PLDT’s Php5,000 myDSL downgrade penalty
Posted Friday, May 26th, 2006 3:12 pm by Abe Olandres
Viewed 7207 times | Related entries: Telecoms
So, I just had my Smart Bro (Smart Wifi) account hooked up and tested this afternoon. Horrendous broadband speeds, really. Just below 50% of the actually published speed.
Anyway, I thought I’d downgrade my 2-year old PLDT Plan 1995 myDSL account to save up on the monthly bills. The existing Plan 1995 is 512 kbps and the package below that is 384kbps for Php999.
I called up their customer support (171) and asked them if i could have my account downgraded. The person on the other line was polite enough to tell me that there is a Php5,000 penalty for downgrades. However, he added that if I wanted to upgrade, there’s no penalty or fee. Wow! I told the customer rep that I’ve been with PLDT for around 15 months now and I’m off the hook in terms of the one-year lock-in period, so why the penalty? He couldn’t answer straight. All he told me that it was policy. Yeah, I know, crap service policy.
How about I terminate my account and apply for the lower plan? Or better yet, I move to another broadband provider. And this is not the first time I’ve rant about them.
I wonder what it will take for PLDT to retract this Php5,000 downgrade penalty? I’m sure someone from the inside is reading this.
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15 Responses to “PLDT’s Php5,000 myDSL downgrade penalty ”
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I thought that there were only a few of us who had problems with PLDT DSL until I came across this blog. I asked for a change of plan from regular landline plus DSL 999 to a DSL 990 line Plus DSL combo and was told that I could only downgrade to DSL 1299 plan. Weird but will it solve my constantly dropped connections?
I’m paying two different bills for my landline and my dsl service. The promo(plan 999) came out months after i had my dsl service.
I did also asked for a downgrade and they first asked me what area i am at.
Then they told me that their “plan 999″ or something like that don’t reach our area.
The csr then asked me, “if i want to merge my phone and dsl, i will get a Php5000 downgrade fee eventhough my one year lockdown period is way past.
This is on a separate incident where our phoneline snapped because a container truck snagged it along its way. At first, i immediately called the 173 number for repairs and they told me its going to be attended to. 2 weeks have passed and after venting my frustrations, still no lineman for the repairs.
Can you imagine 2 weeks without phone and internet access is like?? apparently, i believe a lot of people has experienced this same horrible experience i had with “our country’s leading phone service provider” (big claims for such poor service quality)
Can we customers do something about the degenerating service we’re paying for?
Seriously, we’re supposed to be their priority aren’t we, who are generating their overhead funds for maintenance?
I’m sure too that someone from the inside is reading your blog, but unfortunately they don’t care.
Here’s my story: our family signed up for the P999/month plan. Upon receiving the first billing statement, we were being charged P1999! I ignored this thinking that it was some added fees for signing up with them. 2 months later, we were still being charged with P1999 per month. So I personally went to their main office here in Baguio, asked the lady for a downgrade to 999. The moment she said there’s a 5000 penalty, I was like “huh?”. I wanted to grab her head and smash it several times to the desk. First they tricked us into paying 1999 a month, and now there’s a downgrade penalty for something we didn’t want in the first place.
So we thought that we should let it slide and just enjoy the extra speed…then we started experiencing incessant disconnections. I rang their help desk and all they could do is just tell me that their tech support will monitor our connection, give us a follow up call to check if everything is OK…Sure the connection was better when they rang back…BUT for over a year now, we would experience disconnections throughout the day! One time, we had no internet connection for almost a week. Even the phone line would be out!
Does anyone have any suggestions for those living in Baguio? Any good Internet providers over here?
well im having the same problem too regarding the speed of mydsl pldt… i’ve been paying for 2yrs already but i didn’t get the right speed for that plan so i downgraded it they requested me to pay the 5000 for the reconnection of it, i talked to one of the personnel and i explained my side i said i’ve been paying the 2500 plan but the speed they’re giving me is that of the 999plan i think its so unfair so they accepted my downgrade for the 999 plan. but same problem still, speed is so slow imagine getting a 4kbps speed only it doesn’t even reach a 90kbps is this the kind of speed i get from a 999 plan?
Get your facts straight first by looking at your actual lock-in period. I was subcribed to their 3000 MyDSL professional product, and past the 2 year lock-in period, I was also harrassed by this penalty when i wanted to move to myDSL 999, since my 24/7 remote support service project was done.
I tried emailing several times and ranted, and when i was fed up explaining myself to an obviously confused support agent. I just asked to be directed to a senior manager so I can complain the directly and GET ACTION. 3 days after i got a confirmation they will downgrade and there’s no charge.
Fact is, these competencies in customer servicing is lost when you start cutting corners like what they did. The people and process disjoint is why I went to ITIL and ITSM lecture gigs.
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