Fellow GoGgers...

This has been happening to me. I will simply copy and paste the complaint letter - if anyone can give me some REALLY good ammo or information I would be eternally grateful.

*********************************************************
To whom it may concern,
I am writing this formal complaint about my activation of my new account with the ISP Internode.
Let me first notify you that I am profoundly Deaf and legally blind.
Just under a month ago, since my flatmate and I signed the lease to a brand new flat and needed proper internet, I shopped around and was recommended Internode. I am a very heavy user of internet - despite my vision problems (severe tunnel vision) I am an award winning photographer and as such, sell my prints online. I also do video productions for the Deaf community and to help Auslan interpreters. I am also currently in the process of trying to make a radical proposal to the Australian government for Deaf Education. Obviously, due to these factors, I am a heavy internet user. I also require internet to communicate via Internet Relay Service, video calls and emails. I have also just moved to Melbourne to further my career and find steady work.
So, with careful consideration, I decided on Internode's Naked S plan. I did not want to pay for a phone line since it would be useless for me and my flatmate works long hours and does not require a land line. I also was impressed by the recommendations I got.
Using my flatmate's Vodafone USB modem, I used the Internet Relay Service to ring Internode. I asked all the questions and got notified that it could take up to three weeks to connect my flat to the internet. I was also explained that I may need to pay for cabling costs if that by any chance was an issue. In disbelief I asked if they were serious about the three week wait. I tried to communicate that I was a highly disabled person and as such, really needed this immediately. I got told that there was nothing they could do to hurry the process up. I gave up and decided to grin and bear it since I was confident that Internode was a good company and worth my time.
After a couple of weeks of waiting, I got notified that I was scheduled to get a technician to "switch me on" on the 18th of February, between 8am and 1pm. Finally.
I proceeded to contact the Real Estate to ask them to contact the Body Corp to check if they had this MDF - and I quote from the email from Internode:
If you live in an apartment, the installation technician may need to access the building's Main Distribution Frame (MDF) to perform cabling work. The MDF is often located in a locked Communications Room. Please contact your building management as soon as possible, in order to ensure the room can be unlocked on the cutover date and the technician will be able to access the MDF.
I asked twice for the Real Estate to give me an answer. They simply replied that they had forwarded the email again.
Due to this delay, I could not confirm anything. So, the morning before the 18th, I decided to contact Internode - out of long experience with the inflexibility of large corporations - via email and double check that Internode had notified the technicians of my disabilities as I live in an apartment unit, and that there is a security door. I requested that they contact the technician and ask him to text me when he arrives on the property so I could run down and open the door.
I got this reply at 6.04pm on the 17th - thus ensuring I had no way to contact Internode until the next day:
Unfortunately our carrier contracts the technicians for these appointments and we do not have direct contact with them.
I don't know if we will be able to give your information in time to the carrier to see if it can be passed onto the technician as our carrier's office hours are closed at this time.
I would advise to be present or have someone else there if possible tomorrow morning and if appointment is missed or the technician is unable to contact you we can attempt to reschedule your appointment with the extra information.
Apologies I could not be of further help.
We usually need at least three days prior to pass on specific information to our carrier which may help with technician appointments.
Now what was I supposed to do?

WTF.

"You're post is too long".

Jeez. Someone else post please so I can put the rest down.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Post the rest, then.

Alright

Geeze, the complexities that can arise from what we would view as simple situations. Please post the rest, and if you could also provide some information or links for your professional work I'm quite intrigued by that as well.

I'm a teacher here in Japan and I am interested in knowing more of your situation. Granted I am only an ALT, I do care about physically challenge people. Having lost my nephew some years back who was heavily disabled. I can relate to your struggles. Not to high jack your thread nor to have a boo hoo story here. He had a lot of trouble with barrier free issues about his wheelchair. The attitude of people like bus drivers and or train stations here in Japan is pretty bad. Not all of Japan but cases do pop up and yes like yours about simple needs such as installing internet at ones place.

So do please post more so we can understand better.

Solo

Apologies.

I had to go out. I am currently in the process of negotiating proposals with various grants (cultural and educational) as I am trying to improve Deaf education standards... I can't really explain properly the situation until it has been finalised. Hope you understand. (And this is one of the reasons this whole internet fiasco is so frustrating, I'm THIS CLOSE to fulfilling my dream and this is NOT helping.)

