Another telecommunications related tale rounds off my current trilogy of customer service mishaps. I really do hope this is the last one I experience as I have been on a run of really bad luck lately. However, I suspect a long, hot and sunny UK summer without rain is more likely. Oh hold on a mnute, the UK summer has appeared!

Bucharest visitors will all have noted the ugly reels of communications cables hanging on every street light and telegraph pole. Romania is a very switched on and well connected country in terms of internet speed and availability but I live in the wireless internet enclave called Pipera. Specifically, at the end of the Aurel Vlaicu airport runway in an area ruled by the widely reported wild dogs and awash with implant recipients, i.e. Romania’s very own silicone valley.

Fast broadband internet connection cables can be seen from my office but they are not coming any closer than 100m away very soon. This is why I rely on wireless broadband - if that is not a contradiction in terms as it is relatively slow. Returning from an S&OP project in Jeddah, KSA I found I could not access the net at any speed. Had I paid the last invoice? Yes, the direct debit had gone out on time as usual so that was not the cause.

Only one course of action left was to call company X customer service department. After getting through the robotic multiple choices with a string of punched-in binary code I finally reached someone who breathed and spoke excellent English. So far so good; this should be sorted out in no time at all.

CS Agent: “The service you had is no longer available

DJ: “ But my contract runs until October. Why is it no longer available?”

CS Agent: “The government withdrew the licence.”

DJ: “Ok, I guess there is nothing we can do about that but as I use the connection for my business it would have been good to know in advance so I could make alternative arrangements.”

CS Agent: “But we did tell you…..”

With walking into a room and not knowing why becoming more frequent in my life, I scanned my human memory for a letter, an email or even a phone call but no, I had no recollection of such notification.

CS Agent: “We sent you an SMS to the internet modem 10 days ago.”

DJ; “You mean you sent a message to the modem that I have not used for 2 weeks and now does not work?”

CS Agent: “Yes!”

There was no point in continuing the discussion. Why was there no effort to contact me to at least look at alternative possibilities? This company simply lost the government licence and that was that as far as they were concerned; customer service was not in the equation.

I decided to switch providers and did so rapidly and it delighted me in cancelling the contract for my second internet device from the same service-poor company.

SC Agent: “Oh no, you cannot do that as your contract is live until October and you have to honour this.”

DJ: “Do unto others as they do unto you.”