Bye-bye Digi

Went to Celcom to initiate my porting process. It was fast, in 10 minutes, everything is done. Now I just need to wait for Celcom to tell me when can I put in their SIM.

Digi called in the evening, told me that they will ensure smooth porting, for this, I appreciate even with all the odds with them.

But wait, they told me that I will need to pay my bill for 17 Jan 2011 to 16 Feb 2011 and any usage after 16 Feb.

They said they have tried very hard to get their various depts to release me since I am having 2 year contract. They said their got their other depts to agree on the waiver of RM400 early termination penalty.

And I told them:

The early penalty cannot apply to me since DIGI denied my access to their network without me defaulting payment or broke their rules. It is a very clear that DIGI was trying to either force me out of their network or forcing me to accept their proposal of SIM replacement without providing plan B that I have insisted.

It is obvious that DiGi seems to boot me out than having my SIM replaced as I have never receive any SIM replacement posted via Pos Malaysia's ordinary mail on 1st Feb 2011 morning as they claimed. Since it was posted via ordinary mail, there's no record on the hand of the forwarder hence it is as good as not done.

By deducing the above facts, I came to a conclusion that DiGi has unlawfully terminated service rendered. In such circumstances, I should not be held liable for the early termination penalty, since it is not originated by my end nor I agreed that the service to be withdrawn.

In such situation, there should be no early termination penalty on me, and DiGi shall compensate for their wrongdoing instead.

Thus, if the penalty does not exist, how can DiGi put in such that the waiver is out of their generosity?

Then come the call charges. My line was unlawfully denied access, after many strong protests telling DiGi that i have no other avenue but to get out of DiGi, and demanded the line be back to normal until the porting out is successful. DIGi then reactivate my line and the process kicked off. This means that from 1 Feb 2011 I have been booted out from DiGi and waiting for them to complete whatever necessary to port me out. My usage is regular as I called those who missed call me, plus my normally low SMS and outgoing calls.

I lost patience during the overdue long time for them to settle everything and I have decided that I should not be liable for their delay, the responsibilty lies on DiGi and not me.

I agreed to pay pro rated fees from 17 Jan 2011 to 1 Feb 2011 evening when the line was cut. Any charges after this period is solely DiGi's responsibilty as I was waiting for them to do what needs to be done.

Instead of asking for a Chinese New Year back, this is too insignificant financially as way to compensate for time and patience lost. I think I am fair to them and they still wanted me to pay is kind of insane to me.

Even if I am forced to pay to have a clean record, I told them I will pay with protest.

It is not the amount of money to be paid, what is RM44 vs RM88, a RM44 savings? It is not even enough for my cats and dogs for a day! I am doing this because I strongly feel that the rights of consumers should be protected, even if it is just a symbolic victory. Service providers cannot have the impression that they are big thus they can bully customer like us first with technical jargon that ordinally people can never understand but to accept their claim (the argument of iPhone being inferior than nokia, which I have prove them wrong).

Nor they can twisted their words in their favor like they waived the early termination penalty which does not even exist legally.

Finally they should be at least jointly responsible for their inability to render services as stipulated or at a acceptable service level, instead of first telling their customer that the customer made a bad choice buying iPhone (sold by them, with no indication in any material nor verbal advise that iPhone is inferior compare to nokia before one signs up, this is against the Trade Description Act where the vendor mislead consumer into believing that their product is usable but later claimed not when problem arised).

DiGi would have done it better in this case and would not be tangling into the mess should they first admit that there may be problem at their end and work towards solving instead of pointing finger to everyone else.

Probably I am one of the lucky one with this result this far. If I choose to keep quiet, I will have to suffer for the rest of 2 years.

So this is worth the effort, and I strongly believe that the big guys are more afraid of you if they know mistake is from them and not you.

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