Flow - madness!

Now suddenly since Flow came, customers can only have two cable boxes per signup. What kind of madness is that? This is Trinidad not America where the average household has only two kids!! The average household has a lot more people in it and we all want our own cable box! Why is Flow attempting to curb our only joy?
Worse yet, they apparently cannot give out any boxes right now because they are manually changing over to some new system and cannot cater to customers who want an extra box until the change over is complete....I never heard such madness from a company like this before! And you just know they are trying to find a way to make us pay extra for channels like HBO and Cinemax (just like US cable companies) when they talk about this new system they want to implement! Good thing I don't watch that much TV! They have yet to bring us anything useful since they took over from CCTT....I could do without the way things are "flow"ing these days!!!

HiLo

This happened to my sister recently in HiLo. It demonstrates the utter lack of courtesy generally extended to customers in Trinidad and is a sad commentary on the state of consumer affairs.
We had planned a trip to Tobago and so at around 9:30pm my sister found it necessary to get to HiLo for some last minute supplies. She arrived well before closing time however by the time 10pm rolled around she had not finished getting all the items she needed. That's when the trouble started. First the manager came rudely over to announce that they were closed, as if my sister wasn't aware of that by just looking around. Then they proceeded to stalk and harass her and at one point even attempted to prevent her from getting something that she wanted, because they wanted to hustle her to the cashier to cash out.
My sister was very troubled, needless to say and disturbed by the treatment, both verbal and silent dished out to her. She didn't forget to tell them what she thought of it, but they were heedless and stubborn, never once apologizing for their treatment of her.
She would like to say that she wouldn't go back to that grocery, but there aren't many choices in our area, so more than likely she will have to go there and so will we.
Now, I understand that grocery staff need to leave as soon as or soon after the clock strikes closing time, fair enough, but surely the situation could have been handled with a little more finesse, and a lot more courtesy, whether or not my sister is a frequent customer there, which by the way, she is. For one thing, the store needs to have a stated policy about what happens from 15 min before closing time if it is indeed their hope to leave exactly on the hour that is stated on the door. Although, clearly that ideal is impossible anyway. However for argument's sake, let's assume that is what they want to do. Then they should close the door at 9:45pm and not at 10:00pm. Leaving the door open means that anyone can come in, and should be allowed to shop until they are satisfied they have all they need, UNLESS a specific policy is stated and known to the customers about closing time, or unless, an announcement is made to kindly inform shoppers that closing time is in 15 minutes and they need to bring their items to the cashier immediately or within 5 minutes or something like that. If they do not state this, they have no business harassing any shoppers to hustle them out of the store. Yet even, for argument's sake, let's say they did announce this, and a shopper did not heed the announcement...maybe they were hearing-impaired, you never know, then what should have been done, is to kindly let the customer know that closing time was announced and ask them if there was any way they could be helped to complete their shopping in a timely manner. This way, the shopper does not go away with the idea that this store does not care about its customers and the store personnel can get home as early as possible. Antagonizing a customer will only prolong the torture for both parties, since they are more likely to stand and express their discontent, thus spending even more time in the store than they would normally have, and then they also may take longer to finish because they have been harassed to the point where they have to think longer about what they need to get etc etc. So, clearly, everything points to the management adopting a more proactive approach to ensure both the customer and the store personnel remain happy. I wonder if any business in T&T will ever get it right? We can always hope.

DirecTV - finally freed!

I must say quite honestly I will miss the reruns of some cool shows like The Nanny and Seinfeld etc which air on the Sony channels of DirecTV and of course I will miss American Idol, which only just started back...that show is not over-rated. (Come on Columbus Cable or whatever your name is, bring us Fox!) But I will not miss the exorbitant monthly fee for basic service and the 'per-box' monthly rental and I will definitely not miss the bondage of an annual contract! I will miss the "guide" which was really cool. I kinda liked being able to pre-select certain TV shows and also to lock the box so it wouldn't switch channels! However, these minor conveniences are not worth the extra money or the iron-clad contract which DirecTV is free to break but the customer is not. I say this because when I signed up, I was shown a list of channels which I would have access to, and then a few months into the contract, they abruptly deleted some channels from my service without even the courtesy of a letter of apology/notification for the change.
I will also not miss the "Spanish-language-only" content on some of the channels, and not being able to predict when this will happen, or the lack of "Alt audio" even when it is supposed to be available. And I will definitely NOT miss the Spanish subtitles in my face all the time! I have nothing against Spanish. In fact, I would like to learn it a bit more, but not while I'm watching TV!

UPXpress

Whoever said free things weren't good, was obviously being very cynical. UPXpress has provided good service up till now, and even now, the time which was taken to resolve the "situation" is such that I almost feel I shouldn't complain. But the fact is that I had to complain and it appears that my complaining is what accelerated results! Also, the truth is they had promised a speedier service so that the time taken for the package to eventually reach me was abnormally long. So I will tell the tale anyway and hope others can learn by it. The package which arrived at the Miami office on Jan 9th, didn't quite make it to Trinidad certainly not before other items I had ordered after it, so I eventually contacted them sometime around Jan 13th. The response was slow by my estimation. The first few days were spent with the Trinidad office getting in contact with the Miami office, unsuccessfully at first, then the all-important "action item" was sent which should have triggered a flurry of urgent activity, but which instead did nothing for a day or so, then finally came the dreaded response, "The package cannot be found." With less than comforting and quite impotent assurances, I was left out of the loop of communication for about 3 days before the OM saw fit to call me to let me know they still hadn't found my package. By which time, of course, I had already sent an email (which I am sure he had already seen but refused to acknowledge openly,) requesting a refund for the cost of my package. I was of course more than a little disgusted by the calm, almost unconcerned tone with which he relayed the information and decided I had had enough of playing Ms. Nice...so I told him just what I thought about their inefficient "procedures" and that I was going to tell my friends about their appalling customer service.
I guess Ms. Nasty had a better effect than Ms. Nice because later that day I got the good news that my package had in fact been found and would be shipped out the next day. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief but the question remains: Do I stay with the free service or opt for another year of paid service, especially given they apparently are serviced by the same air carrier although the air carrier was not to blame, and also given that I had a lot more problems with the paid service as well.
What a dilemma!