CONTINUED.....

I waited until the next morning and after my flatmate went to work, called Internode again. I was put on hold for a good while, until finally I was put through. I tried to explain my situation but the person who was on the phone simply repeated "We can't. We can't. We can't."
I could not believe this. I honestly thought it was a joke - you NEED to be able to contact every level of a business especially in cases of emergencies or revoked orders. Or altercations to what is required of the service. Unfortunately, it was not a joke. The person consistently said "We can't contact them at all." In frustration, I gave up, ran downstairs and put a note up on the door saying this (my flatmate had already jammed the security door open when she left for work so he could get in the building in the first place):
"Hi Mr Tech! I'm deaf so just come up to flat 4 and push open the door and come in."
And I waited. All day. Please note that this call took nearly an hour. At 1.30pm I gave up and called Internode again. After a lengthy wait, I finally got hold of someone and re-explained the situation and asked for them to please contact the contractor and just ask if the technician had even come yet or what.
Once again, "We can't. We can't. You have to wait for the report. We can't." I simply could not believe this. I explained my situation all over again. In the end I simply gave up and agreed to wait for the technician's report.
At about 4pm, I got a text stating that the report had come in and they had emailed me. I promptly checked my email and to my non-surprise, it stated that the technician had come and there was "nobody present". Naturally, I was furious.
So, I rang Internode AGAIN. THIS time I got someone genuinely helpful. They listened to my story and proceeded to tell me that I would have to wait another ten days since that was the earliest the next Technician was available. It was only after I stated that I would contact every newspaper out there, look up legal aid and human rights as well as contact all the disability agencies that I finally started getting "results". The person put me on hold for about half an hour. Half an hour of sitting in front of a screen unable to get up and move away since I cannot hear the "ping" when a new comment is put in. Finally, said person came back, was genuinely apologetic (which I appreciate) and told me he had called everyone involved to get "a clearer picture of what happened". Basically, he then went on to apologise, told me that this was the "first time Internode had ever encountered someone in my "unique" situation" and that this "would help them improve their services". He also spoke to the team leader and came back to me (after another glorious fifteen minute of being put on hold) and said they would ring up another department and the contractors and since it was so late, they could not do it now but he would do it on Monday. This was acceptable since he said he would try his very hardest to get someone out here by Monday.
I also said that I was very disappointed in the fact that I had clearly stated my disabilites in that very first phone-call via Internet Relay over three weeks ago and that they had not put it into my profile and thus this whole situation had escalated. He apologised for that also and put in extra details into my account stating that they must text me etc.
I hang up, slightly mollified. Fifteen minutes after that, I get called on my mobile. The number was 0882282999. Since it was not 133688 (Internodes number, which incidentally I had memorised due to having to call them so many times) I didn't know what to do and simply let it ring out so I could get back on the Internet Relay and call whoever it was.
To my sheer incredulity, it WAS Internode. Yes, you read this correctly. THEY ACTUALLY CALLED MY MOBILE PHONE AFTER I HAD GONE TO ALL THAT TROUBLE TO ENSURE THEY KNEW I WAS DEAF. I got quite angry at this point and told them that I had had enough. The person got apologetic again, and then went on to explain to me that they had actually gotten through to the other department and that I could not get a Technician out to my property until the 28th - another ten day wait.
In stunned amazement at the sheer waste of my time, I hung up. And went out on the balcony and screamed my head off in frustration.
THEN, I get this email about twenty minutes later:
**************************************************
Dear DELETED,
Your case was brought to me as a sales agent was concerned about your situation and felt that you were unhappy with the way we dealt with it. I have to say that Ari, the agent in question, cared very much about this issue. He discussed this case with me well after it was time for him to finish for the week.
Please allow me to outline the issue and why we were unable to fast track your appointment reschedule date or get the technician today to send you a text message reliably.
We cannot escalate this as our wholesaler cannot be found at fault. We would if we could. We could not request wholesale make special arrangements for this appointment before the technicians were scheduled for dispatch because, we did not have the time to do so.
This is because:
a) We only received ticket 3405157 the night before the date of the appointment requesting special arrangements. This was not enough time for us to ensure your request be funnelled through our wholesaler to their contracted field technicians.
b) You signed up for this service online. We could not have foreseen these issues given there is no information in that order to alert us to your circumstance. Until the above mentioned ticket arrived on the 17th of February we had no warning that this order needed special attention.
c) The wholesale technicians are not our workforce and we cannot guarantee any action we request of them. We could have recommended you or your housemate put up signs on the door or other proactive measures should the technicians not get the message about texting you (Situation permitting of course) but again we did not have to to react.
I tried to call you to explain that we are not trying to be callous about this situation - we simply needed more communication - something that I appreciate is difficult but necessary here.
I was unaware of how the National Relay System works and I apologise for this. I had tried to call your mobile thinking that this call would be routed via that system. I understand that you took exception to my trying to call you directly, and you voiced this grievance in strong language with our sales agent.
I wish to say that we are compassionate towards your situation and will try to assist you to make this installation as easy as possible from here. We request that you also treat our agents with patience as they want to help you by default. We simply need adequate time and notice and we are happy to fulfil any request that can be reasonably made of us.
The current status of your order is that we have requested the earliest possible date allowed by our wholesaler to revisit your premises. This date is the 28th of February between 8:00am and 1:00pm.
In the unlikely event that our wholesalers contract technicians do not receive your request for a text message (I assure you we have made this request) may I suggest leaving a note somewhere obvious such as your front door advising the technicians to please send a text message to the contact number they have on their order sheet? This redundancy might just make all the difference.
We will be sure to notify you of any further developments as they happen.
--
Kind Regards
Drew Bowtell | Residential Sales Team Leader - Fibre to the Home
150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, South Australia 5000
Telephone 13-NODE | Facsimile + 61 8 8235 6977
www.internode.on.net
******************************************

