Here is a rundown of all the Ongoing problems with Cableonda I’ve had since I started with them back in 2011
And YES, the problems are still ongoing.
I’ve lost about 15-20 dollars in cell phone charges just trying to get them on the phone. Then add all the hours I’ve had to deal with them coming to my house, all the hours going to their locations in Multi Plaza & Albrook, if I were to bill them, my invoice would be close to $500.
You can decide what their service & customer service is like on your own:
- While they give you the option to press “1” to speak to someone in English, the hold time can be upto 45 minutes.
- Once you get someone on the phone, their comprehension can be limited at best.
- When I rented a room back when I first got here, the woman who I rented from HATED Cableonda. She switched to another company & that company was bought out by Cableonda & so she was right back to square one.Since she was computer illiterate & had to provide me with proper Internet, she had to once again deal with Cableonda. They told her that the reason there was no or slow Internet, was because I was in the apartment now & working on my computer LOLIf you are computer illiterate, that statement right there shows you how completely ignorant the people working at Cableonda are.This is why I was very nervous when I found out that the Internet in this complex in Arraijan is provided by Cableonda. My worries were proven correct unfortunately.
- Unlike Cable & Wireless, the techies that come to the house aren’t as smart, in my opinion, although I don’t think C&W’s are that much smarter. I say this because I had problems with Cable & Wireless too, but they at least changed the modem when they were here (3 times).With Cableonda I had to DEMAND they change the modem after they tried to convince me that waiting 11 minutes for a modem to reboot after it’s unplugged it totally normal. LOLI called the modem’s manufacturer (Motorola) & the guy said no way is that normal. A minute or less.
- Every time there’s rain or a storm, it affects the Internet & modem.
- I later on find out that many many people in this complex have had problems with Cableonda, it’s not just me. Unfortunately Panamanians are known for NOT complaining, so nothing is ever solved, & the companies get away with treating their customers like garbage or with indifference.
- Marie (a homeless woman I was helping at the time) went to Multi Plaza to tell them that the techie just left & because it started raining, the Internet is no longer working.I was furious because everything was working fine when he left.2 things happened:
a) the girl handling the case REFUSED to call my cell, so Marie had to pay for the call to me. Actually since I was paying for her phone, I had to pay for the call.
b) I said go ask to speak to a manager, so the girl leaves, then comes back & LIES to Marie telling her the technician will come out by 6:30 pm.6:30 pm rolls around & NOTHING.
More money is wasted on the cell calling Cableonda only to find out that they NEVER send out technicians same day, it’s always 72 hours later & nothing had been booked.
I was distraught. I couldn’t work, couldn’t talk on my US phone line, NOTHING.
- The following Monday I go into the Cableonda office at Albrook & that turned into a nightmare.a) I guess when Marie was talking to them 2 days earlier, they decided to book an appointment for me on Tuesday without even telling me.I guess they think everyone sits at home doing NOTHING but waiting around for the royal highness Cableonda.
b) I said I can’t make it tomorrow, I’m BUSY. I ask for the phone number to the office of the president & Marie is translating in her weak Spanish.
This turns into a total power struggle with the Cableonda girl refusing to give us this information repeating like a broken record… “you can’t make a complaint until the technician comes out.” OVER & OVER & OVER again.
LMAO, ummm, I can complain WHENEVER I WANT. Not when YOU tell me to complain.
c) After this went on for almost an hour & it was clear they had been trying to get rid of us the entire time, that girl sat down next to another girl who must have been a friend & started laughing at us. Then another guy comes out to handle the situation & he FINALLY tells us where the head office is.
It’s on Doce de Octobre & any taxi driver should know where it is. It’s up the street behind the El Rey. That’s where the back of it is where the parking lot & security guard is.
- Tuesday rolls around & the technician comes to fix the Interent, but of course it NEVER really gets fixed.
- I end up going into the head office & after the receptionist looks at me like I’m crazy (it’s either because I only speak English or because HOW DARE a customer bother them at their head office), I sit & wait.After 15 minutes roll around, I go & say I’m still waiting.Within 5 minutes 2 people come down & one speaks English. Her name is Brenda Marshall.
While she listens to what I have to say, never once does she apologize to me although it’s clear she feels uncomfortable.
I’ve come to learn apologies are almost non existent in Panama.
She eventually explains what I said to the other woman & they want to book the appointment for that day.
I’m like, HELLO, how can they come today, I’m here in Panama City. Fine, they book the appointment for the following day. So much for their 72 hour policy.
And by the way, Cable & Wireless will come out the next day. None of this 72 hour BS.
I ask Brenda how I’m going to get in touch with her & she gives me the phone number to the building, & then tells me to press “0” & ask to speak to her.
- The technician comes out, again, DOESN’T replace the modem, is a complete moron, doesn’t even try to figure out what I’m saying (the smart ones always try to work with my limited Spanish) & when I test the speeds they aren’t what I’m paying for so I show him.He then gets someone on the phone who speaks English & they tell me to call Cableonda. I’m like NO, you call them, YOU are supposed to be Cableonda (they are a contracted company).The guy ends up walking out of the house without dealing with the issue.
I guess a signature isn’t required on the paperwork & in typical Panamanian fashion, when they don’t like something, they just walk away.
- I have spotty Internet for days & I tried to call Brenda Marshall & this now turns into ANOTHER incident.The receptionist who is clearly a child, instead of transferring me to Brenda transfers me to the tech support line.I call back & she does it again.
I call back & she doesn’t even pick up the phone now, she just keeps transferring me to tech support.
This went on FIVE times (I kid you NOT) before I gave up. Can you believe this??? I’ve dealt with many rude & childish people from numerous companies all over the States & Canada, but this just wins the awards here.
I even tried to ask for a manager once, but because she wouldn’t come on the line, I couldn’t even speak to her.
- I call tech support & ask them to transfer me to Brenda – NOPE, they say they can give her a message which I knew would be useless & of course, I never hear from Brenda.
- I find out over the weekend that my IP address is on the BLACKLIST & I’m furious. This means e-mails I’m sending could potentially be blocked.
- Then on Sunday night there’s a long rainfall & I have NO electricity & then even once the electricity comes back on, no Internet all night & into the next day. Again I can’t run my business, make calls, get ready for a trip I have to plan, NOTHING!!!I use my cell phone to call Cableonda 3 times & waste $9.I start screaming at one point I’m sooo frustrated. I’m also told I’m the ONLY one who has a problem in the area.
Then I’m told (get a load of this one)… that the next AVAILABLE appointment is NEXT Monday. Can you BELIEVE that???
I have to make a quick decision that I HAVE to go back into Panama City to Cableonda’s head office. My entire day is ruined because of this.
I arrive at the head office & ask for Brenda.
This time someone comes down more quickly, but it’s not Brenda. It’s another guy. He says she’s not in for the day. Pedro is his name & he’s a supervisor.
I read off my list to him & he listens, but again, no apology.
He arranges for tech support for the following day at 1 pm
Now I get HIS cell phone number & his e-mail address.
When I get home that night, I have Internet. WOW, fancy that. It’s NOT the modem after all.
- The next day I wait around for the technician & NO ONE shows up. I e-mail Pedro & call his cell & get nowhere. Then I call Brenda because that guy gave me her direct line.She says they canceled the appointment, BUT they didn’t bother to tell me.LOVELY. I make sure I’m here & they leave me high & dry.
