Avoid Deutsche Telekom like the plague!

I just sent this letter to them describing the terrible experience I have had with them. I hope someone gets it. Consider this a warning should you consider using them:

Deutsche Telekom is an absolute disgrace. The way business is run in your company is appalling and I feel sad for all the German people who are stuck with your crap service. We have made 2 appointments to have my phone turned on and nobody ever showed up either time.

We wasted a total of 10 + hours of our time waiting for your technicians who usually never call and never EVER show up.

Our first appointment was on Oct 27, between 4 and 6:30 PM. We waited from 4 - 8 PM and nobody ever showed up. Then we called the service number the next day and nobody had a clue as to why the technician never showed up. To this day, it is still a mystery. They promised to have someone call us back to reschedule. Nobody ever did.

So after several more useless phone calls to several more clueless service people, we managed to reschedule for Tuesday, November 7 between 4 and 6:30 PM. Then someone did call to inform us that the appointment was for 10 AM instead. We waited from 10 AM - 12 PM and, you guessed it, NOBODY CALLED OR SHOWED UP.

So, we called AGAIN and the service person informed us that the appointment was not for 10 AM but for 4 - 5:15 PM. And of course, this clueless service person had no idea who called or why they called regarding this mysterious 10 AM appointment. So again, we waited from 4 - 8 PM and, you know the drill now - NOBODY CALLED OR SHOWED UP.

I am completely baffled by all of this. How can a company so large and nationwide be so incompetent in every way? How can you treat your customers so horribly?

We are going to use Arcor instead. I can't imagine any company could possibly be any worse than Deutsche Telekom.

You can go through Arcor, but they still have to deal with Deutsche Telekom. That's why it will take a month or longer to get your phone line set up with a third party. So the answer to your question is: DT can be crap because they still have a monopoly.

I still think Deutsche Post are worse though. And don't get me started about the BOB.

Welcome to germany.

just note however, that it doesnt matter which company you go with, if the phone line needs to be connected, that all goes through T-com anyway.

so, your damned if you do, damned if you dont.

and I agree with SBT, the post IS worse, even if it is hard to believe...

its now been two weeks that a package 'per einschreibung' has dissappeared... and absolutely nobody at any branch will take any kind of responsibility, or even try to help.

good luck with ancor! i know people who have been waiting 4 months for their phone line...

about deutsche post i can only say that when i was living in london, it took 1 week for my letters to arrive in munich whereas letters posted in munich arrived within 2-3 days...

I'm not sure I understand you. Of course it will take longer to send a letter from London to Munich. Letters sent within Munich should be delivered the next day; anything slower is just incompetent.

When I was in the DT shop the other day, another customer was complaining that he'd been waiting all day and no one showed up either Also the same for GG if iirc. I heard it's a general problem atm.

I have experiene with both Arcor and DT. Arcor is by far much worse then DT, without a shadow of a doubt. If I had the energy and time I would write an entire non-fiction work on this.

Additional warnings:



woof.

I don't know a single person who is a satisfied Deutsche Telekom customer, not one. It's hard to get excited about a phone company, but opinions aren't even neutral or indifferent - everyone has a problem with them.

I used to hate them but they've got better.

Arcorr are meant to be worse.

Not wanting to be the devil's advocate, but we had massive problems with DT twice in the last four months and now know why. The technician didn't turn up within the time slot even though I bugged dispatching regularly on the hour. Finally, I got a very friendly, very reasonable head dispatcher who said that DT is laying off technicians right, left and center and the remaining ones cannot keep up with the work.
Every time you call DT make sure you get the name of the employee on the other side of the line. It helps when you follow up on your first five calls to tell employee #6 with whom you've spoken.

I can only second that. Wright down , when you called, whom you spoke to, what they said etc.

Otherwise everyone will tell you something else, they all see different things on their systems etc. It is a nightmare...I have been thru hell with DT as well...
Now we have Allice and so far , its ok.

Does anyone know if after requesting the connection of a telephone line with DT one can change his mind and cancel it? Basically, my question is: is there a cooling off period?

if you knew me then you'd know someone. Never had a problem with them - even when things go wrong, as they sometimes do.
With 12 call centres, each with over 300 employees, and random call routing, do you really believe that "Fred" is going to know "Joe"?

If you apply by phone or internet then 14 days as required by law. If you apply by post, fax or at a TPunkt then none, but in most cases, assuming the technician is not knocking on your door to install the line, they are usually reasonable with any change. You may find, however that if you decide to go to someone else for a line at the same property, then there will be additional delays, as Telekom will be blocking the line for their own use. As all lines are owned by Telekom in the first place any third party company needs to get hold of the line from them to establish a connection.

Arcor - don't talk to me about Arcor. At least with Telekom you get a freephone number and an answer to most calls within a minute or so. I've sat listening to hold-music with Arcor at 12 cents per minute in excess of 40 minutes just to query a bill.

