Disappearing loads, bad service, spam? Tell your stories here
Sun, Jun 21, 2009
Its about time consumers are heard.
As the Senate continues its probe into abuses of Smart, Globe and Sun Cellular, as well as the (non-)performance of the regulating agency National Telecommunications Commission, we urge consumers to make their voices heard by posting your complaints here.
Everyone’s welcome to post a comment below detailing how Smart, Globe and Sun Cellular are badly treating you, the lost prepaid load, the endless spam that we receive including the spam that eat our prepaid load. Postpaid subscribers are also welcome.
How about subscribers of SmartBro, Globe Tattoo/Visibility and Sun Broadband Wireless? You may also express yourselves here.
We in TXTPower will compile all complaints and fight for your rights in the Senate hearings.
As tax-paying citizens (we pay VAT for each text message, each call and each service we avail), let’s send a clear message to government to protect our rights and not give special treatment to the big bad companies that give us endless headaches.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:07 pm
My prepaid load last Sunday was around 450.00 pesos. Come Monday, it became zero already without me using it. I don’t even think I sent even 1 text message within that period of time. Anyway,I want my load back and I hope the government controls how the telcos gobble up our load.
July 4th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
What is the legal explanation for expiration of load? If you go in the restaurant and don’t eat within 10min, they take the food back, but you need to pay? If you fill gasoline in your car but don’t consume it with in 2 days, they come and pump it out again? I am a foreigner who stay’s now 5 year in the Philippines. i real love it here, but smart is one of the things what makes me sick (also some other). By texting you get the answer, NOT SEND, you try again and you pay again, but the text arrived already 5x. Smart BRO, i guess i have already 20 tickets in just few month. The networks looks for me total overloaded. I complain so many times, but nothing happend. Its time for a customer revolution!
July 5th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Why should a prepaid load have an expiration date? Celfon users actually have ALREADY PAID OUT money to the telecom companies for the services TO BE GIVEN to them. So kung hindi pa nagagamit ang load at nase-serbisyuhan ay dapat ay hindi mababawasan ang load. In Europe, the network company ORANGE also have prepaid plan. And as long as you don’t use their services, your prepaid load is not lessened even though your prepaid load is more than one year. In that way there will also be no overclogging or heavy network traffic. When your prepaid load expires without using it, then it IS tantamount to. . . HOLP-UP!!!!!!
July 6th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Guys, latest news.
NTC wants these TelCom. to extend the expirations, not eliminate – just extend, our load/airtime. Hindi kuntento si Enrile, ako rin!
http://localphilippines.blogspot.com/2009/07/gmanewstv-enrile-kuntento-sa-ntc-memo.html
July 8th, 2009 at 8:48 am
hello, my name is mike, im new here. im from leyte where there is absolutely no 3g signal. i use my mobile mainly for internet browsing, switching between globe and smart, whichever network would work best on a particular day. but globe’s been doing okay. i just would like to add info, some sort of complaint as well with both these telco’s charging scheme when it comes to mobile internet. i’ll divide it by numbers because im not much of a writer myself, the purpose is to convey the message i have.
1. Charging on mobile internet
Smart – PHP10 / 30 minutes of internet access, disregarding the number of connect and disconnect, which means that a user will only be charge PHP10 within the 30 minutes period.
Globe – PHP5 / 15 minutes, however, if a user gets disconnected, he will be charge PHP5 again, even if within the 15 minutes period.
*sun and red will not be included as ive never used them.
2. The charging rate seems fine for mobile browsing, but the glitch is the speed of the network in particular service area. My fone is a motorola v6 maxx, 3g and hsdpa capable, can connect to a max of 768kbps on full hsdpa, 384kbps on 3g, 38-62kbps on 2.5g or gprs, and 234kbps on edge network. The problem comes in because neither of these network have 3g coverage here in leyte, though a lot have been using globe tattoo and smart bro.
3. ive sent emails to smart, time and again, to ask why they dont have 3g here in matalom leyte when a lot of people has 3g handsets wanting to avail of the same service as others are getting. smart, through the kindness of a certain ms. briones replied back and said that “smart is providing me with the same service as others are getting”. ive emailed globe with same issue, but they didnt reply.
4. how can smart say that im provided with same service as others are getting? PHP10 is a lot to spend just to access yahoo mail given that im only limited to gprs access. others can check their email while browsing another website in just 1 minute with 3g coverage, or even EDGE. Globe basically is faster than the mobile internet of smart though, PHP5 / 15 minutes is still expensive on GPRS only access. 3g, specially, HSDPA is fast. ive experienced using it in cebu. i wont mind paying the said mobile internet charge if their network here would provide same 3g coverage.
5. these telcos dont seemed to mind the needs of people for nationwide 3g. i tried to send an email to NTC but it seems they lack the channel for this type of complaint. smart keeps on boasting nationwide 3g, even planning to release new technologies by the end of this year, but where is the nationwide 3g when they can just go ahead and upgrade their installed infrastructures in non-3g areas to benefit people and businesses. same goes with globe who tried to offer wimax. but why not upgrade instead of offer new technologies? ive heard the globe has applied additional 3g spectrum for expansion, but i doubt if our province will be included in such project. even baybay and maasin has yet to experience 3g which has been implemented 3 years ago.
6. about red mobile. tnt, and tm. these network are powered by the same mainstream network, globe and smart. isnt that a bit fishy? what’s the difference anyway?
7. sun could have been good, but needs network improvement. hope they get 3g here first.