Then get a load of this… Brenda tells me that Cableonda didn’t put me on any blacklist.
Now I know Brenda isn’t a techie, she’s just an administrator of some kind, but I’m SURE they must have spoken to technicians, & these COMPLETE MORONS don’t even know what a blacklist is???? Can you believe that????
I tell her NO, that’s not what that means. Go back & find out what it means, didn’t you guys look at the URL I sent you??? My gawd, they have the IQ of a 2 year old.
How in the world can they run an ISP & NOT know what a blacklist is????
- I never hear back from Brenda & I start to again have SLOW speeds where I can’t even watch a video, can’t talk on my phone, etc.I try to call her & there’s no answer. I e-mail Pedro asking him what is going on with the blacklist issue & telling him I have slow speeds again.So he hasn’t responded to 2 of my e-mails now & he doesn’t pick up his cell even though I saw him using it constantly when I saw him.
HE is clearly avoiding me.
Nothing & it’s now Friday.
Next week I’m off to do my visa run, so I can’t deal with this nightmare, but when I get back I tell you. I’m really going to start raising my voice.
Still having problems with Cableonda. Thought I was going to get service after talking several times with a Panamanian who lived in the US for many years & recently moved back, but now he’s not responding to my e-mails or phone messages.
Turns out the staff doesn’t give him the phone messages, but he should have received my 2 e-mails.
I still have terrible service (phone is choppy & sometimes listening to a streaming music file online is choppy) & they were supposed to come replace the modem (I told you they hate doing that), but they haven’t shown up twice now.
Just nuts, I’ve been trying to get this fixed now for over 2 weeks.
Michelle
I had someone else call Cableonda because she doesn’t get furious when 1-5 hours of her time has been wasted (she doesn’t work or do anything).
We tried to get through on the Spanish tech support of Cableonda, but they ended up transferring her right back to the English tech support & we got Stanley again. Stanley is supposedly the best Moises has to work with, yet I believe he hasn’t been giving Moises Montero my phone messages. I spoke to Stanley twice yesterday (once he transferred me to some automated sales pitch from Cableonda that never went anywhere.
He tried to lie his way out of getting off the phone with my friend, but I wouldn’t allow it. We are on hold now. I am waiting to see how long Stanley is going to play this game. We will keep calling back until we get him.
I love it when expats make this seem like it’s acceptable behavior saying “this is just the way they are, if you don’t like it, LEAVE.”
I for one respect myself & my time. I guess if a person is a liar by nature & they are retired & have nothing to do with their time then sure, they can afford to spend every day calling up Cableonda & dealing with immature lying staff, but I work for a living & my time is precious to me.
I’ll continue to post the lies told to me by Cableonda staff.
Michelle
My friend has been asking to speak to Moises Montero about 15 times now. She says the same thing over & over again, gives my name over & over again & they WON’T let her through to this manager I’ve spoken to 3 times now via the phone.
Now she’s speaking to Andres Franco. Unbelievable, it’s like I’m listening to a broken record. She keeps repeating the same thing OVER & OVER & OVER AGAIN.
They are such morons it’s really had to stomach.
Now when she asked to speak to another manager, he hung up the phone on her.
Michelle
She’s talked to 2 more people from Cableonda, & they have all hung up the phone on her.
E-mailed Moises Montero again, again no response back.
Now Enrique is telling us that he just spoke to Moises & Moises said to give him the number & he will call us back. I said we’ve been told that before (all lies) & we’ll just hold.
He kept with the ring around the rosy BS & refused to let us speak to Moises. He told him he’d have him call us & of course no one called.
Then 2 hours later we called again & spoke to Alfred. He put us on hold & then hung up on us.
And just to be clear, I wasn’t the one calling, so there was no raising of any voice, no demanding, nothing. Marie can be very sweet when she wants to.
Michelle
Called again, was put on hold again, hung up on again.
So I trekked on over to the head office of Cableonda & spoke to the woman I had contact with in the head office before.
Even though I’ve had contact with her for months now, she never returns e-mails (claims she doesn’t get them) nor does she answer her phone even though it’s a direct line. She claims she’s always walking around the office.
I told her that I had been trying to get in touch with Moises for about 4-5 days now. She left & came back with Moises.
He sort of apologized & told me that he had been in meetings the entire day the day before, & he got my message, NOT from the English speaking department, but from the Spanish speaking department. When I asked him if Stanley had given him my messages, he said no.
He said he didn’t get my e-mails, but then I found out he never really checks them consistently as he gets around 200+ per day. I get that many & I’m only one person & I handle them.
Anyway, he then gives me his private cell phone number which calmed me down & I think this is going to solve ALL my problems.
I told him I’m moving next week on Tuesday or Wednesday & for him to set it up. That there was no point in someone coming to switch the modem out since I was going to be moving & getting a new modem anyway.
When I told him they never changed the modem when they came, they just added on more of those stupid filter things that don’t work (there was 2 on there now), he was shocked, but no one had come since then.
I had terrible speeds for about 3-4 days in a row. I felt like I was back on dialup. He said he would put in another ticket to get me a credit.
On Monday I called over & over again asking him when they were coming on Tuesday. He said he was still working on getting me a date. I trusted him.
So I move, & on Tuesday after I arrived at my new house, I called him over & over again only to find out that he NEVER GOT ME A DATE. He’s now telling me that the date is for the 13th which would be 13 days away.
I’m like NO WAY, I have to work!
That’s when I asked him to have Brenda Marshall call me. I knew when I hung up he wasn’t going to do that & after waiting an hour & not hearing from her, I called him over & over again & he either ignored my calls or
rejected them. WHAT AN ASSHOLE! I had already determined that any quality worker isn’t going to work for a company like Cableonda, because how could a quality worker put up with all the problems & customer complaints. It would make me very ashamed if I worked there. I’d have to quit because it would make me look bad even if it wasn’t my fault.
The following day I was very sick with a migraine, so I couldn’t do anything.
On Thursday Marie went to the Cableonda in Arraijan, & they refused to call Brenda for us. They also refused to call Moises. Their names are… Katia Gonzalez & the supervisor Graciela Batista.
Not that it matters, no matter what any staff here does, they never get retrained, reprimanded or fired. Any time I tell someone that they acted in a terrible manner, no one ever asks me who the names of the people are. These companies welcome incompetent workers & people who treat customers like garbage.
So, I had to rush into Panama City to see Brenda. When I finally got her, she couldn’t even look me in the eye, but she did get me service for Saturday. Then she tries to tell me she doesn’t handle customer service or tech support as if I didn’t already know that (she’s in the admin department, but she speaks English, so they gave her to me). Basically she’s telling me she doesn’t want to help me anymore, that’s what customer service & tech support is for. I told her when I can’t get proper service when calling & people ignore my calls, don’t get me a manger, lie about giving supervisors messages, etc. what am I supposed to do? She had no answer for me.
So I tried to get Internet with another company called Wipet & spoke to a lovely guy called Franklin. Perfect English & it’s clear to me they really care about their customers. He said Cabelonda has nothing but problems & their 2 MB wireless is equivalent to Cableonda’s 3 MB that I have, maybe even better.
Unfortunately, after we set up the appointment, he called me back saying they can’t give me service because it doesn’t work with VOIP telephones which is what I have. I was very disappointed.
So today the guys show up & because Cableonda has no clue what they are doing. Every time I get set up in a new house, it takes over an hour to do.
