PLDT’s Challenging My Patience
Disclaimer: This is not a rant post! :)
It was December 16, 2021, when Odette hit our province. All of us were affected by the aftermath of the typhoon, some had no more roofs even before the typhoon made its landfall. Some had lost their loved ones due to storm surges, and more stories we had grasp only on social media and the internet a few days after the typhoon because we were out of electricity for weeks!
A week before Odette, my husband and I were so happy that we already have a PLDT Fiber connection at home, this joy was short-lived when the fiber cables got cut. So, it was just a week of usage and then it's down. We had no electricity and no fiber connection. It took us more than three weeks before we could get access to a power generator and thankfully, someone let us use a generator, we were able to gain our internet connection back through the old wifi connection.
In January, I spoke to someone from PLDT about the issue, I was receiving bills via email and text message and the agent on the other land told me that there's indeed an open ticket about this issue and they are on it.
I regret not noting or asking for a ticket number for that call because I specifically asked that I need the bill be adjusted. He told me that once the issue is fixed, I can call and get it adjusted which I did in February.
My niece was celebrating her birthday and we were in a resort in Anda, when we received the news that our electricity is back! The lines were restored and so after a few days, I called again the PLDT hotline about the case. The fiber line from our room to the box has been cut off so I requested that they send us technicians to fix it.
Again, the agent didn't give me any ticket number but assured me he had requested technicians to get this done.
Now, March came and we have to travel to Cebu. I totally had forgotten about the issue and I received some update from my family that some houses in town had already their internet connection back. Since we were in Cebu, we can't do anything about it and we thought it would be better to settle things when we are in Bohol but I continuously received an email about the bill and it has reached 7k Php already. I decided to call on April 25.
This time, I asked the Billing department and she made a request for adjustments and even gave me a ticket number. I asked that during the call so I would have some evidence about the call.
I really thought that my dilemma has been finished but came May when I received another bill stating that I have almost 10k Php due. That was super hilarious so I called again only to find out that the previous agent whom I spoke with only requested for adjustment for a month so they had made an adjustment of only Php 300+. I was about to laugh during the call for that.
Imagine, the connection has not been resolved yet they have the guts to adjust only Php 300! Anyway, I stayed calm and just continued asking for assistance from the next agent who had answered my call.
A few days after, technicians came and fixed our fiber line. But we have a restricted account and I had to just request over the phone to reconnect it temporarily which worked.
Another call has been made. I was waiting for more than 45 minutes for me to get an agent on the line. And finally, when someone answered the call, I took note of everything and made it clear to her what's my case.
As someone who had worked in a BPO before, I know there are SOPs to be followed so I wanted to know how the process works. According to the agent, they will first request a data consumption report, when verified that there's indeed no data consumed on those dates, they will then perform the adjustment but that will reflect only on the next billing statement.
I ended the call with Leigh (agent's name) with a hopeful heart. But because our account has been restricted already, we didn't have a fiber connection for a week again. Request for reconnection won't work anymore.
Today, I made a call to the billing department again and found out there were adjustments made to the account. I now have Php 7k+ due remaining. I am not willing to pay for that because I have not used the service and the agent was understanding and again assured me that there were other adjustment requests that are still pending while the others were already approved which caused the total due to be lower than the previous notification.
This was the first time that an agent referred me to their branch which is in Tagbilaran City as the people at the branch are the ones who can help me as per the agent to request while I wait for the adjustment tickets to be completed and that my due bill will be reduced, I will be granted an option for an installment of the remaining balance. Unfortunately, only the branch after-sales team can do that.
So, I think that's the best option for now but I can't go over to the branch. The agent referred me to a link where I could set up a virtual appointment with their staff. This is definitely great so I booked an appointment but I need to wait until tomorrow to get this done.
Now, I still had to continuously follow up on the bill adjustment request. Let's see how things will work tomorrow during the virtual appointment. I am not giving up until I will be billed with the right amount.
There were so many lapses and I wished I am not going through this hassle because it is not easy, especially when calling their hotline as it would take an hour or more for me to get an agent but I guess I will just extend my patience, I don't want to just ignore this issue and leave it like this. Some PLDT clients I knew who had the same case had just ignored the overdue balances and just signed up with another ISP.
I don't like to resort to that though, I want that my account to be cleared and I will be willing to continue this service and pay for the right amount.
I hope that things will be resolved soon.
Thanks for reading, do check my previous articles too:
xoxo,
momentswithmatti
Mother | Boholana | Cebu | Philippines | Travel | Photography Enthusiast | Calligraphy | Art | Crypto Noob
I am using Converge at home and we have a PLDT connection in the office. So far both are doing great naman. I always have a backup connection just incase the system is down. The good thing about my current location is that the Smart has a good signal.