Starcomms Irresponsible Activation/subscription Renewal Delay -compensation?

Kindly permit me to use this forum to vent my anger and bring to light how we mosttimes abused in this country by companies who think they can do injustice and go un-purnished just because they operate in Nigeria.

I bought the funny express card (AirCard 597E) for 15k, with sales reps beaming with smiles while marketing other products to me.
To activate the card became serious problem, activation took days with series of calls to *123
I had to pay for another provider pending the activation, so as to meet up with deadlines.
I exhausted the 100 hrs airtime and decided to switch over to the business time, 9am - 9pm. Another trouble started.

All customer service officers told me one lie or the other, framed as crazy unbelievable excuses, I was at a point told to go back to the bank and ask the teller I paid to, to re-post after 3days. I am working on it some will say, I am texting the activation department, I am mailing them, promising different hours of the day for four days. I now know almost all starcomms customer service officers name by heart, I can almost tell who is speaking by their voices. (I now do dream of calling starcomms data help line)

They all sang the same song, hold on while we check your details, thank you for holding on, our system is slow the reason for the little delay (got a bit scared cos I crossed over from other ISPs cos of speed) Can I have your card no, where are u calling from, teller no, Account number, Payment plan etc.
It got to a stage I told them not to ask me again ,  look at your system, its there, you can see the number of times you have logged the same complaint for the past four days and still counting.

AS I SPEAK, I am yet to be activated or my new subscription plan is yet to be effected. starcomms is already enjoying my money since the 23rd of March, wasting my precious time, thanking me for choosing/using a service I paid for without my been allowed to use. I bet I will never be compensated for all the time, energy, money and business I lost in between, unless someone wants to proof otherwise.

I wrote the NCC's consumer affairs bureau http://www.ncc.gov.ng I still await their reply.

Please, what do I do, so that ISPs like starcomms do not take undue advantage of my person and others.

You may share your experience for others to be aware of all the nonsense act they all perform.

Thank You

NCC wrote Customer Service, reason for the call above, I am now activated and smiling, I don't know if I should include today as part of my subcription since I got activated around 4pm, what happens to the period wasted 9am -4pm? I am certain by 9pm they will definitely cut me off.

i tink we all shud be mailing NCC constomer service weneva dis ISPs begin to f**k up  

too many customers, low bandwith offerred & little incompetent hands

my guy,,,,,,,,,,wat was d "token" na

at their  zone (wifi), and not illegal browsing zone.

I wonder why I can't edit posted items

SFI,thanx 4 your informative post!U r very lucky-a colleague of mine is nt as lucky!This wk will be d 3rd he bought starcomms table top 4 browsin;till dis very day,he's yet 2 enjoy wat he paid 4!It has been one excuse or d other frm d customer care pple!
As 4 me,I had a very bad experience wit visafone wen I bought a Haier D200 fone 4 7k wit 1 month .Frm d day I bought d fone,I asked if it wz compatible wit my LG E300 running on vista home premium.They said it wz & dat it will be activated in 2 days' time.After 2 days,I couldnt use it.I went back 2 dem and wz told dat my system is nt compatible!Wat wz then done?Nothing!I wz frustrated-I had 2 give out 2 a friend!Frm dat time on,I av vowed never 2 do anything wit CDMA-based internet service providers.I do all my browsin on my fone & if I need 2 browse on my laptop,I use mtn daily data plan-shikena!If nt 4 d limitation,mtn data packages is jst ok 4 me.

I think starcom (or what ever you call them)using dial-up instead of T1 for their backbone connection .
Unfortunately as ISP services are relatively new in Niigeria,there will be incessant low quality service at the best of times and utter chaos some other times.
All you can do is to keep chasing it up or count your losses and switch ISP (not sure of the choices out there sha).
Try threathening them with legall action \newspaper exposure
that might work.
Goodluck mate.

@I have used MTN but I hate the 3G limitation which I finish in max 4days, they even deduct your bandwidth for uploads, which you are never told but you discover as you use.
 pls i use mtn only cos i saw the issues my collegues and friends were goin tru wit starcomms, delays wit subscriiption activation or renewal, unavailability of starcomms in certain states like enugu especially wen i had to be there last week i could take my lappie wit me cos mtn is there, but enlighten me, wat are the issues with mtn subscription?

free

Starcoms needs to learn the art of customer service.

i hv been using their IZAP for a while now, and the earliest i get activated after renewing my contract is always more than 24 hours.
I paid  for my usual 100 hours on tuesday 24th March, I didnt get connected until thur 26th, and this was after i went to lodge a complaint at both the bank and their office on Toyin street. This is rather bad.

Another aspect of starcoms is the fact that it is almost impossible for u to know how many hours you have left on your hourly plan. If you call the customer service, their usual response is to send a mail. Dont even bother sending any mail cos you wont get any response.

I dare them to prove me wrong as I am willing to supply all my details.
I think it is high time NCC takes serious steps to sanction this people

Mine was also taking ages b4 i used phone calls to monitor the config guy every step of the way.

The browsing is doing well but downloads not that fast.

I subscribed to the 250hrs. Hw wld i know the residual hrs?

I am now back to my 9am-9pm belt since yesterday, so you all can guess what the "token" was, which I believe probably mistakenly got  because of the 2nd error of not placing me on the right belt in the first place. Waiting to switch from my backup ISP once its 9am.

@olivetree  : I was told by the CS that their system update lags 4 hour, so they can never give you your current position but 4hrs late, my free 100hrs then, expired while my last call to them says I was having 3hrs,23mins. My plan was to manage the remaining time over the weekend,  just as I was making the decision and trying to disconnect, I noticed the link disconnected itself, trying to reconnect immediately resulted to Access denied, username and password invalid.
I called back and the above reason was given - lag in time. I don't know what to believe cos of my experience with them.

@estauso  : based on your submission, starcomms require more centers to accommodate LAGOS, I don't doubt possible instant activation if they have the right structure, software and know how, which they can easily get, MTN does instant activation, all they need is the first verification/ID process to cub fraudulent activities and 419 guys picking up the link and other reasons best known to them. After which online payment system (ATM), recharge cards and other method could be implemented, Look at the banking sector, long queue reduced cos of ATM

Starcomms really need to upgrade their services. While i was on the monthly plan, there was a time that i renewed my subscription and it took then 5 days to activate it. The subscription expired on the exact second and i lost 5 days. This prompted me to switch to 250 hrs package.
The customer care service is another issue. There was a time i was calling because of delayed activation and the guy that answered the call said i should call back in a minutes time. I then told him that we both know that if I am to do that, I would be directed to another person, he then grudginly took down my details (doubt if he did anything with them).