How Smart Communications Wasted 3 Months of My Time

Flashback Valentines Day, it was an awesome day for me romance wise. Then I got home and ordered a SMART MyPhone MY28s. It went downhill from there.

Fast forward 2 months, lo and behold my order is still not in my hands. The following are the frustrating events that made me eventually snap and report to DTI.

Day 1: My purchase went through and I was able to receive confirmation for my order.

Week 1: I called the customer service hotline and I was assured that the normal processing for Smart orders was 1-2 weeks. (By the way, calling Smart Hotline is a stressful experience and the Smart Online Shop only takes email queries)

Week 3: I got a little anxious and wasted an hour of my life waiting for a customer service representative to talk to. I was given service ticket number.

Week 4: I tried calling and got the same response I was assured that they are processing my order.

Week 5 Onwards: After the 5th week, I was constantly calling and tweeting them.

2nd Month: At this point I was tweeting every day and I got DMs that are assuring and generic. A friend gave me the email of DTI and I gave them an email regarding my conundrum. I gave a not so pleasant tweet to Smart and I got a DM telling me that they cancelled my order because it was out of stock and just offered me a refund.

The following monday, DTI emailed back and gave a schedule for mediation. A few hours after receiving the email, a representative from SMART called me and offered a black color for the unit I ordered. I accepted. The next day I got a black MyPhone My28s, nothing more nothing less.

I just learned a few weeks ago that I was not alone on this. ABS-CBN already ran a story (READ: Online promo ng isang telco, inireklamo) of Eleanor Suarez, Maricris Rutger, and Venus Bornilla with the very same problem. Same f*cking problem!

The excuse of SMART's Public Affairs that the delay was caused by a verification process is total bull. Blaming the verification process? Really?

Am I disgruntled? Yes of course! These are the reasons why I hate Smart so much:

You can only contact Smart Online Store via email if you are a prepaid customer. There were no local numbers to call and I have to go through 2-3 customer service representatives before I can talk to someone who PRETENDS TO KNOW WHAT MY COMPLAIN IS just to give me another useless customer complaint number.
The people handling the Twitter account @smartcares are bunch of retards that will give you generic useless replies. I was assured that they were stupid f*cks. The most RETARDED thing they did was to DM me that they ran out of stocks and cancelled my order but at the same time, someone from Smart called me to inform me that they will be sending my order. What the HELL? Someone in the @smartcares team should get fired.
They told me that they were out of stock but when DTI got involved they had stocks. What the f*ck SMART TELECOMMUNICATIONS?
The verification process is a bag of bull. If other online stores have real time inventory updates how come SMART, a billion peso company, does not have one?
I really feel that SMART should get their sh*t together. This thing should not happen to anyone but apparently, I am not the lone victim of this stupidity. Globe is beating their ass in subscriber volume and this does not help their cause.

[post_ad]So what did I get out of this f*ckfest? An eight hundred eighty eight peso phone that I needed for only two months and was of no use when it arrived. I was supposed to be a new Smart subscriber but now I think not. I refuse to get f*cked up by Smart ever again.

The silver lining in all of this is that The Department of Trade and Industry was swift on trying to resolve my case and to me, that is admirable work.

Kudos to DTI. Go to hell, SMART!

For people with similar complains you can email DTI at cpab@dti.gov.ph