8. NTC should reach out to the public by providing infomercials, and a working email support to facilitate complaints. they should also have a website that caters only to consumers, not a website that visiting people wont understand.
9. ive received an email from globe regarding my request to deactivate infotext. it was polite at first, but at the end, they seemed to blame me for activating the same, what i did was just to visit there wapsite and check for downloadable contents. wap browsing is free of charge. but there trick is, if you try to view a certain content, the wapsite will automatically have your mobile registered to their infotext. people are unaware of this trick.
10. another thing now with mms sending and receiving. apart from load extension, the maintaining balance to receive mms should be zero and atleast a peso load only to be able to send. these telcos suspend a users ability to receive mms when the balance reaches zero. globe does the same. as far as i know, using globe, your required to maintain PHP25 to send and receive mms, and you must send an mms to your own mobile for PHP5 to activate globe mms. for smart, PHP1 will be able to send and receive mms. GLOBE HAS UNREASONABLY HIGH RATE OF PHP5 /mms sent.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:54 am
add ko pa po na yung mobile internet plan ng smart na PHP100 for 12 hours eh dapat po consume within 24 hours. di po dapat ganun. nakakatipid ka nga ng konti, force ka naman umupo sa pc mo ng 12 oras para lang di masayang load
July 8th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I charge the Globe of robbery for setting the KB browsing mode as default without prior notice to me being a post paid subscriber (plan 800 only). What they post for promo is the 5.00 per 15 minutes or 20.00 per hour net surfing fee. I browsed the internet for 3 hours using my post paid plan 800 thinking that i shall be deducted with the 20.00/hour rate. What Globe billed me was a shocking P32,849.36 just for the KB browsing. I wrote Globe via customer service email, I was told the KB browsing is cheaper, but why was I billed an amount far higher than my monthly salary? My credit limit as postpaid subscriber ranges only from 2500-3000 a month.. What Globe billed me is tormenting, inhuman and unreasonable rate. In simplest common sense, when they offer the 20/hour, beside it should be the KB browsing option, or there should be a programmed option for subscribers to choose the mode of browsing more preferred. Even if I browsed the net for 24 hours or more, I cannot be billed that tormenting amount. And you know what Globe offered me via email? i will be waived 50% of the amount for continued service and patronage and such will appear in my next billing period. I rejected it but I was not replied anymore. Hence, I came to the open. I hope the txtpower will help me of this scam from the Globe.
July 11th, 2009 at 12:25 am
i share your sentiments guys. like you i’m also a victim of this magical act. just like any person will do i tried to ask for an explanation but they (telcos) could not provide me with one. they can’t give me a run down of my phone activity. they said the only way they could get this is to file a report and it will take around 3 to 5 working days to be resolved. The question in my mind was what about the load that will disappear on my prepaid account for that 3 to 5 days. Since i really didn’t want to ruin my day i gave in then i checked my balance i was again deducted a peso after my call to customer service. again I called and asked the representative if the they’re billing cust service call he said no. Then why was i deducted one peso? Those incompetent csrs doesn’t have a single clue what was going on. After three days i was loaded 15 pesos followed by an advisory that the 15 peso was the reversal made for my complaint.
My original complain was that i was taking advantage of the everybody text promo and i try to load 40 pesos so that i could get 20 free text. That 40 pesos was supposed to be enough for two days right for that particular promo but that wasn’t the case. The following morning my load was not enough to enroll for another day but i am certain that before i loaded the forty pesos i still have around 16 pesos. even if it was just a peso imagine how much globe is corrupting from its subscribers everyday. and im pretty sure they’re not taxed for that!
July 11th, 2009 at 12:25 am
i share your sentiments guys. like you i’m also a victim of this magical act. just like any person will do i tried to ask for an explanation but they (telcos) could not provide me with one. they can’t give me a run down of my phone activity. they said the only way they could get this is to file a report and it will take around 3 to 5 working days to be resolved. The question in my mind was what about the load that will disappear on my prepaid account for that 3 to 5 days. Since i really didn’t want to ruin my day i gave in then i checked my balance i was again deducted a peso after my call to customer service. again I called and asked the representative if the they’re billing cust service call he said no. Then why was i deducted one peso? Those incompetent csrs doesn’t have a single clue what was going on. After three days i was loaded 15 pesos followed by an advisory that the 15 peso was the reversal made for my complaint.
My original complain was that i was taking advantage of the everybody text promo and i try to load 40 pesos so that i could get 20 free text. That 40 pesos was supposed to be enough for two days right for that particular promo but that wasn’t the case. The following morning my load was not enough to enroll for another day but i am certain that before i loaded the forty pesos i still have around 16 pesos. even if it was just a peso imagine how much globe is corrupting from its subscribers everyday. and im pretty sure they’re not taxed for that!
July 13th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Smart Bro
When I got a Smart Bro modem, i assumed that with the higher speed available, I could download faster. However, the service in my location keeps wavering from gprs up to hsdpa and back down. Most of the time, I only have GPRS 2g connection. Why does the reception vary in strength. I can not get a straight answer from Smart.
Also, when I do a pasaload, the msg I get back from Smart on my smartbro is that the load is only good for 48 hrs. (2 days) yet when I complained at the service center they said it was good for 6 days. Why can’t they get their act together to give a consistent answer.Also they dont tell you there are compatability problems with windows xp service pack 3!!!
As a retired businessman, I know that the purpose of any business is to make money for its investors, be they public or private, but to screw the public out of their money is a totally different matter and, in other, non-corrupt countries, would be against the law.