Pacific GOODBYE

In the next few days, I expect Pacific Internet to give me an award for being such a dumb and lazy customer. And that would really be embarassing, as I take a personal and professional interest in competition policy. I confess: I stayed Pacific for five years even after knowing that in the last three, there were many better quality options and at much lower prices.

In economics, one explanation as to why prices do not really adjust as fast as costs (you will probably contest this) is what is called the ‘suki’ effect---prices are rigid upwards because merchants want to keep existing customers. But what I’ve found and illustrated is a perverse ‘suki’ effect. Customers take dung from their merchants and service providers until they become almost homicidal.

If you have the patience, read the following exchange between me and my ISP provider, and weep.

Dear Ms. Aimee Colangoy,

I am not sure if you responded at all to my note below because when I opened my pacific mailbox in the morning of August 1, your system no longer accepted my username and I could thus no longer log in to it. A check with the mail2web site confirmed that you had in fact deleted my pacific mailbox. Finally, I checked with your tech support and was told that my account had been 'terminated.'

I let some time pass before writing you because my initial reaction to the facts stated above was really anger and annoyance. A careful reading of my note below would suggest that I was still expecting a reaction or confirmation from you in regard to my wishes. Your own website says that "all requests for termination are subject for (sic) confirmation."

It is possible that you took my wish as imperative because perhaps you know from experience that many people just walk away from their 'terminal' bills after or just before signing on to an alternative service. In my case, I have an auto-debit arrangement with you and had no intention of simply walking away. Imagine my surprise therefore at your action. I had not even informed friends and associates about any change of e-mail address (although I do have another POP address, this is known only to a select few). This is not really an unremediable problem, though it is still annoying. What is really probably irremediable is that some people may have sent me mail on July 31 and their mail was accepted by my mailbox (and they thus did not receive any returned mail notifications) and I have lost access to such mail. Can this be remedied at your end? Of course I can always write to all my contacts and ask them to resend whatever they sent on July 31. But that is still annoying, isn't it? And what if there were e-mails which needed urgent responses?

So what do I do now? I asked one of your tech support 'engineers' to ask you to call me and explain what really happened. I now understand that your billings for excess usage are delayed two months. So what you might do is send me my final bill with the excess usage for June and July minus the disputed usage period, not as a matter of 'goodwill' as you mentioned in your earlier letter, but as a matter of fairness. You might also do the noble thing of just forgetting about those charges to compensate me for all the aggravation I have had to experience with your service. That would fit my definition of goodwill.

From my end , I have asked my credit provider to reject any billings from you. So, if you insist on collecting, I will just pay some other way after we can agree on a just and fair amount.

To be fair, your company is one of a few in the Philippines that are respectful enough to have customer service people who respond in writing to customer complaints. I do appreciate that, and hope that your management will invest in training letter writers to use better English. (For example, it should be : Thank you for your continued patronage of (not to) Pacific Internet).

Finally, let me assure you that I write not to insult or denigrate your efforts. I know you are trying your best to attend to the needs of customers. My beef is more with your management and perhaps the owners (if they really know what's going on) who insist on duping customers with an overpriced service and who do not seem to care if they continue to lose customers to competition which provides much higher quality at much lower prices. They seem to think Filipinos are dumb. I must admit I have been dumb and lazy for waiting this long to say goodbye.

I wish you luck and hope your managers really wake up.

viking logarta
----- Original Message -----
From: "viking" <viking_l@pacific.net.ph>
To: <csg@pacific.net.ph>
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 11:31 AM
Subject: Re: request for correction

