Mayhem in the Philippines

This open letter comes from a twenty-year subscriber to Foxtel, an eighty-year-old lawyer, who is close to the exit.

I wish to give a subscription to someone close to me.  After a long and difficult discussion on the phone yesterday with the Philippines, I agreed that Foxtel would deliver a box to my friend, that they would confirm the new account by email to me, and that I would be charged one year’s subscription when the box was delivered. 

I got no email, but I got charged $1000. 

My friend got a Do Not Reply email from Australia Post saying a package from Foxtel was on the way.  She got nowhere on the phone with the Philippines.

We were both left in the wilderness.

I called the Philippines again today.  It was equally painful.  At first, they said that they had emailed my friend – but could not send me a copy – or confirm receipt from me of $1000.  After further wrangling, they agreed to email me.  I finally got an email – Do Not Reply, of course – acknowledging the payment – and welcoming me to Foxtel!  No mention of my friend. 

But it is a start.

Robots are debasing humanity, and their rich owners could not give a damn.

I have a disclaimer.  I am in the course of publishing a book: The War against Humanity, The Decline pf Courtesy and the Fall of Dignity in Government and Business.  Foxtel is already a prominent culprit.   See below.  This is just the latest insult.

Our governments are not acting on these failings, because they are guilty of similar misconduct.

We the people, and the law, need to combine to deal with these outrages.

These companies go out of their way to be unreachable – untouchable even.  They may not be smash hits in parts of India.  A box of Jaffas therefore to someone who can give me an email address at which I might reach a human – perhaps even in Oz. 

And I should say I have no issue with the Philippines.  They have produced some of the finest nurses to have treated me – nightmares for Pauline. 

When she gives up her present place, Pauline could be a real goer at Foxtel.

Foxtel extract in book.

Foxtel

This happened a few years ago.  It was a Friday evening – 5 pm.  Just in time for the BBC on the war in Ukraine.  Followed by some footy.  It had been a long and traumatic day.  The shift of the final pieces of furniture into the new flat. 

Moving is traumatic – like a divorce in reverse gear.  The TV cabinet was one of the last pieces to come in.  (I must hide the TV.  Looking at a blank screen is not good – for me or the décor.)  That meant reverting to the old small TV that could fit in the cabinet.  Eduardo and his mate from Colombia made the switch and linked up the TV to the Foxtel box. – and it worked.  Bravo Eduardo!  But on pouring a red and turning it on – no signal from Foxtel.

BUGGER. 

You don’t need that after a day of moving.  Why did it work before but not now?  Well, I had little option but to ring Foxtel.  God knows how much I fear and detest that process.  I had endured five weeks with only the BBC because I did not wish to ring Foxtel.  It ranks with Telstra for pure bastardry.  What prompted the six week lay-off was that after an abortive hour or so on the phone, I got on to someone by SMS.  Bonzer – you ring me on the blower and we will fix it in no time.  Sorry, mate – not allowed.  Oh, go on.  No. I simply cannot.  I am not allowed. 

What was implied but not express?  I need the work and I will lose it if I depart from the Foxtel script – even just to be sane and decent.  And in the name of God, don’t let anyone even dare to suggest that Foxtel employs me! 

This is the point.  Even if you ever get through to a human being, you are speaking to a unit of communication rigidly controlled by a robot.  The people are forbidden to use what minds they may have.  They have in truth been converted into robots.

So, I take a gulp of red and make the call.  Just after 5 pm.  The process would conclude in darkness at about 7.30 pm that night.  Bob – the names are fictitious – had that strained, artificial voice we are used to at call centers.  Brusque, syrupy, script reading trying to mask nervous ignorance and straight fear.  Stick to the script.  Deviation not allowed.  For example, Bob could not process the fact that the removalist who had made the connection was not a Fox technician.  And the fact that I was operating the TV manually without a remote – at that stage of the move – sounded prima facie suspicious.  That provoked about two consultations with management.  In God knows what parts of the planet at either end.

The darkness of night descends every time you wander out of the trouble-shoot program.  Bob puts me on hold from time to time to get help.  He does not get it.  After about thirty minutes, Bob accepts that the issue is beyond him.  I ask why the set worked before but not now.  Every time, the answer gets more convoluted.  Way above Bob’s pay level – or that of anyone within cooee of Bob or me. 