The hooking up of the modem is quick, but waiting for the lights to click in & get access takes an hour. Normally that should take 2-3 minutes once the person turns it on at their junction area, with Cableonda it takes an hour, sometimes longer. They had the modem cycling 3 different times, can you believe that?
I wouldn’t let the techis have my office chair. Not like the last time where they left me, the customer, standing while they lounged around in my chair playing on their cell phones while I stood there for an hour waiting in my OWN office. I’ve NEVER had someone from my ISP in Canada do that – take over my office. It’s happened to me 3 times here in Panama.
They are sooooo stupid, they wanted me to open IE & test the browser even though there was no connection through the modem. I said NO, there’s no service, why bother. DAHHHH.
I just took over typing out this blog post. Then when I had Marie unplug the modem from the power bar & put it into the UPS, they freaked out. I wasn’t going to take any more chances with it breaking down because of electrical issues.
This is the type of people in Panama who come to give you Internet, complete & utter morons.
Oh & now that I have service, once again my IP address is on the Baracuda list. This is the 3rd time already that Cableonda hasn’t done their job by protecting me from this BS. I have to write to my hosting company again to get it solved because I know it won’t bet solved with Cableonda, or if it does, it will take weeks & in the meantime people aren’t getting my e-mails.
The last time my hosting company got me removed in one day, Moises said it would take 7-10 days & he wouldn’t do a thing about fixing the problem.
Amazing.
Michelle
The terrible nightmare continues with Cableonda.
Once again I wasted over $10-15 plus all day going into their head office. Brenda Marshall was very nice & just couldn’t believe what was happening.
She got me an appointment for the following day so I was relieved. It’s now the following day. I’ve wasted more money calling tech support from my cell & while Rafael was the ONLY professional person who tried to help me, they never showed up.
The first moron (I can’t even tell you what his name is because he just rambles it off in Spanish & barely speaks English) told me they weren’t coming until after 10 am.
Then when I got Rafael, he told me the appointment was set between 8 am -12 noon.
At 12:30 pm I called, Rafael told me he’s speaking to his supervisor & they are speaking to dispatch & they are late, but they don’t know what time they are coming. I figured okay, they will be an hour late.
I called back a 4th time, but fuckup with no name answered & REFUSED to let me speak to Rafael telling me he’s busy. Yes, he knows this without even looking.
I then proceeded to call back 4 times & I think the guy blocked my number because no one picked up, the “you have been transferred to a support agent” mantra was repeated once & then dead silence each & every time.
Rafael seems to be the ONLY intelligent one there who understands & speaks clear English.
I had to wake up Marie & send her ALL the way into the city costing me money again.
Then I FINALLY reached Brenda at 3:50 pm. She said tech support is on their way, they had to fit me in, but that’s NOT what they said when I called tech support this morning & not once had anyone called me which is normally how they do things. Once again, 3 different stories, DRAMA IN PANAMA!!!
The fact that I just lost ANOTHER 3 working DAYS has me stressed to no end.
So would you like to know what happened?
Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway LOL
I knew sometime on Monday night after stressing because I had no Internet what they had done & I was right.
The entire time they could have FIXED this problem had they had any brains & just looked at the account or whatever they needed to look at.
My landlord canceled their Cableonda account on Saturday or Sunday I’m assuming after I told them a second time that I wasn’t going to take over their account, I was going to get my own account.
When idiots over at Cableonda cancelled their account, they ALSO cancelled my account.
It took the techie climbing up this huge ladder & checking out the wires & realizing there was no service to call & confirm what had been done. So they lost me 3 days of work, stressed me out to no end, I lost money & time twice having to go down to their head office, lost money calling from my cell, wasted Brenda Marshall’s time, wasted their techie’s time & the list goes on.
Do they care? Not on your life.
The drama continues with Cableonda…
So it turns out they didn’t spell my e-mail address correctly, & this is WHY I’ve never received an invoice from them even though I’ve been with them for 7 months. Even though I told them I don’t get invoices, they never ONCE asked me to confirm my e-mail address. Again, they aren’t smart, so this is beyond their comprehension to even ask.
The only reason I found out is because when I went to deal with my bill since they disconnected my service with no warning, I saw the incorrect e-mail address.
They also tried to charge me an installation fee when they NEVER told me this before. Again with trying to rip me off. Thank gawd the girls at The Westland Mall were nice & took it off for me.
Fine, then I found out they were trying to say I owed like $60, which made no sense to me. Brenda Marshal was supposed to give me a big credit because of all that happened above, but of course she ignored my 2 e-mails when I wrote to her. I take it back that she’s the best one at the company, she’s no better than anyone else there.
Anyway, they wrote her an e-mail telling her to call me & of course she never did.
Marie went over to Calbelonda’s head office, & they told her that Brenda is on vacation for 2 weeks. LOVELY.
Marie went to the Cableonda Multi Plaza location. I remember them now, they are the biggest assholes over there. Anyway, they refused to give me the credit, they lied & said they couldn’t give me a credit. Since I got a credit from the location in Arraijan back when I had major problems back in September, I know this is a lie.
They told Marie I have until the 15th to make a payment otherwise they are shutting me off again.
Marie asked them to print out ALL my invoices, but they could only print from December onward.
They told Marie to ignore all the excessive charges (yeh right) & they were UNABLE to explain the bills.
They are good for NOTHING.
So now I have to pay money I shouldn’t have to pay just to keep my account open because Brenda isn’t around to explain the bills to me & AGAIN I have to waste my time & money going over to the head office just to get someone with a brain to explain the bills to me.
Oh & when the techie guy came last week to check my speeds & ping, NOTHING WAS FIXED.
Basically he & Cableonda blamed my router saying all the speeds are fine.
LOL, yeh right. These speeds & the TOO HIGH ping are the worst I’ve had in all the locations I’ve been in.
They DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!!!
Lastly, I can’t access a website I was able to access before, looks like the IP is blocking it, so I can’t do my work. I called tech support, was told I would be called back within 24 hours, it’s past 24 hours & no call.
I’m literally going INSANE!!!
So it’s now Wedns. & of course Cableonda hasn’t called me & I STILL can’t get onto that site.
So I called up being very calm & 4 times my line was disconnected & I had to call them back.
I was speaking to David & of course David doesn’t feel the need to apologize because who cares if the customer is hung up on & has to waste money calling back continuously. Remember, it’s NOT their problem, it’s mine.
He put me on hold & after 17 minutes I finally hung up.
Now I’ve tried to call back 6 times & after pressing “1” for English, I get dead air.
I tried to talk to someone in the Spanish area & they just hung up on me.
The abuse continues with Cableonda.
So after an hour I FINALLY got David back on the phone & he was clueless as to the phone issues & ignored me when I told him I couldn’t get through.
He didn’t even have a reason for why he disappeared when he put me on hold. It’s like he totally forgot (again, they have no brain cells upstairs).
While he was nice in the end he said they can’t figure out why that site is being blocked so they need ANOTHER 24 hours even though it’s been 72 & will be 4 days as of tomorrow.
I am pretty sure the technicians don’t even know what a PING is because that’s the 2nd part of my ticket.
We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
So now that I have to actually deal with tech support beyond getting them to open a ticket, it’s even more stressful dealing with them.
1. First I spoke to Stanley, & I’ve experienced this same problem before with others. When they state the instructions, they RUSH through them so fast I can’t even comprehend what they are saying let alone keep up, & I have a very fast brain when it’s working properly, so that’s saying a lot.