TO BE CONTINUED.....

I am almost at a loss of words to explain just how incredible this email is.
For starters:
We cannot escalate this as our wholesaler cannot be found at fault. We would if we could. We could not request wholesale make special arrangements for this appointment before the technicians were scheduled for dispatch because, we did not have the time to do so.
Did not have time to do so? I don't think so. I contacted you guys ALMOST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS PRIOR. Which I will further expand on with the next point:
a) We only received ticket 3405157 the night before the date of the appointment requesting special arrangements. This was not enough time for us to ensure your request be funnelled through our wholesaler to their contracted field technicians.
I'm sorry but this is a blatant lie. "the night before"? I can prove that this is not the case whatsoever. I sent my email at exactly 10.56am which I have copied from my email log:
to residential-sales-support@ticket.internode.com.au
date Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 10:56 AM
subject Re: Internode Easy Naked Broadband - Service ID A3545963
b) You signed up for this service online. We could not have foreseen these issues given there is no information in that order to alert us to your circumstance. Until the above mentioned ticket arrived on the 17th of February we had no warning that this order needed special attention.
Another blatant lie, at least from my perspective. Yes, I signed up for this service online, and I rang up Internode both before AND after completing this form and spoke to a person on the other end (via Internet Relay). This alone should have been clue enough that I had difficulties speaking on the phone, and I told the person I was deaf and legally blind and thus needed the service done ASAP, not in three weeks as I stated previously in this letter.
c) The wholesale technicians are not our workforce and we cannot guarantee any action we request of them. We could have recommended you or your housemate put up signs on the door or other proactive measures should the technicians not get the message about texting you (Situation permitting of course) but again we did not have to to react.
Sorry, but this is just not good enough. I DID put a note on the door. One further thing I would like to request - how can you prove that the technician even came? I even wedged my apartment's door open! And once again, "time to react"? I gave you guys a whole day, as well as calling you ON THE DAY (virtually as soon as I could, since I knew I would not have been able to call you before 9am) asking for help.
I was unaware of how the National Relay System works and I apologise for this. I had tried to call your mobile thinking that this call would be routed via that system. I understand that you took exception to my trying to call you directly, and you voiced this grievance in strong language with our sales agent.
I'm sorry, but I cannot excuse this as mere "I didn't know". What did you expect, my mobile phone to somehow grow arms and start signing to me? This is discrimination. And yes, I took exception to the team leader trying to call me when he should have done what any professional would have done - checked my file (which SHOULD have been updated, in fact, I honestly truly hope it was) after I had spent two days and hours on the relay service explaining that I cannot be called. Yes, I used "strong language" - but that is quite out of context. I never used the f-word, nor called the person on the recieving end anything. I simply stated that I had spent hours explaining that I was DEAF, and DEAF, not retarded, not stupid, but DEAF. So please for the love of god, DO NOT CALL MY MOBILE! If you'll notice by the words I used - none of them could have possibly been constructed as abusive language as the email so subtly implies. In fact, I can ask the National Relay Service for proof as they file away every phone call they relay.
We simply need adequate time and notice and we are happy to fulfil any request that can be reasonably made of us.
I DID GIVE YOU ADEQUATE TIME BY ANY REASONABLE STANDARD. How on EARTH is "a minimum of three days" any different to 24 hours? I'm sorry, I just can't believe this at all.