One time we stop so that Bob can ring me back.  That makes me very nervous, but he manages to bridge the gap safely.  We discuss getting a technician.  It was of course ludicrous to suggest that Foxtel might be able to do that over the weekend.  Which happens to be the time when people who follow sport – that is, most Australian subscribers to Foxtel – most want it.  But Bob has continuing trouble with the schedule for technician calls.  He will ring me back.  Again.

The second call was too much for Bob.  After half an hour, I decided that Bob must have fallen down a very big hole.  Back to the blower.  Thank God for the relief and sustenance of the red.  But Sue has to start again from scratch.  I just want to know when the technician will be here.  No – there is a process that must be followed.  We must exclude all other causal factors.  (Did Sue see herself as Hercule Poirot?  Or David Hume?  Or Jean-Paul Sartre?)  This is after the usual delays and recorded warnings and lies. 

So, I have to prove my identity.  Again.  The person to be called back has to prove he is not a mirage or a fraud – and he might be wobbly on the first by now.  Sue had trouble matching my email address.  I gathered this may have been what sent Bob clean off the rails.  By the end, Sue gathered from what I had said and from Bob’s notes that I just needed to be told when the technician would arrive.  After more than two hours all up, Sue could not tell me – except that she thought it would be Monday, and that I would get an email about it – followed by an SMS.

I did get an email.  It was of course ‘noreply’.  Your function is to be neither seen nor heard.  We robots are not quite perfect yet.

In fairness, I should say that when I actually got to deal with a human person on the service call, he was a model of sense, practicality and courtesy.  Mark might be the Platonic form of the handyman.  Mark hails from England – around Milton Keynes.  We discussed the bus trip from Cambridge to Oxford – by the time you get to Milton Keynes, you might be sea-sick from the roundabouts.  (Going to the loo is not a good idea for the boys on that bus.)

Top bloke, Mark – pity about the outfit for whom he was subbing.

Twelve days later the box started giving trouble again.  The following day, I settled on the sale of my house, and I was looking forward to a rest with Mozart’s Idomeneo followed by the footy on TV – Easter Eve with a 2010 Bordeaux.  The box was completely gone now.  Another evening and celebration ruined by Foxtel.  On the blower.  Fifty-eight minutes – say a half of football.  As it happened, Regina was understandable and appeared to know what she was doing.

But a day or two later, the box failed again, and I settled for a broken service for a while before taking my life into my hands and picking up the phone again.  Then the box got the staggers seriously.  Some nights I had to reboot; some nights, not.  Then I got a rude SMS saying the direct debit had not been good for the fee for the service call.  I might be penalized or disconnected.  There should have been no fee because the fault was not with Eduardo, but with the Foxtel box.  So, I try to log in to pay a fee obtained under false pretenses.  The robot refuses the Password.  I apply for a new one.  Even then they lie.  ‘We have sent you an email.’  No, you have not.  Still, the robot kindly informs you that you may try again! 

And then comes the insult to beat all insults.  The robot asks you to sit a little test – to prove that you are not a robot!  It’s like when you see your contact at the bank for the fourth time in a week, but before they actually do something, you have to produce your driver’s licence to prove your identity.

I tried by SMS.  That failed.  So, I went to talk directly to the robot on the phone.  Five minutes active typing.  Did my father’s father fight on the Western Front for this kind of humiliation of his descendants?

And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut said a propos the bombing of Dresden.  Truly, truly – George Orwell let us off lightly with Big Brother.

Now a month or two later, I made a written complaint and got a ‘No reply’ response.  So, I just endure having to reboot almost every time I turn the box on at night.  Then after another period in the waste land, I got a new box after talking to a very pleasant lady who sounded like she may have been auditioning for the role of Flower of Delight in the next production of Kim.  Then the problem recurred in the new box.

Is it possible to conceive of a business being run honestly and decently when it prevents its customers from talking to them?

And don’t these outfits, and those who run them, know or care about the rage we feel at the contempt that they show to us?  This is a bad product sold by a bad company that is an unattractive child of two unattractive companies.

Just look again at the statement of ‘Foxtel Values’ in the inscriptions at the start of the book.  As bullshit goes, this is transcendental.  And is it lawful for directors of a trading company to say that customers come first – ahead of the shareholders?