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I hate to complain but…

Well, I don’t hate it that much. Ok, here goes, TELMEX SUCKS!

For anyone who doesn’t know, Telmex is the local telephone company, it’s effectively a monopoly at this point. I have a land-line with them and get my over-priced and under-fed internet service from them too. I’m not going to get into all the reasons why they suck, because I don’t feel like complaining THAT much, or rather, I’m just too tired to bother making a list. I’ll just complain about one issue for now.

In April we never got our Telmex bill. But being good citizens we paid the bill on-time anyway. Finally, when the May bill was a couple of days from being due, a bill showed up. I must say I looked only at the amount due, and never realized that this was the long lost April bill. I figured, because it was timed right, that it was the May bill because I’m that kind of a logical person, and it MADE SENSE to me (and didn’t involve any thinking, which is also critical).

The bill was due over the weekend. To pay the bill when it’s due or late you must go to the Telmex office. If you pay it early I think you can pay in a few other places. But I always pay it the day it’s due, and so I go to the office. If you go to the office you have a choice of standing in a line to pay a person, waiting in a line of cars to pay a drive-up teller or paying a reverse ATM machine that sucks in money and spits out receipts.

But on weekends your only choice is the reverse ATM machine. The others are closed. However this weekend the reverse ATM machine was “fuera de servicio”, out of service, and so even though we TRIED to pay the bill on-time we could not.

So this morning I go down there to pay the bill, which is now late. I go down with the April bill in hand, still thinking that it’s really the May bill. And when I get there the machine is still out of service. So I decide, like the idiot I am, to go inside and pay in person.

Mistake. There was one teller working, one very chatty teller, one teller who found something wrong, something to explain in long drawn out sentences (with hand gestures and lots of typing) to EVERY SINGLE PERSON that she waited on. And there were 30 people ahead of me.

Seeing as the bill was late I thought I should stick it out in that line. And so I stood there with all the other people, not getting anything done, just 30 people idly wasting a half hour of their day standing around waiting. What a useless thing. All those people who could be producing something, or learning something, or spending time with loved ones, all of them just standing there in the freezing-ass air conditioning at 8:30 in the morning while one teller gesticulates all over the lucky soul at the front of the line.

And finally, after waiting 32 minutes, I reach the front of the line. And the ONE TELLER points out that I have the April bill, which is not as big as the May bill. But I didn’t have an extra centavo on me, I just had the amount on the (wrong) bill. (You see, I’d just come from my morning run, and didn’t have my wallet with me; I’d stuck the phone bill money in the phone bill envelope and had left that in the car while I ran, figuring no thief in their right mind would break into my car and steal my Telmex bill!) So I give the teller what I have and tell her I will come back later with the 14 pesos (about $1.20 usd) I still owe. And then I leave, not at all relieved, thinking how stupid I am to do business with these people who can’t hire more tellers or make sure I get my freaking bills!

About an hour later the phone rings. And it’s a recording from Telmex telling me that since my bill is not paid in full that they want to disconnect me…blah, blah, blah. Idiots. If they would send the bill, I would pay the bill, simple. If they don’t send the bill I’ll screw up, simple. I’m good at screwing up, but you know what? Even if I screw up, it’s still their fault because they have bad policies and bad employees and their stupid air conditioning is too cold, and they waste everyone’s time making us wait in lines so they can yell at us and want more money for their limp-along service.

I guess I should hustle on down there with my $14 pesos, but I must say I’m just not very motivated to wait in another line to hand over that tiny amount of money. Can’t I just toss it out the window as I drive by at 40 miles an hour? Telmex is not worth the wear and tear on my brakes if I have to to stop! I swear to God that I loathe that company.

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One Response to “I hate to complain but…”

  1. ANNA
    September 7th, 2009 14:55
    1

    I totally agree with you!!!! TELMEX SUPER SUCKS… THEIR “CUSTOMER SERVICE” is non existent, they don’t even have an idea of what a customer and service are… nobody knows anything, theie phone numbers -such as the infinitum one- don’t even work and guess what? There is no way to get online support when your internet is down but to go to the closest agency, where the people will tell you that you have to call the 01 800 123 2222 for the internet tech support, but NO ONE EVER ANSWERS THAT STUPID PHONE… Poor Mexicans, they don’t have any other choice for telephone or interner service and they have to accept what is given to them… which is the worst service in the whole world!!!!

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