Canadian Immigrants and Citizens Life Stories
Canadian life stories, Immigrants success stories, new Canadian citizen stories, tips for new immigrants to Canada, links to online services, Toronto attractions and places to visit, etc.Saturday, September 16, 2006
Bell Sympatico's Technical Supports is awful
In Canada, big companies like Bell and Sympatico used to monopolize communications and Internet markets. They could afford to ignore their customers. While I worked in a small company, I often called our Bell sales representative, but they hardly returned my calls. Only after I call their manager, they call me back. On this Wednesday night and Thursday morning I had an awful experience with Sympatico technical supports. This was not the first one, but this was the worst ever.
This following story is the chronological what happened when I call the technical supports for help. I had a problem with my email. I call technical support and since beginning he sounded unfriendly. He said he had to recreate my email account. Since I hadn't been able to retrieve my email from this morning, of course I asked him if recreating my email would affect on my inbox account. He started getting upset, but he confirmed that my email would be fine. Then, he recreated my email account and then he asked me to delete and recreate my MS outlook account as well. However, in the middle gave me instructions, he accused me for not doing what he asked which as a matter of fact I did exactly as he said. He told me that I did it away too fast and sounded he did not believe me. Then, suddenly he hung up on me without any explanations. Even though I sounded upset of course because of this accusation, I never used any sarcasm or swearing language. There was no good reason to hang up on me.
The next morning, I call Sympatico’s customer service to complain and ask to redirect to tech support level II, after waited for 10 minutes, I got someone else from tech support online with me. However is not from Tech support level II. I found out that after the tech support doesn't know exactly what is she doing. Then, I asked her if she is Tech support level II. She told me she is level I. Then, the worst happened to me. Since she cannot resolve my problem, she told me to find a technician to come and fix my problem. As a matter of fact, according to Sympatico web site, I just found out that my Operating Systems, Windows XP is in the list OS supported by Sympatico.
(Note: My problem was I couldn’t access my sympatico email through web site and POP3. When I access through web site, I got blank white screen, and when I hit my send/receive in MS Outlook, I got error message “The TCP/IP connection was unexpectedly terminated by the server. (Error number: 0x800cccf). However, I do not have any problem accessing my emails in yahoo, gmail, hotmail accounts web site. Isn't it ridiculous?)
Then, I called customer service again and go though all stupid validity questions all over again every time I got transfer from person to person online, I got her transfer me back to tech support supervisor. He is more knowledgeable, but rushed through a quick fix. I could get into my email through web browser and finished with him. However, after I hang up I found out that even though I could get in to the email I still was not able to access my email. Then, I tried to close my browser and login again but I got a blank white screen again (my problem still exists). Until that time, I have spent about 2.5 hours (night and morning calls) and I got no solution of my problem. I use MS Outlook to check my emails, but I have to check online through web browser to check sympatico junk mail that often filter out legit email such as when I tried to renew my contract this year Sympatico sales sent me contract emails that were end up in junk mail box. That were all the pain I had to go through with one of biggest Canadian company.
Anyway, I also found out that people in one of sympatico forum has been discussed this grumble rude tech supports and unprofessional level and behaviors. I think to switch over to Rogers or some other ISP is one of my solutions now. As you know email is critical applications now a days, without them your business is finished.
That is enough complaint about them today. I wanted to let anyone who needs access to internet, think three times before to choose Bell Sympatico.
This following story is the chronological what happened when I call the technical supports for help. I had a problem with my email. I call technical support and since beginning he sounded unfriendly. He said he had to recreate my email account. Since I hadn't been able to retrieve my email from this morning, of course I asked him if recreating my email would affect on my inbox account. He started getting upset, but he confirmed that my email would be fine. Then, he recreated my email account and then he asked me to delete and recreate my MS outlook account as well. However, in the middle gave me instructions, he accused me for not doing what he asked which as a matter of fact I did exactly as he said. He told me that I did it away too fast and sounded he did not believe me. Then, suddenly he hung up on me without any explanations. Even though I sounded upset of course because of this accusation, I never used any sarcasm or swearing language. There was no good reason to hang up on me.
The next morning, I call Sympatico’s customer service to complain and ask to redirect to tech support level II, after waited for 10 minutes, I got someone else from tech support online with me. However is not from Tech support level II. I found out that after the tech support doesn't know exactly what is she doing. Then, I asked her if she is Tech support level II. She told me she is level I. Then, the worst happened to me. Since she cannot resolve my problem, she told me to find a technician to come and fix my problem. As a matter of fact, according to Sympatico web site, I just found out that my Operating Systems, Windows XP is in the list OS supported by Sympatico.
(Note: My problem was I couldn’t access my sympatico email through web site and POP3. When I access through web site, I got blank white screen, and when I hit my send/receive in MS Outlook, I got error message “The TCP/IP connection was unexpectedly terminated by the server. (Error number: 0x800cccf). However, I do not have any problem accessing my emails in yahoo, gmail, hotmail accounts web site. Isn't it ridiculous?)
Then, I called customer service again and go though all stupid validity questions all over again every time I got transfer from person to person online, I got her transfer me back to tech support supervisor. He is more knowledgeable, but rushed through a quick fix. I could get into my email through web browser and finished with him. However, after I hang up I found out that even though I could get in to the email I still was not able to access my email. Then, I tried to close my browser and login again but I got a blank white screen again (my problem still exists). Until that time, I have spent about 2.5 hours (night and morning calls) and I got no solution of my problem. I use MS Outlook to check my emails, but I have to check online through web browser to check sympatico junk mail that often filter out legit email such as when I tried to renew my contract this year Sympatico sales sent me contract emails that were end up in junk mail box. That were all the pain I had to go through with one of biggest Canadian company.
Anyway, I also found out that people in one of sympatico forum has been discussed this grumble rude tech supports and unprofessional level and behaviors. I think to switch over to Rogers or some other ISP is one of my solutions now. As you know email is critical applications now a days, without them your business is finished.
That is enough complaint about them today. I wanted to let anyone who needs access to internet, think three times before to choose Bell Sympatico.
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