Letter from a Reader: Notoriously yours, JTelecoms

Image courtesy of www.ibomawards.org

Dear FP:

I am a very loyal fan, and I have been reading the horror stories on your blog regarding JTelecoms.  It's pretty obvious they're unbeatable when it comes to notorious customer service.

I have been in touch with somebody from JT.  I really do not know him and his post in the company, but since he was the contact person of the Commission's COM head  here in our province, I guess he must be a bigwig.

To sum it up,  I am complaining about four things, all of which are fully explained in the exchanges below. 

1. Misleading information on billing leading to overpayment. 

2. Inaccurate information from customer service representatives, which again may cause a subscriber to overpay.

3. Misleading advertising and marketing.

4. Lack of concrete action.

As you can see, all of these complaints are not what you would expect from a such a big company. It's beginning to look like a scam, a fly-by-night organization. You'll be made to look like a fool, always given the run around with your complaints going nowhere. At the end of it all, the helpless consumer will be made to pay for huge amounts that this company says you owe them. 

I am forwarding to you my exchange of emails with them to give you an idea of what happened. Even with a COM head present, it's still the same -  they ignore customers.

For the record, I have been with JT for more than 10 years now.  And I have never been so disgusted with them as I am now.

I give you full permission to publish these exchanges as you see fit, but please hold my details for confidentiality.  I have also included the same files I sent them to prove my claims.

***

Hi Mr. Carl,

It has been close to two weeks since my first e-mail and follow up.  I still have not heard from your good office.

What should I do next?

Also, it is already the 7th of May.  Your customer service supervisor promised that my most current bill will be generated at most 10 days after my cut off, which was on April 26, 2013.  The 10 days would have lapsed on May 5 or 6.  Until today, I still do not have the bill generated, at least as far as the Web site is concerned.

Again, what are steps that I need to take to finally just put all these behind me?

Thanks

Benny C.

***

Dear Mr. Carl:

This is just a follow up on my concerns detailed below. 

What should I do next?

Benny C. 

***

Dear Sir:

I am Benny C. I used to work with Basol in Croakland Ltd.

I am writing you to consult some possible misrepresentation on the part of JTelecoms JT regarding my account.  In short, they have been misrepresenting charges to my account to make me think that I am still under my allocation.  Then they are charging me a lot more for the period.

Is this something that the Commission COM handles?  What is the proper procedure in filing this type of complaint.

Thank you.

Benny C.

***

Carl;

Forwarded to you the complaint of Mr Benny C. Please coordinate directly with Mr C. as to the nature of his complaint and let me know of its status.

Your usual immediate action is highly appreciated.

Jake

***

Sir Benny,

Good PM, did this concern, queries or whatever manner brought to the attention of JT?

Thank you.

Carl

***

Mr. Carl:

Yes. But I have been given the usual run around and the lack of concrete action is appalling.

I have three complaints actually, which I will be detailing here.

I have been a subscriber of JT and have been checking on unbilled charges for my account.  For the last week of March and the first few weeks of April, I have been checking for it online.  For that period, my unbilled charges had been zero to around P10.  As such, I continued to INTERMITTENTLY use my JT line whenever I was out of the house because I was subscribed to your three-hour freebie.

On the afternoon of April 21, I decided to check on my unbilled charges. To my surprise, it had gone up to P1,947.62!

I immediately called up JT service hotline and was told by the customer service agent CSA of the following:

·not to rely on the information given by their system as they are undergoing modernization

·Assured me that my unbilled charges as of that day was only P10, which would match the unbilled charges reflected on their Web site.

·Refused to connect me to a supervisor saying that a supervisor would have no new information to tell me.

Nevertheless, I was curious as to where their automated system would pluck out a specific amount.  I have been reading about the horrors of questionable bil charges and I do not want that to happen to me, so I insisted on talking to a supervisor.  After telling the CSA countless times that unless he connected me to a supervisor, I would not continue the conversation with him, he finally relented. 

Half an hour on hold, I finally got to talk to a supervisor who told me that I was being charged that amount primarily due to using up 14,000 kb of data. 

I contested this charge as I rarely used the mobile data connection on my phone.  At home, I use my PLDT Wi-Fi connection. I also track my data usage on my phone and have been careful not to exceed three hours, which is my free allocation from the freebie.  The tracking on my phone estimated only 8MB used for the same period, a far cry from the 14MB that JT was charging me.  Screenshot of my data usage from the phone is attached.

