For the Liverpool FC fans

Perfect for us Liverpool FC family, no?

Click HERE to buy.

Disclaimer:  I'm not the one selling it.  But I am thinking of buying it for my son(s)!

Back in business?

Oh wow. I can access my blog again.

Access had been patchy of late. Some ding dong had posted some erm... not so nice stuff on blogspot.com and that resulted in the Indonesian govt ordering his/her blog shut down. Unfortunately, it more or less came out as a blanket ban on all of blogspot.com so I wasn't able to access my blog for days.

Even now, accessing my blog or any other blog on blogspot.com is very much like Oreos. Now you see it, now you don't.

Will post some updates soon. I find it very hard to do anything online now as Connor has developed a obssession with the wireless mouse and keyboard. It's very hard to finish a post when your wee one is constantly shutting all your windows.

For my KL friends who are reading this, we are planning to be back in KL 19-27 Dec so I hope to be able to meet some of you at least!

Internet and Jakarta: Another First Media experience

I've already blogged once about my unsavoury experience with the Finance Dept at First Media. My complaint email to them on their corporate website was never acknowledged, let alone answered. Their bills and monthly magazine continue to arrive late. However, I've signed up for the e-billing alert which does come on time and have been paying my bills promptly ever since.

A few weeks ago, my neighbour chucked out her Internet provider. It was running some free-for-all promo on weeknights and resulted in her bandwidth shrinking to zero. When she mentioned to me she was looking for a new Internet provider, I recommended she go with First Media since our compound was already wired up for their service. All they would have to do is bring along their modem and plug it in.

So she called their office. Only to be told, "Sorry ma'am, we don't service your area." She demanded incredulously, "What do you mean you don't service my area??? My neighbour subscribes to your cable and Net service!" They re-checked and apologised, "We have checked, ma'am. No service in your area."

Furious, Neighbour calls me up and asks for my address so that she can ring back First Media and rip them to shreds. I obliged, she did and still they insisted they didn't service our area. Boy, was Neighbour hopping about in fury.

Then we found out the truth. My unit was built a few years earlier than hers. When they built the section my unit is located in, First Media did indeed come and lay the cables for their service. When they built Neighbour's section, the compound asked First Media to do the same. I am not sure what happened here but First Media did not lay the cables for the newer part of the compound. The end result is that I sub to First Media while Neighbour, who lives two cars width away, can't.

Wow. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and deprived of Facebook and email. She called in another service called Speedy. She'd spotted one of their service vehicles in our area and took a chance dialling the number painted on the side of the van. By afternoon, she'd gotten her Net back. Speedy was speedy indeed.

She hasn't had any complaints about her Net since so if you'd like to check it out yourself, log on to the Speedy Internet site.

My first First Media bill and it's LATE!

Some time ago, I blogged about how frustrating it had been to get First Media's internet service up and running in my house. Today, I received our first bill from First Media.

It says right here on my bill that payment due date is 15 October. Erm... that's yesterday. And the fine print (in bold, no less) warned "Payment of your subscription fees should be settled by due date mentioned above, even without receiving a copy of this Billing Statement. Other than this Billing Statement, you are able to find information of your account at First Media website, click or please registered your email account."

AMBOI. Sooooooooooo eager to get your grubby hands on my money but take your own sweet time when it came to getting my Net right. How on earth am I supposed to make a payment when I don't know how much to pay? We only had things activated halfway through Sept, so what do I do? Pro-rate the full month bill by days, using the package charge as shown on the internet? Or pay the full rate regardless? Turns out both options are wrong, I don't know what formula they're using.

I would expect things to be explained in a billling statement, sent to me early enough so that I would have received it with ample time to make a payment. I couldn't even use auto-debit if I wanted to, that service is only available to Lippo Bank account holders and we don't have one. Same goes for Internet banking payment which is only available for very few banks. The best option seems to be paying at an ATM. No mention anywhere about how payment should be made regardless of non-appearance of the bill. All it says is that payment should be made before/on due date on bill received. Am I wrong to then expect them to send the bill on time?(Source: First Media website)

Obviously First Media expects us first-time customers to be so enamoured of their services that we're all rushing to pay what we think is the correct amount on what we think is the cut-off day. Maybe they expect me to call up eagerly to ask how much I should be paying. I've never had any service provider expect me to do that before. They're usually careful enough to send bills really early so that it's clearly MY fault if I don't pay them by the due date stated on the bills.

So really, First Media, you can fuck off. Cut off my services if you want. Now I know why my neighbours use other providers. Crappy customer service but oh so eager to get your hands on my money. They make TMNet back home look pretty efficient. Sigh.

My wireless modem won't talk to my cable modem

And that's why I've been quite quiet lately. I don't know who's at fault - my wireless modem or First Media. I've been losing my connection in the afternoons lately and judging from an irate complaint that appeared in Jakarta Post today, I'm not the only one.

Today's the first day that everything has been stable. *crosses fingers* Long may it continue.

I'm finally back online!!!

Whee! I've finally got Net access in the house! The compound we live in is wired for First Media which is a cable tv-cum-net provider, so we picked that. We've got something like 60+ channels on their cable tv package and some of the channels are really weird.

Tell you... took us a week to get this Net working. *sigh* Our cable tv has been up and running since last week during Visit 1 of the Clown Technicians. They told me then that something was wrong with my net registration and promptly disappeared with the modem, promising to return another day. Later, I got a call from their office asking for the modem serial number. I said I didn't have it as they'd taken it with them. The office was surprised as apparently, Clown Technicians were supposed to wait for further orders from office instead of taking off. And I'm supposed to know that???

Another group of Clown Technicians turned up 2 days later and the first thing they did was to ask me for power cables. I showed them what I had and they looked sadly at it. "Not long enough, ma'am. Got longer one?" I got pissed, "NO. Why don't you have any cables? You're the technician, not me. Why would I keep cables around for technicians???" I wasn't feeling too confident at this moment and my fears were realised when they came to me after about 1hr of fiddling with my PC and the transmission pole and said things weren't working. Again. Need to take modem back, ma'am. Need to check with office.

By this time, I was getting seriously annoyed. When phone calls to the South Jakarta rep went ignored, I blew my top. Imagine my fury when Dear Hubby's PA told me that he called her and said he was "too ashamed" to pick up my call as he couldn't promise me when things could be ready. Said PA was furious and had some rather choice words for him... good thing too because my command of Indon does not extend to nasty words.

I guess it worked because they turned up today right on time as promised and this pair of technicians they sent could actually get things up and running. So far, so good... everything's running pretty quickly.

What I learnt from this experience:
1. It's very hard to get things done quickly here. We moved into this house in early Aug and I'd been running around in circles trying to get Net set up. Today is Sept 19, so it took me 1 1/2 months to get this done.
2. Try and get a local to help you. Even though I speak Malay, I still faced a language barrier. Besides, I don't know how to scold effectively in Malay. :))
3. Keep calling and chasing them. Do not believe them when they say that they will get back to you because they won't. Be persistent and be nasty if you have to.

If you're interested in their services, check out www.firstmedia.com for details.