In the unlikely event that our wholesalers contract technicians do not receive your request for a text message (I assure you we have made this request) may I suggest leaving a note somewhere obvious such as your front door advising the technicians to please send a text message to the contact number they have on their order sheet? This redundancy might just make all the difference.
I did. Which I had already explained at the 1.30pm AND the 4pm call.
Now, for the above reasons, I am contacting the complaints department for Internode and emailing you this letter. I expect an extremely swift resolution for this insanity. I am going to give you (Internode) a more than reasonable 24 hour time frame to respond. If none is given, or there is no real resolution, I will be forced to take this up to the next level. I would also like to stress one more point:
I have been using my flatmate's Vodafone USB modem as I stated at the beginning of this letter. Due to the nature of the length of time I have had to be online trying to work out what has been happening and making all these calls, I have had to go over the 3gig limit and thus I am being forced to pay quite a lot more than the normal contract states. So your company has been incurring ME expenses other than paying for your internet. This is also unacceptable.
Let's be frank here. Put yourself in my shoes. WHAT would you expect? You're a service. A service is supposed to PROVIDE something. And all you have provided me is one collossal headache, trauma and frustration as well as preventing me from properly accessing the outside world, finding work, contacting my mother and family via video calls... The list is endless.
I'll help you out here by outlining what you CAN DO NEXT TIME TO THE NEXT CLIENT THAT HAS "my unique situation".
1.) LISTEN. When they have set up an account, IMMEDIATELY input any extra information such as deafness.
2.) Disabled people need this kind of thing urgently. Seriously. Make them priority one. We can't just get up and make phone calls. I can't walk around and get other stuff sorted out while being put on hold. When you put me on hold, I AM PUT ON HOLD IN EVERY ASPECT OF MY LIFE.
3.) Fix up that contractor "cannot contact" thing. Honestly, I'm amazed. That, above all, has to be the most stupid idea I have ever heard for a company to adhere to. HOW can that work? This is 2011 not 1975.
4.) Train your staff in disability awareness. Yes, really. You may not think it relevant but when your job is to interact with clients, you do need a clear understanding of the limitations and/or barriers that could arise, such as what has happened in this case. And you need to understand that sometimes you HAVE to be flexible. Just saying "I can't" is not acceptable. Especially to the CLIENTS who are actually where your wage comes from.
5.) Please. Just. Switch. Me. On. Seriously. I live in an APARTMENT. The next door neighbor HAS A PHONE LINE. So that means the apartment DOES HAVE A PHONE LINE. Enough is enough, no more excuses. All you have to do is switch me on and I know for a fact that this can be done via your computer. There really is no need for a technician, and I have configured my router already. ALL I NEED IS FOR YOU TO INPUT THE KEYSTROKES THAT WILL TURN ON ACCESS TO MY APARTMENT.
I look forward to reading the expensive email back (due to having to log into the already over capped USB modem plan of my flatmate's) and I sincerely hope you can actually DO something instead of wasting even more of my time. And I would also appreciate some form of compensation for the three weeks of wasted time waiting, for the stress and frustration I have had to put up with, for the expenses incurred that should never have been incurred and quite simply for preventing me from getting on with my businesses online, my personal life and being able to find more work and employment (which incidentally would help me to pay your internet bills per month, ironically.)

Regards,
DELETED
Username: virama
*****************************************************

FANTASTIC. So this morning, after spending all night typing up this email, I go to the Internode complaints page to give them this letter.
Guess what happens?
See attached picture:
So I give up and simply use the email from the sales guy I talked to in the first place, attaching both the document AND the picture for proof. I am giving them 24 hours as I said to contact me then I'm going to go to Ombudsman and Fair trade.

