Ani MollerZero content, 100% of the time

Telecom are the biggest telecommunications company in New Zealand. Their monopoly over the New Zealand industry has been debated a lot, especially over the past few years with regards to broadband internet service.

Back last year, I posted this article with prices for broadband internet plans. It got a fair amount of notice from my New Zealand readers, most who were pretty pissed off about the prices and speeds.

In the past few weeks, Telecom has been advertising about how they are now providing “faster, cheaper” broadband. While they have introduced a plan with 10GB of bandwidth at a speed of 3.5Mbps downstream (which isn’t really that bad, considering it’s almost twice as fast and $10 cheaper than before, however it still slows down to dial-up once you reach your bandwidth limit and you seemingly can’t buy blocks of more bandwidth) they are toting them as starting at $29.95 per month. Sounds great! Or is it?

In small print the advertisement says that the plan they are talking about gives you only 200MB per month, and each megabyte thereafter is 2¢. That means that 1GB is more than $20. That is crazy! I fear that someone will get caught out like the person who this Telecom bill from 2003 belongs to:

That is tragic.

Yesterday, I mentioned very briefly about having some drama with the video iPod my boyfriend gave me for my birthday. Now here is the expanded version.

The iPod in question was a white 30GB video iPod. My boyfriend bought it for me on the 30th of January, and gave it to me the same day (my birthday is actually on the 31st, but my boyfriend can never wait to give presents). When I opened it the box and took off the plastic packaging, I noticed that the scroll wheel was tilted to the right and had a slight gap on the left-hand side. The scroll wheel worked, but the fault was very noticeable and the unevenness of the back and forward icons made me feel a bit dizzy if I stared at it – it looked like my eyes were off because you wouldn’t expect it to be misaligned. Also, when you pay €329 for an MP3 player, you expect quality. So no problem we think – we’ll just take it back the next day, on my birthday, before we spend a fun day in town. Right? Wrong!

The iPod was purchased from IT Pro on Eiermarkt in Antwerp’s city centre. We go in, explain the problem to one of the guys and he calls whom I can only assume is his supervisor – Dimitri. I explain that it’s brand new, it’s just been opened the night before, is unused, and very obviously has a manufacturing defect, and that I would like to swap it for another one. Dimitri tells me that it is not possible to swap it immediately in the store. I suggest a refund – and am again told this is not possible. I am told that the only way to get it fixed is to send it off to Apple for service.

His reasoning for this was that every iPod that is sold is automatically registered to a name and if it was returned they couldn’t resell it because it would be in my name. I explain that I haven’t registered it with Apple, but he still says that it’s registered to me – perhaps by the power of thought? I can only imagine.

But hang on, this is a brand new iPod with a manufacturing defect – I don’t want it serviced. I want it replaced. I mention the Apple 14-day right-to-return policy (clause 7.1!), which is that you can return anything within that time frame and it doesn’t even need to be broken, except opened software, of course. He tells me that they are not Apple and do not follow Apple policies. I question this because they are an authorised Apple reseller, but he again states that they “are not Apple”. I mention the 7-day right-to-return policy under Belgian law, and he goes on to tell me that this does not exist and that it is not Belgian law.

By now, I am pretty fucking pissed off. I say, come on! It’s my birthday! I just want to get my iPod fixed. Dimitri tells me again that all I can do is send it in for service and wait up to 2 weeks. I explain that I am not Belgian, and I am leaving the country permanently in 2 weeks and that I do not have a fixed address to send the new iPod to. He still says this is the only way to get it fixed. He tells me he could swap the iPod immediately if he “wanted to be a nice guy” but that he just couldn’t do that. At this point, I raise my voice at him and tell him this is pathetic customer service and that they are selling Apple products so they have to follow Apple return policies. He says he is going to report me to Apple for customer abuse.

At this time, there are also about 7 other customers in the store, all listening to the crap coming out of Master of Customer Service Dimitri’s mouth. Eventually, they all leave and buy nothing. You would have thought at this point he would come around but he still sticks to his ground – trying to fuck me around and rip me off. So I say, fine. I’ll call Apple. He says, “Go on then!” I ask for the number, and he gives it to me.

I spend the next 45 minutes on the telephone speaking to a helpful guy at Apple who takes all the information down and gives me some options to get a replacement iPod. He says he could courier me an iPod but it could take 7+ days to arrive – but I am moving out of our rented studio in 8 days. He tells me that, indeed, IT Pro are an authorised Apple reseller and should adhere to Apple policies. He says I should either get a new iPod on the spot, or my money refunded. He says he would be reporting the incident to the powers that be at Apple, and made a case note for Dimitri to look at and said I should now be able to get my money back.

So we tell this Dimitri fellow what Apple has told me and he still says that they can’t help me in any way! Also, while I was on the phone he was taking numerous photos of the iPod which he also said didn’t need to be replaced because “it wasn’t broken”. He goes on to tell me that now that I’ve made a case note with that serial number and my name against it, that he definitely can’t give me my money back. Eventually, he goes upstairs to call who I can only assume was his manager or the owner. He has a rather heated discussion – none of which I can hear or decipher with my crappy grasp of the Dutch language.

Another few minutes pass and he comes downstairs. He says that actually, now that there is a case note he can give us the money back. We have now spent one hour in the store on my birthday. He grumpily gives us the money back and we leave the store.

We walk down the road to FNAC, which is a Belgian chain department store that sells electronics and books. We explain the situation to the information guy and ask if we buy one from FNAC if we could open the packaging before we leave the store and check for the defect. He says, sure. We end up opening two boxes because the first also had the same manufacturing problem. Luckily, the third iPod of the day was relatively okay and I left the store a happy birthday girl with a new iPod. Thanks, Robin!

Moral of the (very long) story: Do not buy anything from IT Pro, ever. They have the worst customer service I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing – and that includes the notoriously shitty Micro Anvika in Selfridges. I wonder if this is what you get by trying to support small local businesses, as my boyfriend had gone into FNAC and considered getting the iPod there, but went to IT Pro instead.

Also, Dimitri from IT Pro is not a nice guy. In fact, he is a fucking rude cunt.