Hutzpa

At his weekend newspaper column today, Yair Lapid complaint about Pelephone's service, and their incompetence when it comes to closing lines which are no longer wanted. In Lapid's case, Pelephone kept charging his late (since June) father for calls made from abroad, and refused to admit the mistake.

This reminded me the time I wanted to close my Pelephone line few months ago. After closing phone lines at the competitor providers, I thought it'll be just as easy. Mistaken I was, this took me over a month of sending letters, faxes, making phone calls, etc. In the mean while, Pelephone kept charging me for service I did not want, nor use.

The HUTZPA of Israeli telecom providers was revealed to me this week once again. Last Friday I was holding a conversation with Bezeq regarding upgrading my (lame) internet connection (ADSL) speed. The conversation concluded in me adding 5 NIS, and they'll upgrade my connection to a more reasonable speed. After finishing that conversation, I hurried calling my ISP, to upgrade the speed (and price) of my service.

Since I have bad experience with such things, I went through every known procedure in order to check my internet connection speed. All tests concluded - I'm still having the old (and slow) connection speed. After 1 hour call to my ISP, I was assured they fulfilled their part of the deal, and that the problem relies at Bezeq. Calling Bezeq, I heard the sorriest excuse ever: "You're still connected using the old speed, no upgrade was ever made. Come to think about it, it's impossible we've ever offered you such a deal" (!?!). Took quite some time to make them check their phone logs and see for themselves that they did talked to me over the phone, and did offer a deal. Yelling at them that I've already upgraded my ISP service, lead nowhere. They say they cannot, and will not, give me the speed we agreed on for the price we agreed on. Now they offer a different price, over 3 times as much, with limiting conditions (only for first 6 months, etc.).

What am I supposed to do now? Call my ISP and cancel the higher speed service? Will they give me my money back for not being able to use the service I was paying for?

Telling Bezeq I want to disconnect from my service, in order to move to the competitors, they told me my engagement to the service ends at January, and breaking it would cost me 110 NIS. WTF? Keeping the service for this time would cost me less. One more reason to leave them ASAP. January that is. Hope the competition is any better.