Again, it takes common sense to know that you can’t speak a mile a minute when giving instructions to a customer.
2. When Stanley gave me the run instructions & I couldn’t find the RUN on my Windows 7 laptop as I normally never use this laptop for testing, instead of him searching on how to solve the problem for me, he gave up & just kept repeating the instructions as if I hadn’t already heard him the first 2 times.
He couldn’t even keep up with what I was saying, he was constantly several minutes behind what I was saying even when I spoke so slowly it was like talking to a mentally challenged person.
For a race of people who are supposed to have such PATIENCE, Stanley seems to be a very impatient person.
Montero (that supervisor) had already told his manager that none of the workers at Cableonda who answer the “English” line understand or speak English properly, but Cableonda refuses to hire or train the staff properly.
So I had to do Stanley’s job for him & go search online to find out why my RUN command wasn’t showing up on my laptop. I fixed the problem.
It took almost 5 minutes to get the right information from Stanley on how to do a tracer router. I’ve done them before, but since it’s rare I do them, I forgot how to do it. He would rush through the spelling & he would first say there was no space, then there was a space. I asked if there’s a “t” at the end as that’s what I heard when he first spelled it out, he told me no & in the end there was.
Again, it’s like talking to a moronic child. And again, this has NOTHING to do with customer service, this has to do with the extremely poor level of intellect & how companies are run in Panama. They do NOT train their staff, or if they do, they either can’t learn or the training is that poor.
While I was waiting for the trace to run its course, Stanley was impatient, not even getting that I was running the bloody thing.
Once I sent that to the e-mail address he gave me, I asked about the second part of my ticket which has to do with the VERY high level pings that haven’t been fixed since I got to this house.
It was supposed to be included in the ticket I submitted on Sunday (it’s now Thursday).
Stanley couldn’t understand what I was saying. He was fixated on problem #1 & he thought I was asking to give them a ping for the site that isn’t working, so I had to repeat myself 4 times before he FINALLY understood this is a separate issue.
Turns out according to Stanley, that other ping issue was NEVER included in the ticket, so now he’s including it (I can ONLY hope).
So a whole week has gone by & I can’t do work because of not being able to access this site.
THEY ARE CLUELESS. A tracer request should have been asked of me the minute I opened the ticket on Sunday as I remember this happening years ago in Canada & the techs there knew enough to get that from me right off the bat.
At the very least, I should have been asked for this information on Monday or Tuesday via a phone call, but as we know, Cableonda doesn’t deal with problems, they expect the customer to CHASE them to fix the problem.
So I called up & got Stanley again. I joyfully asked him how he was & he ignored me. I had to say HELLO HELLO HELLO & finally got a respond. I said can’t you hear me, he said I can hear you, I said ok, because I asked you how you are doing & you didn’t answer. He ignored me again & asked me for my subscriber number.
WOW, just soooo RUDE.
Then he starts telling me that they have to send a technician out to check the modem because of the blocked website. I lost it, so YES, SUE ME, RAISED MY VOICE. I am NOT going to wait 7-15 days for them to show up only to THEN figure out a modem can’t block ONE website.
They are soooooo stupid. I said it’s NOT THE MODEM. I was able to access that website before. It’s being blocked, why don’t you change the IP address, that would be a smart thing to do.
Now I’m on hold. JFC, I guess what I have to do, is find someone who has a brain outside of Cableonda to tell me what the problem is, & THEN call Cableonda & tell them how to do their job.
We’ll see how long Stanley puts me on hold for. He said he had to read the notes LOL, yeh right,
Can you believe this, now they are REFUSING to fix the problem blaming MY COMPUTER. He repeatedly said, “we gave you ALL the information, we can’t help you anymore.” OMG, this is NUTS, this company is TERRIBLE!!!!
So I had to speak to someone sane & intelligent in the US & he confirmed that my IP address is being blocked. He didn’t understand that I was the one who figured this out & Cableonda being the stupidest ISP on the face of the planet was blaming my 2 computers & never ONCE suggested this.
If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve had so much experience with ISPs, I wouldn’t have known what was wrong either.
He then gave me a proxy that I can download & it worked, I was able to get onto the site, open a ticket & tell then what was going on. Within a day I was able to get on their site without the proxy.
On Saturday Cableonda shut down my Internet so I had to go pay a month’s worth of money. Brenda Marshall still hasn’t called me regarding the credits & I don’t know when she’s back from vacation,
Then I got phone calls on Saturday from Cableonda saying they wanted to come over on Sunday. I thought it was to fix the ping problem, but I wanted to make sure, so I asked why they weren’t coming & because their English was so poor, they didn’t understand me & vice versa.
The first guy called, couldn’t speak any English & then hung up the phone on me.
He eventually showed up at my door & wanted my modem. I said why do you want my modem, I’m using it LOL He couldn’t speak English & finally I got him to go. They had already called 2 weeks earlier about the modem, but they couldn’t explain why they wanted it.
Then the guy who’s supposed to fix the ping problems came, saw the terrible speeds & ping, couldn’t speak any English, handed me the phone with someone who could speak English, but all the guy did was speak Spanish to me.
Then he told me a manager would come today after noon & left.
Today NO ONE showed up.
I tried Brenda Marshal several times today & no answer. So it looks like I’m going to have to waste more of my time & money going down to Cableonda’s head office again in hopes she is there. I’m NOT leaving until someone takes cafe of this.
I would change to Cable & Wireless if it weren’t for the fact that I’m moving & I don’t want to pay for an installation fee, plus I could be moving any day as soon as I get the money together. It’s not worth it to sign up & then have to cancel before a full 30 days has gone by.
After Cable & Wireless tried to rip me off by overcharging me (the case is still with ASEP), I’m nervous about going with them.
Actually, now that I remember, we were told there was service with Cable & Wireless here, then days later we were told there was NO service & that unless we give them someone’s phone number from the neighborhood, they wouldn’t be able to tell. This is the same BS I’ve had to put up with before with Cable & Wireless.
As I’ve mentioned before, they are totally CLUELESS here. They don’t know what they are doing, & they make the potential customer jump through hoops to get their service.
So last night around 2:20 am I lost Internet access. All day yesterday I was unable to talk to people on the phone because they couldn’t hear me.
The speeds were sooo bad, at one point I had less than 1 MB of download speed. I think I saw 0.25 if you can believe that.
In the morning I still didn’t have access so Marie went over to the Multi Plaza location & someone there said they would look into it & call her when they figured out what the problem was. Of course she never received a call.
I unplugged my router & that seemed to solve the problem. Normally I don’t have to do that unless there’s a major problem with the Internet, so I have no idea what happened.
I’m going to be submitting a complaint to ASEP because Brenda Marshal is still ignoring me.
Oh on the positive, ASEP said I finally won the case against Cable & Wireless for the $20 they stole from me. If you want to know how long this took? Let’s see, from the time I was told I had to go over to Cable & Wireless to get them to give me a case number & the bitch argued with me for let’s see about 20 minutes trying to convince me they were right & I was wrong, that was back in January 2012.
While I thank the lawyer who figured out what was happening, he wasn’t too smart. He told them to give me a credit when my story clearly stated I no longer have service with them & haven’t since September.
I had to argue with someone at ASEP because she was trying to tell me I’d have to submit paperwork just to get the money in cash LOL Then she walked away & spoke to someone & they made arrangements for me to pick it up from the Albrook location. Amazing what can happen if people STOP fighting with people & they try to do the right thing.
