Unfiltered Story #261928

My parents have reconciled after a six-year divorce and have been mostly living together for about two years, but my dad still has his own apartment. One week before a 2-week holiday overseas, my dad calls the Internet service provider to cancel his Internet plan at his apartment as he hardly uses it. For reasons completely unknown and unfathomable to us, the ISP cancels my *mum’s* plan instead, at her address. My dad hasn’t been a co-owner of that account for *years* (at least, so we thought), so we really don’t understand how this could have possibly happened. All we know is that by the next day (let’s call it ‘Day One’), we have no Internet, and when my mum calls to find out why, they tell her *we* asked for it to be disconnected. My mum insists we did not, and that they have made a mistake. They ultimately concede it was their fault, and promise that the internet will be reconnected “by tomorrow”. So we wait.

Day Two: Still no internet. My mum calls again. She is told that as it’s Friday, they won’t be able to guarantee any internet until Monday. For the inconvenience, they promise that they will give her a discount on her next bill, that will basically amount to a week’s worth of free Internet.

Day Five: It’s Monday. There is still no internet. My mum calls again, and is considerably less patient than last time. She is told to wait and is promised the internet will be turned on “in a couple of hours”.

Two Hours Later: Still no internet. Mum calls, *again*. The assistant she speaks to decides a tech needs to be sent out to examine the modem/router and figure out why there’s no internet. My mum loses her patience and all but yells at the assistant, pointing out that there’s nothing wrong with the modem, because the internet worked just fine before it was disconnected for no reason. The problem is on their end, not ours. She gets nowhere with the assistant.

Day Six: The tech, who we will soon find out is an utter legend, arrives at our house. We’ll call him Bob. Bob dutifully checks the router/modem setup and is confused because there is nothing wrong with it (who would have guessed?) and doesn’t understand why he was sent out. We explain the problems we’ve been having, and Bob the Legend whips out his phone and literally calls customer service right then and there. Nobody was prepared for this; we all end up gaping in silent awe as the Legendary Bob rips customer service a new one for sending him out to fix a problem he couldn’t fix, for making false promises and giving their customers the run-around for almost a week. He lectures them for their incompetence, for making the entire company look bad. It is all we can do not to hug Bob. Bob eventually leaves, and we are given renewed hope that maybe this was the kick in the backside that the service provider needed.

Day Seven: We had hoped in vain. We give Bob a call (the Legend actually gave us his number) and ask if there was anything he can do or any advice he can give us. He promises he will go higher up and speak to his manager for us, but as he works in the Repairs department, he warns us that it may not do the trick. Even if his efforts come to naught, we have nothing but total admiration for Bob, our faithful hero.

Day Eight: It is the day of our trip. We leave for the airport in the early morning, thinking that the internet and our one free week will probably finally kick in while we’re away.

Well wouldn’t you know dear readers, it is now Day Twenty – we have just arrived back home from our overseas trip. Would you believe it? We *finally*… still have no internet. My mum has bought one of those USB modem-thingies out of desperation; she can’t do her work without internet. At this point, we’re not sure whether to laugh or scream, but to you folks I shall pose the ultimate question: will this story get posted to NAW before our internet is finally re-connected?

Who wants to bet?