> your letter is quite difficult to understand. Never mind. What I really also> want to do is to give up my account as soon as possible.> viking logarta> ----- Original Message -----> From: <csg@pacific.net.ph>> To: "viking" <viking_l@pacific.net.ph>> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:58 AM> Subject: Re: request for correction> > > > Dear Mr. Logarta,> >> > Good Day!> >> > This refers to your 31 July 2007 e-mail message regarding your> subscription> > for Pacific Internet account number 1000083476-5.> >> > Please be advised that we cannot pro-rate your August 2007 monthly> > subscription fee and adjust the May 2007 excess usage that was billed to> > your July 01, 2007 statement.> >> > For clients that experiencing problem in our connection or cannot log-on> we> > can only give bonus hours on top of the monthly plan, but if your records> > show that you have zero usage for that month that is the time that we can> > give reversal on the monthly subscription fee. For excess usage, we can> > reverse or adjust the excess usage if the account was hacked.> >> > The additional 5hours bonus will add on your Speed@ccess 10 hours Plan> > effective August 2007.> >> > We hope we have helped you with this information.> >> > Should you have further inquiries, please email us at <csg@pacific.net.ph>> > or call our Customer Care Center at 918-5100.> >Thank you for your continued patronage to Pacific Internet!Yours truly,Aimee Colangoy/Customer Service AssociatePacific Internet Philippines> >> > From:"viking" <viking_l@pacific.net.ph>> > Sent:Jul 31, 2007 06:08 AM> > To:<csg@pacific.net.ph>> > cc:> > Subject:Re: request for correction> > I would really appreciate it more if you simply deducted the 5 hours from> > my> > August statement.> > viking logarta> >> >> > > Dear Mr. Logarta,> > >> > > A pleasant day to you!> > >> > > This refers to your 30 July 2007 e-mail message regarding your> > subscription> > > for Pacific Internet account number 1000083476-5.> > >> > > We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced lately> > > with our services especially with the internet connection and our> current> > > rates. We greatly appreciate your feedback as we constantly look for> new> > > ways to serve you better. Please be advised that your concerns and> > > suggestion were duly noted for proper handling. Rest assured that we> > will> > > look into this matter to ensure the high level of service you deserve> > from> > > Pacific Internet.> > >> > > Please be advised that your e-mail message has been re-evaluated and> > > approval has been granted as goodwill. We shall credit five (5) hours> to> > > your account for August 2007, which means you have total of 15 hours> > access> > > time for next month.> > >> > > We hope we have helped you with this information.> > >> > > Should you have further questions, please feel free to call our Customer> > > Care Center at 918-5100 (9AM-6PM, Monday to Friday) or email us at> > > csg@pacific.net.ph and we will be glad to assist you.> > >> > > Thank you for your continued patronage to Pacific Internet!> > >> > > Yours truly,> > >> > > Aimee Colangoy/Customer Service Associate> > > Pacific Internet Philippines> > >Dear madam/sir:> > >Thank you for alerting me about my excess usage, because it motivated meto access the record of my usage from your website. This is something Ihardly ever did because historically, I seldom ever exceeded the allotment under myplan.I write to inform you that starting on July 20, your services had been severely impaired because I could not access any websites and the only use I had for the connection was to access my pacific mail. I could not even access my other POP3 mail. I had to keep refreshing and logging out and in to see whether normal service had resumed. You can readily ascertain my claim from examining my usage log because I would dial up so many times in a day, something which is contrary to my usual behavior. Also, I simplyrefrained from logging in for a number of days out of sheer frustration (July 21-22).
I called up your technical support service early in the morning of July24 and was informed that your system had indeed been experiencing problemspartly as a result of heavy traffic because of your 'unlimited use'packages and partly because of connectivity problems with Bayantel. You can alsoascertain my claim because I had to dial up your Cebu access numberseveral times when I became desperate and lo and behold I could get normalaccess using that line, and incurring losng-distance charges! The problem persistedeven after I executed the suggestions of your 'engineer', which was tomanually enter the IP addresses. I could no longer reach your techsupport an hour later because your phone computer would say that your customerservice was closed on account of a 'holiday'. I was able to reach yourtech support again only on July 25 or 26 and after executing another set ofinstructions from another 'engineer', my access to websites had onlymarginally improved. To cut the long story short, it was only in themorning of July 28 that normal access to websites was restored.You would agree with me that is highly unfair and irregular for you tocharge regular rates for the usage when your system was not functioningup to par, and also considering that your rates are hardly competitive. Idon't even like the idea of having to write this request because I feel it isincumbent upon you to automatically adjust the billings in cases such asthis. Thus, I would appreciate it very much if you act on my request andreflect some adjustments in my August bill rather than have to wait fora reversal of charges after the fact. My total usage from July 20 to July27 sums up to 12.2 hours and it is up to you how to adjust this consideringthe problems I have mentioned.I await your prompt response.Sincerely yours,viking logarta> > >> > > p.s.> > >> > > Your letter informs me that excess usage is billed to the nearest> > 15-minute> > > block. When I examined my July bill however, I learned that you were> > > charging me the integer value of usage period in hours: INT(10.9)=10.> > Thus,> > > your claim as to your billing procedure is incorrect.>