I guess my $20 will break Cable & Wireless’ bank.
Forgot to mention that Cableonda charged me for a setup fee even though they NEVER told me there was one.
Once again, companies here in Panama like to charge you things without telling you, although I think this is a Latino thing, because I had a terrible fight with a Mexican restaurant owner when he charged us extra for fries (if you can believe that) & didn’t even tell us it was extra. We had even asked, “can we get fries?” & he said, “Sure.”, but didn’t bother to tell us it would cost more.
So Marie went the other day to Cableonda’s head office to see Brenda Marshall with my report of how I’ve been treated by Cableonda.
I was out of town so I couldn’t go.
For sure she was back from holidays, but when Marie got there, not only did they NOT let her go in to the building, the security guard lied & said Brenda Marshall is away on vacation for 4 months. LOL, yes, we are stupid & believe this.
So I will be filing my report with ASEP.
Can you believe how they treat Marie?
No wonder those 2 women came into Cableonda & attacked one of their staff. Cableonda treats their staff like gold & their customers LIKE SHIT!
Michelle
About 2 weeks ago I went in to pay my bill. Normally if you are late & they shut you down, they get you service within an hour or two.
I had service when I left my house. I had service when I came back home. All of a sudden at 1:30 am they cut me off. Because they weren’t open then, I had to stress all night about what may happen since with companies here you never know, couldn’t work & they unlocked the block from my account the following day.
Once again what they do makes NO logical sense.
Michelle
Today I have terrible Internet from Cableonda.
First of all my pings were over 200. People couldn’t hear me on the phone. Then I couldn’t get sites to load fully.
Then I was getting download speeds of 0.34 & NO upload speeds.
When I called to speak to them, I had to go through the same drama I always go through with them.
Instead of taking the speed tests from http://www.speedtest.net which routes to Medellin as that’s the closest tower, they always DEMAND I give them speed tests from New York. I’ve NEVER EVER heard of anything so stupid in my life.
I have tried in the past to find New York on the speedtest map, but I can’t. I’ve wasted tons of my time trying to find New York on the map & I can’t. It’s very difficult to do so.
Why can’t Cableonda take the closest tower’s speed tests? Why do they have to make things difficult for the customer. I told the guy I can’t do that, you tell me how to find it. He couldn’t help me. He would just go silent & I would have to say over & over again HELLO, HELLO.
So they can’t direct me how to easily find New York on the speedtest map, but yet they expect the customer to find it & send them ONLY those speed tests.
They reset the modem & it STILL didn’t help. Now my speeds are even worse at 0.18.
He REFUSED to submit a report.
Once again I can’t work or do anything because of FUCKING CABLEONDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I had to do Cableonda’s job for them. Here is how you change the city on http://www.speedtest.net.
* Go to settings which is on the top right.
* Then look to the bottom where it says “preferred server”. Pick the city from that drop down menu.
* Then click on “save”
* At the top there’s a “take a speedtest” button. Click on it.
* Then a speedtest window will popup & ask you if you want to do a speedtest for the recommended server, or your preferred server (this is on the right). Click the one on the right.
You can also register to keep those settings.
What I find very suspicious, is WHY the speed results are terrible for the closest server in Medellian, but amazingly the speeds from New York make everything seem right. If I wasn’t having any problems with my Internet, fine, I could maybe understand, but I AM.
In fact, the speed restults for Meddalin won’t even finish, that’s how bad things are.
And just goes to show you, Cableonda should know how to do this simple task & teach their customers, but they are clueless.
So I went into the Cableonda office at Multi Plaza & had a HORRIBLE experience.
First I got there & I was the next ticket in line, so I figured I should be in & out of there within 30 minutes. All I needed according to ASeP, was for sheet of paper with the claim number & their seal & their decision.
Well first the energy in the room was negative. It seems that most of the people at that location are angry or down all the time. They never smile & I can tell they don’t want to be there. They hate their job.
The girl calls the number before me & no one goes to the desk. Instead of calling my number, she just sits there & starts to do work on the computer. Or maybe she was fooling around, who knows.
Then about 5 minutes later the guy with that number suddenly shows up, so she takes him & of course it takes forever (they always work very slowly).
The next thing I know, they are calling people’s number that were behind me.
I start asking the girl who was at the front door what is going on. It takes her forever to get an answer for me & in the meantime they have now called 3 OTHER people before me.
This is when I find out that because I speak English, they are going to SKIP right over me & go onto everyone else. I WAS FURIOUS.
I started to demand to speak to a manager. This took forever & they still wouldn’t get me a manager, but this guy who I’ve seen before who speaks very little English tells me to come to the window off to the side. I hand him the sheet of paper that ASEP gave me (it’s in Spanish) & he’s ALL CONFUSED.
So it’s not because I don’t speak Spanish, they can’t even understand their own language!!!!
I finally found a guy who I knew spoke English to translate for me. He didn’t look happy at all.
It took me forcing the issue for over 30 minutes & the situation still wasn’t handled.
1. First he couldn’t find me in the computer (yeh right).
2. Then he continuously didn’t understand the sheet of paper’s instructions.
3. Then couldn’t find the claim.
4. Then said the manager would have to speak to me.
By the time I saw the so called manager, it was over an hour later. I had to force myself into her office just to make sure I was seen next. All this while she wondered around the Cableonda office doing other things.
Then it turns out she’s NOT even the manager LOL Just a joke!
So FINALLY a guy I had seen sitting at one of the booth’s comes in (I guess he’s the manager) & another girl who supposedly speaks English comes in. She was a nice girl (the only friendly smiling one there.) While I thought she was translating, I’d tell her what was going on & then a few minutes later she would ask me questions I had already answered. I don’t believe this was lack of knowing English.
So this went back & forth & in the end we had to do up a new claim, so now I have to wait another 15-30 days.
It took me TWO BLOODY HOURS to go in for a simple piece of paper & I was NEXT IN LINE!
Cableonda now has these signs all over their offices talking about excellent customer service LOL I can’t figure out if they have comment cards they want us to fill out or they are lying & claiming they give great customer service.
Of course this is probably their idea of great customer service – NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So yesterday out of the blue the modem stops working.
I call Cableonda & when the guy asked me to unplug the modem & plug it back in I did.
I had to put the phone down to do this & when I did, he wasn’t there when I got back, so I lost money on minutes.
Called back & of course he doesn’t apologize or even remember who I am from 1 minute earlier. (brains).
He repeats the task of unplugging the modem & I tell him I already did. Instead of investigating further, he right away submits a ticket to have someone come over. He says someone will call me the following day.
Since I know this could take weeks, I got very stressed & had to walk ALL THE WAY over to the nearest Cableonda.
The girl there was wonderful. One of the nicest employees of Cableonda. Her name is Kathie & she’s at the Westland Mall location.
She got me an appointment for the next day.
I left, came home & the modem was…..
You guessed it, WORKING!!!
So yes I’m happy, but it just proves once again that they DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
If it was a modem problem, it wouldn’t have started working.
They didn’t bother to check anything on their end, they just shrugged off the issue & set up a time for someone to come over. This not only wastes my time & costs me money since I work for a living, but it wastes their time as well.
Then I lost over an hour having to go over to Caleonda & during the the night the modem went off again & then went back on.
Right now it’s the afternoon & so far no one from Cableonda has showed up.
