Monday 18 May 2009

Swisscom saga

I would strongly recommend against choosing Swisscom for your internet or other services if you live in Switzerland. I have been a customer with them for the last 10 years or so and have been staying with them since their service used to be the best even if their prices were not always as advantageous as the competition. However, these last few months have made me change my mind. You might remember that I wrote how I managed to get an offer for 3 months of internet for free sometime back in January. Spent 20 minutes on the phone to get that offer, but thought that would be the end of the story. But no. In short these are the steps of the internet from hell story:
1) Wait a week for the contract. Call. Oooops they had forgotten to send it. (lost approx. 2 weeks)
2) Contract arrives, but no mention of the 3 months free. Call them up and re-explain the whole situation, ask if I can add a note onto the contract but am instead promised a letter stating these 3 months for free.
3) No letter arrives for a couple of weeks. Call back again and am told that no such letter exists and that it is impossible for them to provide individual letters (although the idea for such a letter came from a Swisscom employee originally). However, the lady promised that she could see the promised 3 months on my profile. So decided to trust Swisscom and signed the contract.
4) Ahhh finally the personal information and the DSL box arrives - we have internet!!!! Not. Something is wrong with the connection. Many stops by the Swisscom shop and calls to Swisscom later, and many trial at home for what can be wrong, finally Swisscom agrees to send an expert. Who check everything and finds the problem to be that Swisscom has sent our line to the wrong receiver in the building, something outside of our apartment and completely outside of our control. He has it fixed. And finally we do indeed have internet. 3 months after the original request!!
5) But no, the saga doesn't end there. The first bill arrive, and not only are we charged for the whole month of April when we mostly didn't have internet, we are actually charged - the 3 months having been completely forgotten. This is why I wanted a letter or something written. Just talked to a lady at the accounting department of Swisscom who now promised me that the 3 months will start from May. We'll see if that will happen. I'm so tired of Swisscom. It is not normal that getting internet should take 3 months. It is not normal to have to call the provider 8-10 times before it works. It is not normal that an agreement is broken as it was here. And it is not normal that they do not offer any compensation after all this loss of time, energy, and money.

I do not have the energy to change providers at the moment. Not after that everything is finally working. But I warn you against getting Swisscom if you can avoid it. Really.

4 comments:

kinitry said...

sorry sweety, sounds normal to me...here in Zambia... ;)
big hug and lots of luck!

Blogger Complaint said...

Thank you for bringing your experience with the activation of your DSL contract via your blog also to our attention. We would like to get in contact with you. Please give us a number or address. Kind regards, Swisscom

la fée verte said...

To Swisscom, blogger complaint.

I have already brought this problem to the attention to Swisscom through a numerous of phone calls, the last one dating to the same day as the entry was written were I explained the whole story to the lady on the phone, who could not care less regretfully.

I would not mind writing to Swisscom directly but since there is no indication on where to write and as I am neither going to post my number nor my address on this blog, this is the only way of answering I find.

Best regards.

Blogger Complaint said...

Thank you. Please send us your E-Mail to our address: blogger.complaint@gmail.com. We will be delighted to get in touch with you. Kind regards, Swisscom