I admit it. This is a bit of a rant. But I'll try to disguise the company names so as to not embarrass anyone too much.
So I get back from Penang, turn on my Korean phone, and it begins heating up. This is new. The battery life has always been horrible, but now I'm only getting a few minutes from a fully charged battery. Guess it's time to indulge my masochistic tendencies and interact with the manufacturer's service center... I know it's going to be painful...
I take it in to get repaired. Simple enough. It only took an hour to find out that it will take 3 days to repair. I guess I come back later then...
When I get back, the phone is "repaired", but I can't use it. The maufacturer has a partnership with the provider, and the provider won't provide the service to the "fixed" phone. I try and try to get them just to get the phone working, but they simply refuse because of their self-inflicted red-tape.
But to be fair, let's look at it from the provider's perspective. If someone's phone breaks, then you should stop providing the service. And to turn the service back on, you should make sure that you make as much red-tape as possible just like when the phone was first registered. It would be unfair to offer the phone service to a fixed phone. It might be stolen or who knows? Can't make this easy for regular customers! No sir! Have to assume they are criminals to start! Customers like being treated as criminals. It proves that we care about their security and safety. Perhaps in the future, we can throw them in prison until they confess... That will show that we REALLY care!
Sigh...
Well, I suppose that it will take me another week to get this fixed. So in the meantime, let's see if I can find any decent way to rent a phone or get a prepaid phone or get the 070 SKTelink Internet phone...
Renting a phone conveniently -- Only at the airport or one other location. STRIKE ONE!
Getting a prepaid phone -- Can't find anything that looks remotely sane. STRIKE TWO!
070 Internet phone -- There's no "BUY NOW" anywhere on the site. STRIKE THREE!
I suppose I just haven't endured enough pain yet. There must be some more before I can solve a small problem like getting a phone fixed.
The root of the above problems comes from a few things:
- How the phone manufacturer and service provider don't have their act together
- It's virtually impossible to get a phone if you are not a Korean citizen, and there are lots more hoops to jump through
- The 주민등록번호 (JuMinDeungNokBunHo) system in Korea is still very broken, but is always mandatory for everything from signing up for a free email account to getting a phone
- Korean companies just don't know how to make things easy for customers (Actually, most companies period don't, and larger companies only get worse)
I think I have a solution though for the mobile phone problem. Get a new one from scratch and get the old phone number forwarded. I just wonder how painful it will be to actually get the number forwarded... I'd rather that they just punch me in the stomach than make me run around chasing my tail and creating new problems everytime the last one got fixed. (You can never have too many problems. I suppose that's why unemployment is low here. Create problem. Hire someone to fix problem. Unemployment problem gone!)
For the 070 phone, the jury is still out. I've sent them an email asking how to buy the phone and service, so we'll see. I still want that no matter what.
Ok. Rant over.
Ryan