So I had asked Kathie who spoke some English & understood more if it was Saturday & she told me NO, Friday, manyana. After 12 pm.
They showed up today which is SATURDAY & I wasn’t around so nothing got fixed.
LOVELY.
So out of the blue Cableonda calls me today from the Arraijan office. It took a bit to get someone who speaks English. Finally a guy comes on the phone & of course doesn’t understand a word I say when I ask why they didn’t show up on Friday.
So I gave up trying to communicate that to him & told him I’m only here today, not tomorrow as they wanted to come tomorrow. He puts me on hold to make a call, comes back & says they will be there between 1-3 pm.
Did they show up? Of course NOT!!!!
More of my time wasted being on the phone with them when I could have been working doing something else.
So lost 3 hours of work today because of either Cableonda, or Western Union.
I paid my Cableonda bill at Western Union yesterday, got up today & NO INTERNET.
I called Cableonda & the brainiac tells me to e-mail him a copy of the receipt LOL
Finally I had no choice but to waste more time & money getting to the nearest Cableonda. So not only did I lose money because of work, then I had to spend money on taxis to deal with the bill.
On the positive, they got the Internet back up by the time I got home.
Oh almost forgot. I e-mailed Cableonda AGAIN about the ping problems because the ping is at 279 which is TERRIBLE. No one can hear me on the phone & I can’t do work.
Cableonda once again ignored me.
OMG LOL, look at this. HOW STUPID CAN ONE COMPANY BE????
Every month something else Cableonda does just amazes me.
My e-mail got returned & here’s why…
Failed to deliver to ‘‘
LOCAL module(account pruebadecliente) reports:
account is full (quota exceeded)
Reporting-MTA: dns; cableonda.com
Original-Recipient: rfc822; Final-Recipient: LOCAL; Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;account is full (quota exceeded)
So once again my IP address is on the barracuda blacklist – http://www.barracudanetworks.com This has caused me numerous problems with a site that doesn’t know what they are doing with their e-mail servers, but besides them, who knows if others aren’t getting my mail because Cabledonda doesn’t know how to run their ISP.
I refuse to call them to complain, because when I did that when I first got to Panama, I was shocked to find out that they:
1. Don’t know what a blacklist is
2. They said it would take a week to be removed when it should take 15 minutes
3. I’ll never know if it’s removed or not & I’ll have to waste my time calling them over & over again
4. Because of their ignorance & incompetence, the stress I’ll have to go through isn’t worth it.
Bottom line, Cableonda allows its users to spam, so that’s why my IP address is constantly on the blacklist.
So I just moved to Boquete 2 weeks ago, & there were Cableonda issues from almost day one.
One night I lost Internet for 4 hours.
The next time another 1-2 hours & then another night same thing.
They finally arrived here today after driving me up the wall with their phone calls ONLY in Spanish, & telling me they will come on Sunday (it’s now Tuesday). They also sent out several e-mails that made no sense when I popped them into Google Translate. It listed things about the service call that contradicted the items.
Their automated call dialer called several times too.
The guy comes in & passes his phone to me. He had called the main office to get someone who speaks English. I tell the guy what has been happening & I have to tell him to translate to the techie standing there, because he’s too stupid to figure it out on his own.
He translates (or so we hope) to the techie & then the techie tells him (WAIT FOR IT) that the problem is my router.
Well I started yelling at the guy on the phone. LOL
The techie (calling him that is an insult to all REAL techies) had just picked up my router, put it back on the floor & decided THAT is what was causing the problem.
Now that I screamed, they decided to FINALLY test the connection itself & must have noticed there was something wrong, because now they are outside doing something.
They (like most, not all Panamanians) was standing right behind me giving me no space.
He also started using my laptop without even asking me. GEEZE.
Also doesn’t tell me when he’s going to disconnect anything, he just does it.
They are also very very rough with everything. They let the metal parts of the cable fly around & hit my printer, etc. I’m lucky nothing broke.
Looks like I was more than right, they couldn’t get it fixed within a timely manner. They are still here trying to apply tons of those band aid connectors to get it to work properly. If they had a quality line, they wouldn’t need all of that.
Figures.
So, turns out the cable outside has to be replaced. It took them an hour to figure that out. Most techies would have gone outside right away to check.
The kid was nice in the end saying he will report it, & I hope it does get fixed.
So as usual, it’s one thing after another with Cableonda. I hear more Panamanians bitch & complain about Cableonda here in Chiriqui than I heard them in Arraijan. Maybe it’s because the service is even WORSE here, or maybe because locals here have it at home whereas in Arraijan they don’t.
Anyway, when I moved here to Boquete, Cableonda hooked up the Internet in this house. I found out a month later that there was NEVER supposed to be Internet in this house, that someone had jimmied the cables from the neighbor or something.
So of course the logical question is, why did they install it in the FIRST PLACE?
Why can’t they run a new wire even though the neighbor won’t let them???
Just more DRAMA IN PANAMA. What we take for granted in North America, Europe & EVEN in Asia where the net runs fast & people there know WTF they are doing, here in Panama, THEY ARE CLUELESS.
So they only gave me a $25 credit. They TRIED to charge me for a modem which I eventually got removed from the bill, but every day I deal with the stress of having TERRIBLE INTERNET.
People can’t hear me & even SKYPE doesn’t work. I was on a meeting the other day & 5 times Skype disconnected & Skype is able to work with a VERY weak signal.
So I FINALLY found a house to rent & NOW Cableonda is causing even MORE problems.
1. They are trying to rip people off now by telling us that it will take 10 days before they can move you. If you want the move sooner, it’s $20. I was told this by 2 different people at the main call center.
2. NOW you have to create your OWN transfer by going onto the site & filling it out & there’s NO English version.
The girl directing me screwed up (normal) & I caught it. She had me putting the current address in the NEW address field. Thank gawd I know a few words in Spanish.
3. While I was on the page it said $50 for express service. I questioned it & she said that’s an old price. Of course I believed her even though I checked off the box that must have said I agree to this.
4. I get a call within the hour & a woman starts talking about $50. I said NOOOOO, it’s $20. Of course she says I’m wrong, I have to speak to whoever I spoke to.
I found it very hard to get their names. They say the names sooo fast & they aren’t normal Latina names in my opinion, so I rarely write them down because even when they say them slowly I don’t get it.
And I’m HUGE on keeping track of everyone I speak to.
So she hangs up the phone after I tell her I’m NOT paying $50.
5. I had said on the form I wanted next Tuesday for my move date.
Today they call me & try to schedule the move for tomorrow which is SATURDAY!!!!!
JUST NUTS.
6. I have my new landlord call the David office to try & get the appointment for Tuesday & to make sure they do NOT disconnect me until Tuesday as well & they start telling him I have to drop off the MODEM before Tuesday.
YES, THAT MAKES TOTAL LOGICAL SENSE. Drop off the modem so I CAN’T WORK.
7. I call the call center & tell the girl I will drop it off AFTER I move & she just agrees with the David office & tells me I have to deal with them.
To get to David & the Cableonda office would take an hour that I just don’t have.
Once again, you can’t do ANYTHING via the phone. They can’t handle any business via the phone.
8. I’m trying to get the landlord to tell them I will drop off the modem after I move, & to have them call me in English. I’m very stressed right now as I don’t even know what’s going on.
AND they let me drop off the modem last time WAY after I moved to Boquete because obviously the move from Arraijan to Boquete takes over a day.
SCREAM!!!!!!!!!
