ADSL from Deutsche Telekom

So just now, as I was writing up the advent calendar a door-to-door salesman came asking whether I might want to purchase lovely phone and internet connectivity from Telekom.

Now I need to vent.

I was a Telekom customer for years. Not very happy, but also not unhappy and changes seemed risky. So when I needed more bandwidth, early in July 2009, I ordered an upgrade. Faster DSL, no other changes. Telekom really wanted to sell me more, though, and sent me an order confirmation for a different product (Entertain, which is VDSL and TV). I politely demurred, in writing. Telekom sent me a new order confirmation, changed, but not any more correct. I politely demurred, in writing. Telekom sent me some TV hardware, which I returned. Telekom sent me a new order confirmation, changed, but not any more correct. I politely demurred, in writing.

Eventually Telekom's specifed switchover date came, that was in the first week of August 2009, and on that day my internet connection broke. Telekom's fault. They had set the ACLs so my old password didn't work and I had no new, and the only way to fix it was to send the case to a special team somewhere which alone had permission to make the required changes. There might be a processing delay, I was informed.

By the end of August I had ordered a 3G connection and was using that. I also ordered DSL+ISDN from Vodafone, but Telekom was blocking its installation.

Towards the end of September, someone from Telekom phoned to ask whether I was happy with my fine new Telekom (V?)DSL connection; I politely and briefly told her what had happened, and the Telekom person actually grasped the situation and got it resolved. She even accepted without argument that I did not want to be a Telekom customer, even though I had started by ordering an upgrade. About a week after that, three months to a day after ordering the upgrade, I had working DSL from Vodafone.

Naturally Telekom billed me for all this.