Jesus H Christ... WTF?

I can't say I've ever really been a fan of internode having dealt with a friends overpriced & dodgy connection a few years back but this has definitely turned me off as a potential customer

Have you no other ISPs you can consider? Netspace have given me good service (both network and customer) over the last 6-7 years

Well, due to not having great net for ages I have not been able to upload my more recent "professional" work but if you want to have a look at my photography:

http://edan-chapman.artistwebsites.com/

Also, go to youtube and look up "diditellyouiloveyou". This is an extremely basic idea of what I am proposing to do this year (EXTREME EMPHASIS ON BASIC!) and besides, this was before I had my Canon 5D Mk II DSLR which does blu-ray quality videos. I used a borrowed and extremely shitty video camera for those. I have since done several more for a client (teacher) and am currently filming a full proposal video as well as doing more for said client. They will be uploaded to that account when I get internet that works!

Several other things but these are the main things really. *shrugs* Dude, I would never think you were trying to hijack or do a boohoo. Thanks for sharing your story (which was a lot shorter than my long rant haha)
I can absolutely emphathise with the frustration of wheelchair access and stuff... Personally, my problem is that my disabilities are the most invisible of all. I do not wear hearing aids since I'm THAT deaf and my RP (severe tunnel vision)... Well, put it this way, I can see straight ahead of me right? So I CAN look around and seem alert and normal. This has led to many many pretty fucked up situations for me.
Also, I am - honestly speaking - extremely intelligent and can speak pretty damn well for someone who was born completely deaf due to years and years of speech therapy as well as an amazing circle of friends who constantly showed me how to say something properly until I got it. So I have had times when people flat out refuse to believe I am deaf and/or blind and accuse me of lying... Which REALLY FUCKS ME OFF. I WORKED SO HARD FOR SO MANY YEARS to be able to speak this well, to be able to communicate as easily as possible and... Yeah. It's fucked is what it is sometimes.

Yes, I'll admit I've had times when I just wanted to give up. But I'm too stubborn I guess, and I have too much faith in myself to just give up on myself because in the end, that's what I'd really be doing. It IS hard though. *shrugs* I'm not asking for medals, I'm just trying to survive in this crazy world and achieve something that I can be proud of. Well, the thing is I need

1.) NAKED and FAST internet.
2.) MASSIVE cap. The reason I picked Internode was their Easy Naked S plan - 150gig a month for 59.95. That's the best deal I've found yet.... I will be uploading massive amounts of data due to being a photographer as well as now I'm starting to do actual video productions and want to be able to upload in 1080p quality if a client demands it. So yeah....

Any advice?

Awesome advice!!! Thanks!

Today I finally got to Spotlight and bought some fluoro green fabric so I can finally start doing green screen special effects.

And thank you for taking the time to watch my humble productions. :)

Well netspace's $60 nekkid plan is 100gb, their $90 is 400GB though, not sure how competitive that might be with internode

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.... Sell me as to why I should go netspace... :)

In I think 6 years I've probably had about 10-15 days downtime (the worst was for 4 days in a row but there was that whole bushfire thing happening at the time), the line is usually very stable, I rarely get any unexplained snails pace times, their shaped speed is up to 256kb/s now so even when you go over your limit, the net is vaguely useable. The tech support is probably the best part, in the few times I've had to call them, I've managed to find technically competent people who actually believed me when I said I was a qualified network engineer and had eliminated the standard problems and they abandoned the script! Also the tech support is based here which is always something worth encouraging.

The worst part is the split caps, in the case of the plan I mentioned you get 400GB but its split evenly into peak & offpeak times but the off-peak is frankly a rip because you get 6 hours a day of off peak (its the good time to use download schedulers). Uploads are also counted in their plans which is lame (I think all the ISPs are doing that now) but after a good 3 months of using a plan that does that, I really haven't noticed an appreciable difference in my usage.

What I'd suggest is sending them an email detailing the problems you've had with internode, exaplaining exactly what you need and ask if they can do better.

Excellent and really helpful advice Alias.

Okay, I'm going to email them today! In fact, I just did right then. I have contacted the TIO (Ombudsman), Today/Tonight under Fair Trade and Netspace.

Internode still hasn't replied. FAIL.