TOTAL INCOMPETENCE & ONCE AGAIN, MAKING MY LIFE A LIVING HELL!!!!!!!!
More hell from Cableonda. So no matter what I said, Cableonda couldn’t get me a proper connection in that other house, so I finally found a new house to move into & here’s what happened.
I called to make the moving arrangements & was told it would take 10 days to set me up which of course I didn’t have. I have to work.
They told me there’s an express service for $20, so I called back a day or two later & said fine, give me the express service.
The girl told me I have to fill out the form on the webpage & everything was in Spanish. I didn’t understand half of what was said & she was incompetent as well, as I found her mistake when she had me putting in the current address instead of the new address in the wrong area of the form.
Anyway, I get to some block of text that has the amount of $50 in it. I said what is this? She says that is the payment for the express service. I said noooo, I was told it’s $20. I’m NOT paying $50. She said don’t worry, that is the old price, you will only be charged $20.
I finished the page & within an hour I get a call from someone who starts going on & on & then mentions $50. I told her I’m NOT paying $50. She said fine & canceled the order.
I called back the following day & spoke to someone else who also confirmed it should be $20 & told me I could put a claim in once the $50 shows up on my bill & I would get the full $50 back, so I went ahead with it.
NOW after being told 4 times that it’s $20, Cableonda is REFUSING to give me the money back saying I agreed to it AND I already paid $10 for the transfer, so basically Cableonda is trying to charge me $60.
I just called again & was told I should go to ASEP LOL
Can you believe this BULLSHIT????
Instead of just doing the right thing & taking responsibility for their TERRIBLE staff, they are telling me to waste my time & go through ASEP, probably because they know that ASEP will side with them like last time when I had a great case & ASEP sided with Cableonda. And let’s not forget I found out later on that Cableonda lied & got away with it (typical in Panama), they said I had to have speed tests from their site when every time I call tech support, I’m told I should send them speed tests from http://www.speedtest.net
WELCOME TO FUCKING PANAMA, where they try to screw you every which way they can, waste your time & cause you stress!
So I tried to deal with Cableonda on Twitter & already today I’ve lost 3-4 hours of work dealing with their immature staff.
No matter what I say & what I explain, it’s like talking to a brain dead individual. They don’t listen, don’t care & still maintain I should pay the $50 because I accepted it on their site.
They don’t care that their staff gave me the wrong information 4 times, all they care about it sticking it to me.
And today I get a bill for $119, so now the bill has increased even though my billing date isn’t until September 15th.
Cableonda is a terrible company. The locals know this because of their terrible Internet service, but I know it because of how they rip you off.
They try to make it seem like they are improving their customer service LOL, okay, if this is improvement, I can only imagine what it was like before.
I’m sitting here in the middle of working when all of the sudden my Internet goes dead & all I see is the last light on which is the standby light.
I unplug & replug twice & each time it tries to get the modem back working, but then all the lights disappear.
I waste money & time calling Cableonda again & the guy says to press the button on the top of the modem which I did & now it works.
When I asked him why it did that, he said someone must have toughed it. I said NO ONE touched anything, I’m the only one here.
He tries to imply again that someone touched it.
GAWD, JUST KILL ME & GET IT OVER WITH. I’m waiting to have a meeting with a client & then this happens.
WHEN WILL IT EVER END with Cableonda??????????
More ongoing problems with Cableonda.
So on top of lying & saying it was $20 to do an express transfer & then lying again saying I could get the money back re: a claim, they are trying to charge me an extra $10 transfer fee.
So after I call up to discuss this with one of the morons there, I get Julio. I figure out after a few minutes this is the SAME Julio Sanchez who said I could put in a claim for the $50. Of course when I say something about it he denies ever telling me. Typical lying Panamanian.
Anyway, so I AGAIN waste over an hour of my life to Cableonda to call regarding the bill & that once again my modem is resetting itself after midnight over & over again.
Here’s what happened…
First he gets my number wrong 3 times. Then he thinks I’m talking about the phone having a problem even after I said the modem keeps rebooting. He doesn’t even see on my account that I ONLY have Internet. I have to tell him that.
Then he says I have an appointment set up. I said no I don’t & he says oh, that’s an old ticket. JFC, MORONS!!!!!!!!!!
Then he tries to make it about my router which has NOTHING to do with the modem restarting every night after midnight. Again COMPLETE MORON & more proof that they will try to blame EVERYONE BUT THEMSELVES.
He just talks & talks.
He finally put in a ticket re: the issue.
He said he that once they fix the problem, then I will get a credit. Yeh right. They have NEVER fixed the problem.
Then after trying to get to the bottom of the extra charges, I now understand I was charged $3.50 tax on the $50 express transfer charge. Then I questioned why I’m being charged $10 installation if I’m forced to pay the $50. He then looks on his end & does NOT see the charge & proceeds to argue with me for several minutes that I’m wrong & he’s right. I finally lose it on him.
Oh & the payment I made last week was never recorded, so I had to go to the website & put in a report with the attachment that I paid the bill.
THEN he proceeds to tell me that I was NEVER charged the $10 & then claims that what he just sent me in an e-mail is all that I was charged. Did he send me another invoice??? No, he just copied some figures from his end. I’m the one with the legitimate copy of the bill.
We proceeded to fight & argue for the next 20 minutes because the idiot can NOT do math. I even proved to him that if we remove the $10 & show how much I paid last month, that I should NOT be getting a bill of $58 & change.
He finally just hung up on me because he’s an idiot & doesn’t understand math or English & he says his manager is getting angry at him??? For what??? Talking to a customer?”
Then he e-mails me with figures that make no sense at all to try to prove to me that my math is wrong and HE’S right.
I contacted a friend thinking maybe I am wrong, but of course I’m not.
I wanted to 3way it with my friend to Cableonda. This is a good way to prove to an outsider what I have to put up with living here in Panama.
We wasted another 30 minutes being on hold after I had to call three times because I got disconnected the first time, then put on hold forever. Then we find out their computers are down.
So I’ve lost let’s see how many hours now dealing with Cableonda regarding this matter of them being the ABSOLUTE THE WORST COMPANY IN PANAMA.
Their staff has to have the IQ of a 2nd grader & that’s me insulting the 2nd grader.
They rip customers off & while it’s never happened to me before, I’ve heard others complain about it & it’s now happening to me.
Looks like I may have to waste an entire day of my life going into David just to get this dealt with. Over the weekend I decided to pay the $50 because it would cost me more to go into David, but now this is nuts already. We are upto more than $60 with the taxes, not to mention that I’ve lost at least 4 hours trying to get the $50 refunded & fighting with the most stubborn immature race I’ve ever met in my entire life. Even when dealing with Filipinos who are very similar to Panamanians, when I talk to a manager, they usually see reason & logic.
Oh & one last thing… when I tried to e-mail the e-mail address he had given me earlier – [email protected] it came back undeliverable. Earlier I had problems with what I thought was a mistake in spelling, but I took this one direct from his e-mail he sent me.
More stress from Cableonda.
I get a chance to call up again inquiring about that $10. I end up speaking to Ildaura who I’ve spoken to before. She sounds like she’s sharp & on the ball, probably the ONLY one there who is.
The problem is, that even if she’s smarter than the rest, she is just like other Panamanians who think that just because they screw up, they don’t have to take responsibility. Just saying something is so should be enough to get rid of you.
