GMA news Blog: Why SmartBro Sucks (A repost)

Get the original post from: http://blogs.gmanews.tv/ben-canlas/archives/28-Why-SmartBro-Sucks.html

I think i'll reach post limit if I compile the rest of the complaints available online. As of this moment Smart have pissed off at least 151,000 subscribers.

SmartBro is very unreliable where we are (Ortigas/ULTRA area). What makes it ultimately worst is that their tech support sucks, big time. Their online documentation is bad and although they provide diagnostic tools that non-techie users are expected to run, these tools are biased for Windows. From what users have reported, the diagnostic tools appear to be not very user-friendly either. And if you think these are tolerable, then read on, be warned and spread the word!

The first time we heard our techie friend raving about SmartBro, we were impressed. So we were actually recommending friends and relatives to switch to SmartBro even before we switched ourselves (we were too busy to change our ISP). Ironically, when we did transfer to SmartBro, our problems started.

We were only able to use the service for about 3 days after installation. After a mild rain, the service died. We tried calling tech support, but the line was infinitely busy. We tried their "24-7 call center" for more than a week -- on weekdays, weekends, during office hours, after office hours, waiting for up to 5 minutes per call -- with no success (all we got was a maddening loop of "Umagang Kay Ganda" which rubs salt on our wounds, since we wake up every morning knowing that we couldn't connect to the internet). We were only able to reach tech support after sending them about 3 email messages from our office internet connection!

One month later, we were still waiting for tech support -- they kept asking us to wait for them on a pre-arranged date but then they kept failing to show up,despite that fact that we have explained to them patiently that we could not wait for them during work hours, because we also have day jobs. In the first few days, we were even willing and eager enough to leave work, just to wait for the technicians to arrive. But they kept failing to show up!

Obviously, their call center lacks clear coordination with the technicians who actually make the troubleshooting house calls.

I've heard many horror stories about SmartBro's lousy service, their unfriendly call center reps and their stupid technicians. They delay requests for refund (while ironically, they demand that you pay them a downpayment before you can get your service installed).

In one case, they couldn't make the service work on a PC so they peddled a new network card for P500.00 to the unsuspecting household. Once the LAN card was connected, the service still didn't work. The customer tried returning the LAN card but the technician refused to take it back and refund the money!

Want more irony? Our first bill arrived last week, and we are being asked to pay the balance, or else -- what? -- disconnect us? We have decided to cancel our service and again, this will be another uphill battle to explain and get our refund. They can ask us to pay for 3 days worth of service, to be fair, but we don't think we'll let them hold on to the rest of our downpayment.