On top of that, I repeat that I am a subscriber of your 3-Hour Surfing Freebie, as part of my Plan 299.   I am pretty sure that I have not exceeded the 3-hour allocation, so why the charge? I cannot understand why JT makes subscribers think that they are charging by the hour and then turn around and charge subscribers per KB used.  Do you mean to say that you would first charge me by the time consumed under the freebie then start charging me by kilobyte after the plan is consumed?  I challenge you to show me a page on their Web site that explains that.  They mislead people into thinking that they are paying by the time used, which is not as expensive as paying per kilobyte!

I am filing a complaint against JT for their blatant misrepresentation of usage.  Had I continued to rely on your Web site, and had not diligently checked on my account thru their hotline, I shudder to think just how much more I would be billed. This is classic fraud, a bait and switch only that instead of being offered a higher priced item, you are duped into thinking that everything is alright.  I understand that you are undergoing network upgrades, but there are no disclaimers anywhere on your site that the charges posted there may not be accurate!

As you can see from the screenshot it says that as of April 22, 2013, my unbilled charges are still P10.27.

To sum it up, my complaints are:

1. Misleading information on billing leading to possible overpayment.  No notice on the My Accounts section of your site, making people think that they are spending within their plan allocation.  In fact, it is very blatant to see the lesser charge and the as of date being current.

What's worse, I was told that I would have to wait for my billing to be generated before anything on your part could be done.  That means more stress and aggravation on my part.  I just want this to be done and over with, so that I could take the necessary actions.  If I am going to have to question the charges, or pay them, I would like JT to show me:

1. Why I am being charged, 

How many hours I have been using the mobile data connection.

How many Kbs am I going to pay over that you say is more than my three hour allotment.

Details on the time stamps and the URLS visited, to show that indeed, my data usage has gone over three hours and indeed it justifies that much kilobytes.

Nobody, not even the supervisor I talked to could tell me that.  All they told me repeatedly is that I would have to wait until my bill is generated before I could do anything.

2. Inaccurate information coming from your CSA's, which again may cause a subscriber to overspend.  Your automated system contradicts your Accounts Web site.  Your CSA's contradicts your automated system.  Your customer service supervisors contradict your agents. 

Your subscribers get dizzy which one is accurate and which one is not.  

Your CSA was very adamant that my unbilled charges was only P10,  even after asking him about it not just five times, he said that it was only P10.

But the supervisor contradicted that and said that it was indeed close to P2,000.

Had I believed your agent, I would be paying more than the P2,000 and not have my data connection deactivated as a safeguard against additional charges.

Also, in refusing to connect me to a supervisor more than thrice, your CSA also LIED in saying that the supervisor would not have any material information which he had already given me.  

3. Misleading advertising and marketing.

I can see that you have changed your postpaid promotions, but in the previous one, you offered three-hour mobile surfing as a freebie. If your customer service supervisor was to be believed, customers are charged by the kilobyte they use and not by the number of hours.

If that is so, you let subscribers sign up for three hours of mobile surfing, then charge them per kilobyte at some point after that allocation has been used up?  And that is without ANY warning on your site (Please see the screenshot of the cached page on Google which proves what was on your Web site before, as well as a copy of your marketing materials.)  It is very misleading and fraudulent.  

4. The lack of concrete action.

Why your customers would need to wait before being served, being lied to, and not being able to get accurate information on THEIR OWN ACCOUNT from JT's OWN SYSTEM is appalling. Until now, I still do not know whether I would be billed P2,000 or P10.

Lastly, Mr. Carl, before all of these happened, I have been recontracted for another two years.  Seeing that my first contract ended only on April 19, and seeing that my cut-off is on April 26, 2013, I am thinking that the recontracting had not taken effect yet.  With this experience, I decided that I am not willing to spend time and effort monitoring my JT account and end up getting miserable, helpless being lied to with all those fraudulent information. I have been a subscriber for so long, I would like to be allowed to terminate my contract without having to pay the pre-termination fees.

Note: Letter edited

Please abide by the GUIDELINES in writing comments if you want them to be posted. Initials and comments that are too explicit will not be accepted.

Follow @FashionPulis on Twitter for the latest update. Please continue to send your juicy stories to michaelsylim@gmail.com. Thank you very much for loving Fashion PULIS!

Disclaimer: The comments of the readers do not reflect the views and opinions of Fashion PULIS.