Telefonica - Gallegos Hijos de Putas!

You think Sprint, MCI or AT&T are bad, try working with the local telco in Buenos Aires - Telefonica - a Spanish company reveling in the tradition of the conquistadors, raping and pillaging the poor people of Latin America 600 years later.

To avoid a lengthy and angry diatribe, here's the details en breve. We're fortunate here in the third world to have decent broadband internet. Fibertel and Multicanal are the two top providers in BA, but unfortunately here on my street in San Telmo under the ancient cobblestones, there is no fiber optics, only traditional telco lines and Telefonica is the only carrier available. When I first moved in I had to wait a mere six weeks before I could even order broadband (ADSL, 512K at best) because the Telefonica employees were on strike, don't even remember why, probably some kind of wage dispute.

After returning from California a month ago, I learned that my internet had gone down and thus began the nightmare. Daily calls to Telefonica for tech support all ended the same - "OK, please hold the line, don't hang up and we'll be with you shortly..." sometimes holding up to 30 minutes per call and then 'beep, beep, beep, beep,' that dreaded disconnect busy signal. Some days I would call up to 10-15 times a day and the result was always the same, many times getting the busy signal right up front. Twice I did get through and filed a report - my service is not working, ok... we're working on it - and still nothing ever happened and I could never get through again to follow up on my service report.

Begrudingly, I decided a trip to Telefonica's HQ in Microcentro was in order. After waiting in a short line I was directed to a longer line and told, "wait in this line and then use telephone number 8 to report your complaint." No. I'm here to speak with customer service, not to call them on the phone... I can wait on hold at home. After a bit of complaining, the woman behind the desk pulled me out of line and told me that she would make the call for me. After another 20 minutes on hold, she said something to the woman on the other line and passed me the phone and told me to have a good day. I explained my case again, that I wanted to discontinue their terrible service and get my three months of payments for no service refunded. Unbelievably, she asked me to hold the line and then after another twenty minutes on hold, the line went dead. Unbelievable!

I asked after the woman who had made the call for me and was told she had gone to lunch but would be back in an hour. I was forced back into line and had to wait to use telephone number 8 - dialing the same toll free number that I had been dialing from home over the past month. The man next to me slammed down his phone and started yelling, chanting and clapping his hands in the middle of the office, trying to incite a protest right then and there. I had read in the paper about a similar indident the week before at the local power company - Edesur. Apparently a man had a similar bill dispute and got so incensed that he shot and killed to employees in the office.

Finally, another woman came on the line, took down the same information I'd already given three times now and asked me to come back in ten days for my refund, agreeing to shut off my non-working broadband. Unfortunately, they shut off my phone service too, all but crippling my outside communications. The wife of the man who was chanting came up to me hurridly after I had hung up my phone and told me, "Telefonica son hijos de putas Gallegos, no son Argentions, eh?" - 'Telefonica are Spanish son's of bitches, not Argentines', just to make sure I knew the difference.

- Thanks to the Universidad del Cine or FUC next door, I've got a semi-stable wireless connection coming thr0ugh the heavy brick wall , keeping me barely alongside the Internet super highway, now reduced to mere dirt tracks headed nowhere throught the vast and barren cyber-desert landscape.