Right away she admits I have been charged the $10, so I wasted all that time with moron Julio the last time I called.
She wanted to discuss the fact that he said I could get the $50 back from the claim, but I told her not to bother, he will just lie about it. Like she doesn’t know that ALL Panamanians lie?
Anyway, she says I was SUPPOSED to be charged the $10. Can you believe that??? They charge me $60 just to move my service??? That’s the same price I paid back in Canada & I’ve NEVER EVER had to pay that price in all the times I’ve moved in the past.
Anyway, even though I told her I did NOT request 24 hours service, she said it didn’t matter. The fact that I wanted a specific day was enough even if it was a week later.
Then she said she would put in another claim to get me the $10 back.
So we all know how that went down. THEY REFUSED TO GIVE ME ANY MONEY BACK AGAIN, even though it was THEIR FUCKING FAULT!
I had NEVER been told I’d be charged $10 on top of the $20.
And I’ve made 2 payments now & BOTH times the credit isn’t showing up in my account & even after sending them a scanned copy of my payment they STILL haven’t credited my account.
The stress in this FUCKING COUNTRY IS KILLING ME!
I’m not a rich Gringo & the amount of hours I’ve dealt with this BS has cost me at least 5 hours of my time PLUS the money I paid that I wasn’t told I’d have to pay.
Cableonda’s finance department is TERRIBLE.
I’ve paid my bill twice now & even though I’ve received e-mail notices that I paid the bill, they are saying I never paid & they are shutting off my Internet.
I’ve called THREE FUCKING TIMES NOW. I’ve even uploaded one of the receipts to their website & they STILL haven’t credited my account.
I’ve wasted time calling them over & over again (this is money to me) plus wasted my cell phone minutes (money) calling them.
No matter who I speak to & no matter how MANY times I forward them the receipts, they are NOT CREDITING MY ACCOUNT.
They turned me off again today & they did it back on Tuesday too. AND once I got the service going again it still shows their page whenever I load a new URL.
They always tell me I have to reboot my computer. This means I have to waste time shutting ALL my work done to reboot JUST FOR THEM!!!!!!!!
I just spoke to Rafael.
He’s the ONLY ONE with a brain who figured out that the old account was never shut down & so all my payments were going into there.
I had already ASKED someone at Cableonda why I had 2 different accounts b/c when I went to pay after my move, the ePago girl was saying I had 2 accounts. When I phoned to inquire about this, the girl at Cableonda said I only have ONE account. And of course I believed her.
Rafael moved the payments from the old account to the new one and now he says there’s a zero balance & I shouldn’t have to pay anything until Oct. 15th. Let’s HOPE he’s right.
He also said they don’t shut down the old accounts, & even though it’s illogical, he doesn’t know why. It also sounded like whoever did the move did it incorrectly & shouldn’t have created a new account.
I hope to gawd there’s NO MORE problems with the payments.
So my electricity went off for 4-6 hours. I had to finally go to bed.
When I got up in the morning, the modem was toast with all the lights flashing. I called right away at 10 am on a Saturday, but they STILL wouldn’t come any sooner than Tuesday.
I lost 4 days of work because I had been planning on working Friday night & never got a chance, AND I called twice asking for them to come on Monday, but they wouldn’t.
I never even got a confirmation phone call & then I realized JUST NOW why not.
The SMART people at Cableonda sent me an e-mail LOL
They sent a confirmation e-mail to someone with NO INTERNET.
Also the other day I got ANOTHER invoice for $77, so the payment problems are STILL NOT FUCKING FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!!
So much for me thinking that last guy was smart.
So once again there are issues with Cableonda. For weeks I’ve been having static on my VoiP phone & with Skype & while things have NEVER been clear on my VoIP line here in Panama, Skype was never an issue until I moved into this house.
I called & complained, but they never fixed the problem.
Yesterday I called again & they reset the modem & it took 30 minutes for it to actually reset.
They booked an appointment for me which was today. Instead of solving the problem, the technician just came out & put an amplifier on the cable. It was fine until 7 pm tonight when again I couldn’t load even simple webpages.
I wasn’t able to do work earlier until they reset it, & again same thing, I had to get them to reset it.
Now Friday I have to waste time waiting around for them to show up & I have an important meeting in the afternoon that can’t be interrupted.
So here’s more of the story just to show how stupid people are in this country.
I speak to the guy last night telling him that AGAIN the Internet isn’t working, I can’t even load webpages.
He then tells me that there isn’t an appointment until Friday which I’m upset about, as that means TWO FUCKING DAYS that I can’t work or prep for my move.
When the system calls me back in Spanish, with my limited comprehension it sounded like they were coming tomorrow (Thursday).
All night I couldn’t work even after they had rebooted the modem. The webpages would barely load.
I’ll admit, I was stupid, I let the technicians come yesterday & get away with putting their stupid amplifier thingies on the cable. This is what they do when they are lazy (which is all the time) & they don’t want to figure out what the REAL problem is. They didn’t even change the modem.
So I call today from Skype via my laptop & my landlord’s Cable & Wireless service & because it’s raining & his Internet is terrible (he never gets it fixed), the girls can’t hear me. After calling & screaming into the phone in hopes they can hear me, I finally try to use my VoiP line in hopes that will be better.
What I did understand is they are coming TODAY, not Friday. I know, it takes a modicum of brain cells to understand the difference between Thursday & Friday.
Anyway, they were supposed to come in the morning, but were detained thank gawd, as I wasn’t up at 7:30 am.
The last person reboots the modem & now I’m able to load sites. Then the technicians come like 5 minutes later.
They try to brush off the problem (of course) by putting MORE of those metal pieces so your coaxial cable is extended 5 miles from the modem. I said NO, I want you to find the REAL problem outside, & change the modem. He asks me (because he couldn’t think to ask this before) if they changed the modem yesterday & I said NO.
Of course this should all be written in my account, but it probably isn’t.
He goes to change the modem & hangs up the phone on who I was speaking with.
They don’t even ask if they can touch the equipment, they just do. LOL
Anyway, when the new modem wouldn’t reboot, that’s when they FINALLY realized (I told you, it takes brains) that there’s a REAL problem. They call head office & find out there is. Now we are waiting for the problem to be fixed wherever it is miles from here.
I could be offline for two hours (we are coming up on one hour now) before this is fixed.
Now I’m being told it’s going to be ANOTHER hour until this is fixed & I have a meeting in an hour. THIS IS JUST FUCKED!!!!!!!!!!
So OF COURSE the technicians from Cableonda NEVER come back, that would mean people here do what they say they will do.
I call up Cableonda & they reset something & I get access, but the levels aren’t good. THEN 30 minutes later I have NO INTERNET.
I call up again & speak to the robot Janice who just repeats the same thing OVER & OVER & OVER AGAIN. Another set of technicians are coming out this afternoon to test the post outside the house.
I just missed my meeting.
So once again they didn’t complete their job. I phoned AGAIN, they reset the modem & now I’m getting access. Had I NOT called, I’d still have no internet.
No technician came back to make sure I had access, no one called me to confirm if the problem was fixed.
Typical Cableonda.
I’m HOPING I continue to get access from this point forward, the made the girl I had check the notes, & she said the technicians checked the pole.
She pissed me off initially asking me if I have a router. I hate it when they try to blame the router for the problem when of COURSE it’s NOT the router, the lights on the modem weren’t even working.
This is what Cableonda does to shirk responsibility for their TERRIBLE ISP service.