Telekom are OK. I've had telephone and DSL flat rate with them for five years with no problems what-so-ever. I know I pay a bit over the odds but I can get out of my contract with six days notice which has saved me a bunch of cash in the past when I left the country for half a year.

There are some tricks when dealing with their staff, especially in English:
1) Write very clear simple sentences. Don't try to be clever by getting all 'legal' with them. If you write complicated sentences expect them to misunderstand.
2) When phoning make sure the person you are talking to speaks English before letting on you're angry or complaining. Record their name, ask them to spell it so they know you're doing this.
3) If you phone ALWAYS get them to make a written note in 'your record' so that the next person you speak to can see what was discussed in this call. Ask them explicitly to do this and read back to you what they wrote.
4) When things get bad back every call up with an email summarising what was said and confirm it is in your record. English is OK with Telekom.
5) Remember you are in Germany. Things are different here. If you're rude they'll put the phone down. That's normal here, get used to it, and don't be rude. Stick to the facts.
6) Make sure you know which Telekom company you're dealing with, or need to deal with - is is T-online (internet) or Telekom (almost everything else).
7) Before going with the 'cheaper' competition read the small print very closely...
8) Search this forum, there's a bunch of threads already there about telecom stuff to help you.

They are Crap...but the best of the bunch

I am a satisfied customer.
I know others have had problems, but I never had, they showed up when they said they would, if I have had problems with Tonline- when I call, they have always been very good and followed up. Got my handy with Telekom too!
Yeah, I pay more for it, but then again, from what I have heard about other companies, they are all just as bad. I guess I have just been very luck with DT.

@Carm, YorkshireLad6
Good for you guys, seriously. You're honestly the first people who I've come across who are.

Possibly no longer the case. T-Online changed their contracts on the fly late last year and committed their customers to annual renewal unless they give 3-months notice before the end of the year. The contractual change was optional, but this wasn't clear on the announcement they sent out, and many were changed without the customer actually realising it. You can probably cancel phone and DSL line at 6 days notice, but not the T-Online access account.

I am happy with T-kom..
And Jules... you know me!

No shit sherlock...

My Ass.

f#cking @#$#@^$#%$#^^$#%$%@!#@$#%$#$#@ @#$%#@^^$#@%@$#%$#@ %$@#%$#@%$%$$@#$#^ $@#^$#^$#@^$#@^$ %&$%^*&%%^&%#$^$#@%#$@% $%#@^%^%$#^%%^#^%@@ It would keep on going like this for quite some time, however I think you get the idea

I hate the bastards!

I never really had any problems(that were not my own fault) with DT either.

I think the reason you only *hear* of people who have problems with DT is because they are the people who are vocal about it. You dont see me, Carm, YL6 etc starting threads about how "no problems" DT is. I guess thats the problem for required services, unless you do an outstanding job, the only press you will get is bad press.

After a DSL fiasco with the scum over at Tiscali, I've been OK with my Telekom DSL connection. My only gripe is the fact that T-online and Telekom are completely the same company, but they're not. I get one bill a month, but apparently they are totally different companies, even though they are bloody not.

It's not Deutsche Telekom, it's phone companies in general. All over the world. When I was living in the US I had to go through more shit with Bell Atlantic than here with DT. In my experience, it is always better to go with the market leader, in this case DT, no matter how crappy they are, b/c the smaller ones tend to be even crappier.

Its like a number of similar constellations in Germany & possibly elsewhere...

They are one company when it suits them & separate also when it suits them ...)

There are so many things I love about Germany but DT and its mini-me T-com are not among them. The failed to connect my office adequately for three months and have then randomly cut me off twice for not paying bills they have never sent me. How can you run a business with muppets like these supplying the communications service?

Although I don't use telekom directly, once when I had to upgrade to DSL6000 though my provider,
telekom had to do the switching.
The guy called to make an appointment, did the job at the specified time ( +- 15 min ) and even SMS my mobile to say it was done.
It was really done.

When I first came here my agnet did the phone thingy..and I think there were no big issues...

Any one out there had problems with telephone providers in their own country?

I had a bad experience with BT when I was in the UK..

The way that you lot carry on on this site does get my goat at times..

Why dont you all go and sign up to www.lets-moan-about-munich.com?

Apparently NTL in the UK are a disaster.

NTL are a disaster - did you see the website NTLHell or something set up by their customers to gripe about them? It was quite amusing.

Edit: Just found it again, and it's been upgraded...
http://forums.ntlhell.co.uk/

never had problams with BT myself and was taken aback by how bad DT was in comparison when so many other things here isn Munich are so much better than back in Blighty.

At my most exasperated point I told someone on DTs customer service team that this was the worst service I had ever had. He replied 'No it isn't" which was such a gobsmackingly absurd thing for a customer service preson to say that I laughed out loud.

