DNet April fools customers

DNet announced last month they were moving to new premises and gave two new access numbers. They informed their customers that due to the moving process all Internet facilities would be stopped for two days: March 30 and March 31. They also announced that starting from April 1, 1999, their operations would be normal with seven new access numbers. Wow! All their customers must have felt happy.

However, on April 1, dial any of the five access numbers, other than the first two (operational since the last week of March), and one hears the announcement "the number you are calling has not been installed yet".

When contacted on April 1 and April 2, the DNet customer service hot line informed us the problem was with Telekom and that this would be fixed by April 5. Up till today, (April 14), we are left with the "not installed yet" announcement for all five numbers. The first two numbers are simply inaccessible due to overload. They are always busy, except probably at 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. And these days, the 24-hour customer service number is also inaccessible, because it is busy all the time.

On some occasions, when we do manage to access the number, lo! it is automatically disconnected, as if I have not paid my bills! It is three weeks now since we have been unable to access DNet from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Besides losing business opportunities during this period, DNet customers are also losing lots of money sending out faxes, which they would have otherwise sent by e- mail, because lots of business correspondence occurs these days by e-mail.

Dear DNet management, you may April-fool us for one day on April 1, but nobody can tolerate being April-fooled throughout April. I would very much like to hear from DNet customers with a different experience.

RANGA NATHAN

Jakarta