Sorry to hear all that. I went to my usual bank today and found it was missing - yes the whole dang thing. Permata has pulled out of Senayan Plaza... with no forwarding address or sign of any type on their ex-place.

Would you mind doing us all a favour and posting here the letter that Jakarta Post would not publish so that we can see what they wont publish so that we know exactly what is too nasty (or other quality) to publish?
mr snag | "April 13, 2006, 8:54 pm" | #

The Jakarta Post didn't publish the following letter and I'm quite pleased as I didn't want Jakartass to 'go public'.

Usually, for customer complaints, the Post will contact the company concerned. You'll note in the letters page that the 'right of reply' is generally spontaneous. I have the feeling in my case that Indovision was contacted, given a rollicking and, therefore, got onto my case. Finally.

Indovision's Lack of Vision

Dear Sir,

Although I have lived in Indonesia for 18 years, rarely a day goes by without something happening which leaves me totally flabbergasted.

The lack of customer service in most companies is atypical, but being unable to pay for a service which the company is seemingly willing to provide and I am willing to pay for is perhaps the most extreme case.

I am referring to Indovision, the satellite TV providers. In early October last year, at Carrefour, M.T. Haryono, I agreed to pay for a special package which included a 'free' satellite dish. A crew of six arrived the next day, a Sunday, and speedily installed everything. According to my handwritten notes, countersigned by my wife and a certain Franco, I paid Rp.1,954,500 for various fees and for five months of channel watching.

We expected to receive official documentation with details of our account number, method(s) of payment and assorted information including that of the channels and programmes on offer. This has never arrived. Earlier this year Indovision contacted us by phone to ask if we were interested in subscribing to further channels. We said we were but reiterated our request for some official documention which we were assured would be sent by email.

I have also twice informed the Indovision sales point in Carrefour of our need for some official paperwork.

This week our service was terminated, presumably because our subscription has expired. We rang customer service to complain and, as well as having our service restored, were promised that details of our account and the costs of the various packages would be emailed to us by return. We are still waiting.

I am curious to know if others have wanted to pay for something and have similarly failed. I've always believed that the key to successful salesmanship is to believe that the customer is always right - even if s/he isn't. Would I get better service from Indovision if I said that I didn't want to pay?

Yours sincerely,

aka Jakartass
Jakartass | Homepage | "April 13, 2006, 10:49 pm" | #

I just went through a similar scene with Indovision when trying to pay my bill. After telling me that they had received my credit card and everything was fine, they shut off service the next day with one of their customer reps telling me that my credit card wasn't recognized by Indovision. This is the same one that I have been using for three years with them. Well...three days later everything sorted out after hours on the phone and fax. Despite 17 years over here, I am still amazed by the sheer incompetency of some of the major businesses. But, that's life in the tropics.
drbruce | Homepage | "April 15, 2006, 11:12 am" | #

Nice to 'meet' you, Dr. Bruce.

I'll be reciprocating links as soon as I tinker with my template; it seems we may have a lot in common.
Jakartass | Homepage | "April 15, 2006, 5:19 pm" | #