I was once reprimanded for not being able to speak German by a helpdesk agent when I called to try to find out why our internet connection, which was supposed to have been set-up in a few days, still didn't work after a month!

Hi Im new to this forum, and I like it already!!! D Telecom has to be one of the worst experiences I've had here in Germany. The first 10 months of living here they couldnt get our phone line to work,Then we moved to Berlin and it took them 6-7 months. And now that they flicked a switch in their office somewhere and it works ,I dont use it!!! BUY CALLING CARDS FROM INTERNET SHOPS AND ITS A BETTER DEAL ANYWAY!

Maybe we should of kicked up a big fuss , or told people off , then maybe they get things done faster"who knows"...But Im not changing for anyone!

[quote name='Tom17' date='Nov 9 2006, 7:57 am' post='758642'. You dont see me, Carm, YL6 etc starting threads about how "no problems" DT is. [/quote]
Maybe we should start a club?

no if you start a club we can then call you organized and burn you at the stake, whereas right now your just heathens.

seriously thought dt was going smoothly again until the hicup that happened yesterday. I find the service from dt very good until something abnormal happens, ie change of package or somewhat. When it comes to billing they are absolutely useless and the dual company part is scary in this direction. I just wish they had people you could talk to face to face and sort things out. Over the phone is just not really cool sometimes.

If Telekom fit this 16Mb VDSL internet line they are promising - they can have my babies.

VDSL is supposed to offer speed up to 50Mbps.

If you've only been been offered a 16Mb line then it's not VDSL but ADSL2+. They both share the general requirement for fibre-optic connections on the backbone but are totally different services.

YL6

Hey! I'm Ian, and I hate them more than you do!

In Germany people tend to have respect for authority and consider DT an authority still. This is the reason that they do not try to sort the problems out. The other telekoms companies try much harder to please. Even if they are technically no better.

No german grannie ever leaves Deutsche Telekom!

It is for this reason that we should vote with our wallets and quit Telekom and give the non-monopoly companies a chance. If we all sit back and do nothing, they will continue to walk all over us.

People have and they turn out to be even crapper.

eg Arcor and NTL.

Do try and keep up dear.

See the following Ok, we have to learn how to spell my name about the name thingy. I can assure you I hate T com and Deutsche Telekom even more than i hate the stadtwerk. They have fucked my life up much more than simply delaying my internet connection.

on a funny not I talked to a rep on the phone the other day regarding the fact that they had simply stopped taking money out of my account. After struggling through the whole thing in german, it got a bit complicated at times, he was reading out a number to track the payment. Out of the ten numbers he read the last four digits in english. So me being the asshole I am said "ah sie haben mir doch nicht gesagt das sie englisch sprechen. koennen wir ein paar sache auf Englisch erklaren" I was told his english wasn't up to that. So why read the last four numbers in english you fat pig!?!

VDSL, ADSL, SPUNKDSL. I don't care what they call it - just as long as it turns up and works nice and quick.

Unfortunately none of the "non-monopoly companies" (Arcor, MNet, Alice) give access to call-by-call numbers.

You cannot get crappier than DT!

And besides, I'm advocating chopping and changing to push the whole market. Making bad publicity work for us. Sticking with monoliths effectively prevents any newcomers to the market. These we need. Even if at first they are not up to speed.

Surprise Surprise.

Internet connection is NOT available. Despite the website having my phone number, correct address and telling me "Congratulations 16Mb Internet is available" they cannot even supply 384k DSL-Lite to me.

Tossers again.

The technician who sorted the phone assured us on Friday 29 December that internet would be running by Saturday 30 December.
Nothing by 1 January.
Calls to three different service numbers on 1 January, everyone listened to us and said sorry for your troubles but no one is working today.
Got confirmation that the confirmed date was missed. (Big mistake of DT, they should never admit that!)
Received a ticket number and a promise to take care of it within 24 hours.
Called this morning (2 January) 7.30am to stress the urgency, received call back 8.30am.
To make a long story short, T-Online had the old address with the new configuration, T-Com had the new address with the old configuration, each overrid the other and kept switching the phone line and the internet line off and on, T-Online had us hooked up to a faulty port and had promised a higher speed than is available in our area, finally the technician (a very competent, good-looking, curly-haired blond woman) came around, hooked on her modem - nada. Switched us to a functioning port, there you go!!!
I suppose it was evil karma that drew a bad configuration of incidents to us, or else I would have to accuse Deutsche Telekom of complete and utter inefficiency, incapability and incurable slowness.
For others in our situation: Be stubborn, insist on a technician coming around within 6 hours and not in 8 days, make sure that your appliances are in working order, tell DT that you have tried all the usual solutions (such as switching off and on again).

its coz you are a volvo driver

What urgency? Do they respond to not being able to access TT?

its urgent because we need VPN access to our work networks, not just for surfing TT
regards
Scogs and Sarabyrd