Matthew Taylor

Update: Last rep I spoke to talked over me and implied I just wanted free stuff. First time I’ve lost my cool in a customer service call. But, if all else fails, send an email and a text message to the CEO: “Thanks. I have received the email and I will get it dealt with ASAP.”

Update 2: “I will arrange for a 50Gb datablock to be added to your account, and for your broadband access plan charges for November and December to be credited.” Took a couple of days, but a positive response to a negative situation.

Our internet is currently slowed to dial-up.

• We are on a 40GB plan with Slingshot which will change to a new plan next billing cycle.
• We get free off-peak data usage.
• We used to be on plan with a lower GB limit.
• Because of that old plan, we regularly bought data blocks, which roll over from month to month.
• The last time we bought a data block was in February – 20GB.
• This month is the first time we have used up 100% of our data since January.
• ‘My Account’ shows that no datablocks were used up this month (0.00GB allowance)

Bro, you know I can’t use your ghost data

This means that some time between February and this month the data block disappeared from the account. It wasn’t used up this month when we used 100% of available data. And it shouldn’t have been completely used up any other month because the last time we used 100% of available data was before the data block was purchased.

I suspect it disappeared when we changed plans at the start of this month.

Slingshot called us about changing to a new plan. They spoke to the account holder first, then spoke to me. I ended up changing the plan, but this wasn’t noted under the account.

Not the account holder

I called them about this and they refused to speak to me about it at all because I’m not the account holder, even though I didn’t want them to share any information with me – I have it all up in ‘My Account’ anyway, and I’m calling from the phone number associated with the account (I know, I know, caller ID can be forged@#$!!11 but again, I wasn’t asking for personal information).

After I told them I’d just pretend to be the account holder because they were being ridiculous, and proceeded to do so they “terminated” the call and said they’d call the account holder on their cellphone. In an act of hilarity, it ends up that my cellphone number is the one listed on the account. That call was terminated too.

The account holder gets home, talks to them and adds me to the account. He gets lectured by the rep that the reason I wasn’t able to talk to them about it was to protect the account holder’s personal information, even though I wasn’t asking for any personal information (and would’ve been able to tell them the account holders name, address and DOB anyway).

WE HAVE TABLES TO PROVE IT

After lots of holding I’m told that they are definitely right and that we have gone well over our data usage (even though that overage would’ve happened on speedy dial-up). I suspect that they can only see what I can see in the history part of billing – the total amount of data used per month: plan + data blocks + free off-peak + zero rated, because past data usage isn’t split up into categories.

Just because it says we used x amount of GB more than our plan doesn’t mean that we actually went over the plan’s allowance, because of free off peak. That’s also supported by a lack of 100% data usage used emails.

The rep said they could email me what they are seeing showing the significant overage. I say great. He says that it will take two days and mentioned printing. I state the ridiculousness of this and ask to speak to whoever he talked to. I get put on hold and he quickly comes back saying they can actually send it within 30 minutes – 6pm.

The spreadsheet

At 7pm I get an email from tier 2 customer support. Attached is a spreadsheet of our hour by hour data usage over this billing period. Interesting to look at, but not helpful to the situation. The issue isn’t with us using up all of our plan data this billing period, which I’m not debating and I can clearly see from ‘My Account’. What I am debating is that we shouldn’t have been slowed to dial-up because there should have been a data block on the account.

And so the saga continues.

^{Image credit: Nick Webb}