The Dragon in TOT office

[candyman]

Dear oh dear something happened to me yesterday what made me ponder as to the simple logic and cultural differences and general all round stupidity .

way back in december 7th we canceled our tot ip star and managed to get a cheaper ADSL internet line connection ,however when the bill come for this month we was charged for BOTH service's "The ip star "and the "ADSL land line internet connection". My wife phoned TOT only to be conected to a very rude Thai woman saying "just pay just pay" Knowing full well we was no at fault we decided to have a trip to TOT office to show in black and white the bill was contradicting itself why should we pay for 2 service's
When we got to the TOT office we sat down with a office worker who was talking verble dribble and was trying to justify and defend the bill being correct and being very rude well it turns out she was the same woman my wife was on the phone to 2 days previous at this point we walked out i was fuming because the bill was clearly wrong it was in black and white clear as day . After gathering our thoughts we went back in to the office this time the bitter twisted woman was become irate "just pay just pay " Now at this point my blood began to boil due to the fact we have been in TOT office for well over and hour trying to point out a simple mistake that was so simple to see and amend ! I pointed to when date we canceled then lost my cool and yelled yelled "THAT IS THE PROBLEM !!! We want to see the manager . so off we go and explain to him "why should we pay for 2 service when we canceled TOT ip star way back in december 7th" while me wielding the receipt in the air to prove it . He looks at us and said yes this is wrong and amends the bill ...With this the dragon slams down the "amended " and says "just pay" with not a single apology or nothing . what a rude horrible thing she is i never ger irate and i go with the flow same as my mrs but this is 1 of the most rude people i have meet in my life even my wife is going to put a complain

after all this i was try to gather her reason and motive and come with a few idea's

1. it was her mistake on the bill and she will get into trouble hence her just wanting to pay for a clear mistake

2. she is so stupid she just thought she was correct

3. she likes people being over charged 1600bt and get a kick out of it

may i ask has any other farang out there had any problems with this lady or TOT

thai ladys in her 50,s chubby with short hair

[lepidoptra]

Candyman
This is typical of a state owned company in Thailand. It doesn't matter how rude or inefficient they are at the end of the day they will still retain their job. I have had similar experiences with the staff although not with the lady you describe. My 20 or so letters of complaint were ignored without any reply. The only way things will change is when private competition is introduced

[trubrit]

thai ladys in her 50,s chubby with short hair

I think in a land of slim , long haired young beauties. most women that fit your physical description would be rather misrable souls.

[polehawk]

Demanding to see the manager was the best thing that you could have done under the circumstances. Glad to hear that he was reasonable, checked into your situation and it came out in your favor.

Noticed that sometimes when you take this step the employees (not just TOT) will tell you that their managers are in a meeting or all went to lunch. Complete bollocks.

[arjay]

I think I would have asked the Manager what he thought about his staff member's response to you, and whether it was their policy to review individual staff performance/behaviour with them, or whether it would be better if you reported the situation to their Head Office, in Bangkok!!

[BKKSTAN]

I don't know the individual employee or you,but if it wasn't a reaction to a confrontational approach to her,the my guess would be that it was a classic Thai response of not admitting to a mistake!

In Nong Khai the front office staff are extremely friendly ,helpful and efficient.although I have seen the manager asleep in the chair a couple of times

Now the installation people from the desk to the outside workers,are friendly,but efficiency is questionable at best

[candyman]

Yes I felt it was her fault why the bill was wrong in the first place maybe her department to cancel accounts etc etc . We changed for IP star to ADSL land line way back in december 7th we had the paper work to prove it in black and white clear as day and she bent over backwards to try to make out the bill was correct is such a rude horrible manner .
You have been warned fellow people of udon map take care if you ever have to step into the dragon lair if you do let gob have mercy on your soul

[Khun Paul]

I recently had a problem with TOT and I find that starting by saying I have probelm with internet connections always leads me to the internet office upstairs where they are more helpful and polite and all that stuff.
There are times when i have watched the lady you mentioned in question and as far as I can gathjer Thais are equally if not more so obtuse and awkward or just plain stupid as many times I see both sides getting upset at what seems like a simple problem.
maybe the language does not help they talk around in circles until one side or the other gives way.
Politness is not their strog point, BUT upstairs I find nothing but help

[candyman]

the woman in question works in the down stairs office towards the end of the room left hand side about 50 years old and chubby sort curly hair ladies and gentlemen you have been warned

[wazza]

At the bank i had an issue with recently, i asked for the manager as i think i got the Dragons cousin at customer service, reply was " he was at lunch " at 1400 hrs,

No problem, i will sit here , occupying one of your customer service desks and wait for him to return.

I even suggested they ring him to advise that a customer was waiting for him.

45 mins later and 12 songs on the IPOD, he arrives, sees me, not having a briefing from the other staff, agrees with my situation and took my documents from me, approved the signature on them and sent them to BKK for processing.

The other bank staff member said i had to drive to Khon Kaen to get them to approve the signature as that is where the account was opened.

TIT

[keg]

I had issues with the same lady when I transferred my IPSTAR account from Loei to Udon and again when transferring from Udon to Nong Khai. Her only answer was "can not" to all the issues even though she was completly wrong. As mentioned, the guys upstairs are a bit more reasonable and several of them speak english fairly well.

The service from the Loei office in Wang Supan was efficient and professional as was the Nong Khai office. The lady in the Nong Khai office even dealt with the transfer issue for us after we told here what the dragon lady told us, "can not". We had transferred our account previously from Loei to Udon, after talking it over with the main office in Bangkok. The dragon lady knew this as we had dealt with her the first time and had to go upstairs to get it sorted, but still went back to the "can not" response for the transfer to Nong Khai. She wanted us to pay the 3 months charge for breaking the contract.

Luckily the lady from Nong Khai sorted it our for us this time. We have now been rescued and TT&T has put an ADSL box on our street and March with be the end of our dealings with TOT.

I found myself asking the same question, why would this lady act like this when it was obvious she was wrong, at least to me it was. My first thought was to rip us off for the 7000 baht or so but now I think it is just because she can and suffers no repercussions.

Have been with TT&T now for a week and have not had any issues yet and they have been both professional and helpful. This is in Nong Khai now and even though the Nong Khai TOT office has been trouble free to deal with the Udon dragon lady has soured me on TOT for life.

Keg

[candyman]

Thanks for your post keg yes and I feel the same and I do wonder to myself how she would like to pay 1600bt to her utility bills that are clearly wrong i can't state enough how clear the mistake was and the extent of the verble diarrhea she was talking.
Sometimes I do wonder if it is a personal thing towards us farang because there would be no other explanation of why she was trying to over charge us.

[nola-udon]

After 4 years of suffering almost daily outages of varying lengths of time, some for days on end, from the ADSL "service" TOT offers, about 2 months ago Santa Claus came to my area in the name of TT&T. I found out there is someone here in Udon that can offer conductivity and decent transfer rate speeds. Hopefully, I will be as high on them 4 years down the pipe as I am now....NOLA