Rudest (AOL)

[Garyj881]

For ages now i keep loosing connection from BF2, X-fire and other online programs. I have found out what the problem is, I have a very low Noise margin, It's currentley at 0db sometimes going to as low as -2db.

So i contacted aol "level 1" department (nice helpfull guy) who as soon as he realised he couldnt fob me off withe the famous "you have spyware" line put me through to level two technical support. I then spoke to Sumit Kumrr whom was very arrogant had no manners and constantly talked over me.

I explained my problem about the low noise margin and he said ok, ok, ok (wasnt listening to me) and then ran a line test and said there was no problem, the noise margin on average was 7db and was acceptable i tried to eplain but on an evening it dropps to very low values, 2db to -2db and this causes games to dissconect.

I then asked him 5 times to stop talkin over me and stop shouting "WHAT", he didn't reply. Then i asked him six times if he could tell me the lowest recorded noise margin on his log and he finally replied -2db (at last, sense) and then carried on to say this wasn't a problem.

He got very high rate with me and i could feal my self getting tense also so i asked to speak to someone else as i couldn't cope with him speaking to me in that manner and constantly talking over me.

Then instead of putting me over to someone else he put me through to cancellations department and he knew that they were shut.

Anyway i persisted, I rang them again and explained everything to level 1 tech support who kindly put me though to level 2 whom again i explained my problems, he replied "you have a fault on your line" we'll run tests and send you a text with the results.

Why did Sumit cause so much hassle when if he was doing his job right he would have seen there is a fault on the line.

It is the second time i have been speaken to in that sort of manner from a AOL tech guy. The last time i made a complaint, i will be doing the same with Sumit in the morning.

Now at last they realise i have a fault on the line and hopefully it will be resolved. Aol overall have been quite fgood apart from a few like Sumit who shouldnt be dealing with customers.

RANT OVER!!!

Man isp's know how to wind me up.

EDIT: Whats going on, just checked my db and I'm at 7db plus my connection speed has gone from 4.4mb to 3.7mb is it AOL messing on there end?

 

[Hyper]

Looks like they have lowered your speed to get your snr margins up and make your line stable.

 

[akakjs]

I can feel your pain. Wanadoo's (Orange now or whoever is flogging that dead-horse at the moment) tech support are just as bad. I got the tier 1 stuck in a loop once: "your line's down...", "have you scanned for viruses/spyware", "I'm running linux as a gateway, it makes no difference", "we don't support linux...", "I know, I'm telling you your line's busted"..... et al

Occasionally you find a good tier1 chap/chapess but they are a rare breed....

akakjs

 

[eightiescrooner]

I've had the same with AOL just recently....

I questioned why it had taken over 3 weeks for them to confirm my account upgrade.....and all I got from someone in Indian was a load of abuse, literally abuse. I was just saying I didn't think it was right that I have an E-Mail which tells me in 1 week I will be getting my speed upgrade, yet after 3 weeks I haven't even had conformation.

Anyway I asked to speak to his superior and he realised he was in trouble and told me to F Off, then cut me off. Luckily I got his name, so rang straight back and had a go.

When I rang back, I spoke to someone in Northern Ireland and he was so helpful and apologetic, he called BT from another line, got everything confirmed, gave me 3 months free internet, a further £50 credit to my account for the rudeness and phone calls and sent me a wireless router as goodwill.

He also said he'd be calling the call centre in Bangladesh as the guy I was speaking to was a Supervisor and said my call would be listened to by someone over there. He told me the likelyhood is that guy would be dismissed if he was abusive towards me.

I understand the guy might lose his job, but he deserves it. I will not tolerate being abused over the phone when I'm paying for the privellage. Maybe he will learn a life lesson!!!

Supervisor = Top bloke.

Sometimes I wonder if outsourcing call centers to India etc is really that cost effective for companies?!

 

[plasticmekon]

I would pick a company with DEDICATED UK call centres over another with foreign ones every time, even if it cost me 50% more.

 

[Teal]

Looks like they have lowered your speed to get your snr margins up and make your line stable.

That would be the correct response to the problem.

It isn't necessarily a 'fault' on the line as it is not at all uncommon for there to be more noise around in the early evenings as the sun sets due to the way atmospheric conditions affect the AM frequency band that ADSL operates in.

Net result the SNR margin will fall a bit and if it goes too low the connection to drop.

Raising the target margin a bit will stop that happening but it will reduce the sync rate a bit as well.

Moving elsewhere won't change the basic circumstances you face and this is the only real way to prevent line drops if that is what you want.