"I'm not able to help!": Customer Service

If you have been using prepaid phone cards for long distance, most probably you have noticed about the same problem. Since less than a year ago, I have been noticing that almost all communication companies located in the US have transferred their customer services to the country India. Everything seems fine till now. The problem starts when they are totally unable to help you in no way. Here comes a real story ...

You buy a card, say Radiant card (I hate it). Its catalogue says that you should be able to talk for 70 minutes. Then you call, it says you are able to talk 30 minutes! OK, at least they were just half-liar, not more. You call your number, it is busy, later again busy, but you know that it is not busy at 4:00 am local time. After 13 hours, when you call it says that, you have half of the credit, while it has also mentioned in the catalogue that there is no connection fee. You angrily call so-called customer service. After a long waiting time, finally somebody starts to talk politely with Indian accent. When you explain the whole story, he says that you'll get whole credit back to your account in 48 hours, because "we are outside US and it takes 2 days and nights to communicate with the US!". OK, you don't have any other choice.

After 4 days, you tiredly try once again. It says 'you have no credit left!' , Ohh, ... you call again, they say again politely that we are going to give credit back to you. You have no other choice, not talking with manager, because managers are in the US, and no connection to them!! .... Their final answer is that the card has been expired after only 1 week!!! Even milk in our fridge has longer expiration period than a week.

This story happened to me for 3 different cards during the last couple of weeks. I think Customer Service in the merriam-webster dictionary has to have a new definition based on the new condition of globalization: "A service that you call to spend your time, be fool around that gives you virtual untrue hope to the future".