were not made clearly enough.
So I responded to each of the complainants apologising profusely for Exetel being thieves, crooks, scammers or whatever each individual had described us as in their initial email and, as we had yet to process the bank files for the January bill run (it being a public holiday on Friday), I committed to removing the "overcharges" from their invoice although pointing out that to claim it being an "over charge" was both ridiculous and dishonest. I received two emails in reply demanding that Exetel should do more than apologise for our "chicanery" (nice to see that some of our customers have a dictionary) and one thought we should credit the whole invoice amount as a "gesture of good faith" and the other thought that "at least two month free service" would compensate him for the pain and suffering he had been caused by "Exetel over charging him". Talk about 'taking your breath away'.
So I slept on it as I was in no position to make any sort of sensible decision on what sort of reply should be sent to such people. Having had a night's sleep I replied to both their emails earlier this morning and I also sent a further email to the third complainant setting out how I actually viewed firstly their complaints and in the case of the unbelievable two exactly what I thought of their request for "compensation". Doubtless they will find my emails to be inappropriate but I wonder whether they will consider that writing to a perfect stranger and using totally intemperate and completely inappropriate language is 'appropriate'? I very much doubt it if they received such correspondence.
Even if I tried really, really hard and removed all logic and basic information from the scenario I couldn't possibly find a way of agreeing that a person of even below average intelligence could decide that he/she had had the terms and conditions of supply of his/her service had been changed without notice. Even if I stretched my imagination to its fullest extent I can't believe that someone who saw such a change wouldn't email or call the supplier to confirm the situation. But that's just me - clearly it is more than possible as at least three people have clearly shown.
Personally, I have trouble believing there are people in Australia that stupid. If there are then God knows how they manage to live an independent life. But, again personally, I don't want personally, or to have Exetel personnel, be abused by such people nor do I want to be put in a position of having to deal with such people and, of course, I fully understand that such people shouldn't put themselves in a position where "lying, thieving, cheating scumbag companies like Exetel" should be able to rip them off - they should be protected from such gross abuse as they don't seem to be able to protect themselves from becoming subject to such abuse.
Obviously the very first thing that they need to do is to immediately move away from a "scumbag" company like Exetel to one that will not "rip them off at every opportunity". I'll have to give some considerable thought as to how Exetel can help them best resolve this totally unacceptable situation......and there I was...hoping for a pleasant day.
I wonder if it is far too late to find a job I am competent to carry out?