Consumed Consumer . org

In this Economist article several world cities are rated for their "liveability". The article is actually a pointer to the full report and notes that the largest cities in the world were not considered. Surprisingly, the little gems - cities such as Victoria in BC or Quebec City in Montreal do not appear to have been considered either, despite being the not-so-secret gems of those provinces. Or maybe did the authors want to keep them uncrowded?

I think among Canada's telecommunications monopolies, Bell Canada is the benevolent, customer oriented giant (while Rogers is the ugly duckling). Yet now and again, Bell Canada's customer service manages to disappoint.

Today I sent the Executive Office team the following message:

I am hereby requesting a cancellation of my Sympatico Internet account, a refund of any money charged for Internet services, and I am withdrawing permission to charge my credit card for Internet services effective immediately. I consider your failure to provide Internet services as agreed a breach of contract.

I ordered Total Internet 1Mbps over the Internet. The service was supposed to be activated on August 14, 2007. My repeated attempts to obtain a connection with the 2wire modem failed on every time.

On August 15 I attempted to contact Bell CS over the Internet, but the Bell CSR sugested I contact Sympatico then disconnected. I then tried to contact Sympatico CS over the Internet, but I received no response (see attached screen capture). The application forced me to use Internet Explorer, the most insecure browser available on the Windows platform, as it did not work with either Opera or Firefox. I then called 310-SURF and spoke to Abdul, who stated that they did not have any information in file, so I had to give it to him over the phone. He stated that the service will be available in about 2 days. He also mentioned that the line is not able to reach the stated speed, but will be at around 60% of 1Mbps.

A few days later I called again, but this time I spoke to a CSR with a strong accent, who, after placing me on hold and asking me to reboot the modem, told me that her tool does not allow her to activate the modem, but it will eventually be activated.

To this date, the modem does not connect to the CO, and the DSL light keeps blinking. Furthermore, I received an email about my Sympatico bill being available but I could not access it on your website.

While I am willing to pay $20/month of that service, I cannot pay $20/month for wasting time troubleshooting a connection that was supposed to work long time ago.

I am disappointed in the service I received from Sympatico, as I had expected at the very least for the service to be activated as claimed in the email sent August 8.
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I also attached this photo:

I immediately got an automated response:
Thank you for emailing Bell Canada’s Executive Care Solution Centre.
We value your comments, and your concerns are important to us.
Your matter will be reviewed and someone will get back to you within 2 business days.
Thank you for your loyalty to Bell.
Bell Canada’s Executive Care Solution Centre

Hopefully, this matter, will be resolved soon.

I recently called Bell Canada at 416-310-BELL to make some small changes to my account. It was 7:22pm, and their phone centre was called, so I tried doing those changes on the website. But - whaddyaknow! - I couldn't, so I just tried my luck with an Internet chat. Here it is:

Thank you for your patience an online representative will be with you shortly. Your wait time is approximately 21.
All of our online representatives are currently assisting other customers. Thanks for your patience. An online representative will be with your shortly.
All of our online representatives are currently assisting other customers. Thanks for your patience. An online representative will be with your shortly.
All of our online representatives are currently assisting other customers. Thanks for your patience. An online representative will be with your shortly.
All of our online representatives are currently assisting other customers. Thanks for your patience. An online representative will be with your shortly.
All of our online representatives are currently assisting other customers. Thanks for your patience. An online representative will be with your shortly.
All of our online representatives are currently assisting other customers. Thanks for your patience. An online representative will be with your shortly.
Welcome to bell.ca! You are chatting with Jean-Mary S. To assist you, may I please have your name and residential phone number with area code?
Jean-Mary S: I haven't heard from you. Do you wish to continue the chat?
you: hello
you: i have a question regarding extension call answer
you: i'm on the 6-flex plan and would like to replace phone maintenance with extension call answer is that possible?
you: hello
Jean-Mary S: Sure, I can definitely help you with that.
Jean-Mary S: For this please call us at 310-2355
Jean-Mary S: And we will help you, we can not do this online
you: i need to konw first if i can make the replacement, since phone maint. has restrictions on changing
Jean-Mary S: I don't have the answer please call at the phone number please
you: ??? what is then "Jean-Mary S: Sure, I can definitely help you with that. "???
Jean-Mary S: I mean I can help you but for the home phone service, please contact BEll, because I don't have this information online, sorry

As you can see, after I waited on-line for almost 30 minutes, and after being told that "sure, I can help you with that", she essentially told me to call 310-BELL, which was not possible at that time anyway. I gave the chat service a 2, bell a 5 or 6 and the rep a 4, for the following reasons:

• the waiting time was far too long, especially considering that the phone centre was closed
• although courteous, thoughtful and carefule, the chat representative was completely useless
• this seems to be a design issue rather than a problem with the rep, who seemed genuinely willing to help, but did not have the tools to do so
  

File-sharing is a "petty offense," say German prosecutors
More often than not, Germany seems to have the only government that has the cojones to stand up to bullies and tell it like it is. Their judiciary seems pretty down to earth as well, since they barred the Federal Justice Ministry from logging IPs on their webserver. So much for their supposed guilt complex :)
However, this seems to be more of an action to placate those concerned by the new DMCA-like legislation that has been passed in Germany. Says erroneus on /.: Clearly German legislators are less expensive than those of many other nations! I'll keep that in mind when I need to buy a new law! :)

Scan This Guy's E-Passport and Watch Your System Crash presents further proof that blindly investing in technology just because it's new, while raising the bar for forgeries, it actually creates far more possibilities for fraud. Furthermore, the more sophisticated and complex a system becomes, the less likely it is that tampering can be found. Try expalining that to a Microdrone flying, noisy-paranoid government bureaucrat.