Reason given by SunCellular customer service agents - "Overused" and "Overabused".

In that article, I called on the management of SunCellular particularly Lance and Charles to respond to the growing concerns of their customers.  I am very happy to inform you that up until now, I have not received any answer, any reply from SunCellular.  Not even from my friends inside the company.  For whatever reason, everyone from the company became voiceless soldiers. 

I also called on our readers and to all the SunCellular subscribers who have experience the same problem.  Guess what?  The response was ear-popping.   Billing problems, quality of service, unsatisfactory customer support and a lot more problems were brought to my attention.

Before I share with you the emails I received, let me make it clear that I am not picking on SunCellular.  I am not saying that only SunCellular is experiencing problems.  I am sure that the other mobile service providers has their problems as well and I have brought this to the public attention.  It's just that this case is different from the others - a commitment was made, and it was cut-off without any warning at all. 

Here are some of the emails I received (I have to shorten the emails to accommodate more):

"I have read your article sa Manila Bulletin dated January 16, 2006. Just call me Ann. I have been using my SUN SIM since June last year. Nung November 30 last year, nag-load ako ng 100 pesos Call/Text Unlimited. That was lunch time when i loaded my account. At aroun 4 in the afternoon of the same day, nawala na lang ako bigla ng load. so i called Sun's hotline. Same thing din ang sabi sakin "overuse" daw. so i asked kung anong pwede kong gawin, sabi mag-load muna daw ako ng regular load to refresh my account. ang ginawa ko, bumili ako ng bagong sim card. after 3 weeks, na-cut nanaman yung account ko. reklamo nanaman ako. ganun pa rin ang sabi nila "overuse" daw. eh hindi na nga ako masyadong tumatawag. ginawa ko, nag-load ako ng 2 days text unlimited. sabi ko dun sa operator ng SUN, bakit pa nila sinabing unlimited kung may limit din pala. sayang lang yung pera ko na pinambili ng load, akala ko makakatipid ako. sabi nila, yung system daw nila ang nag-momonitor ng usage ng mga users." - Ann.

*****

"I enrolled to the 24/7 program last January 2005 and had it activated effective January 17, 2005 (refresh date).  Unfortunately the crew activated it January 13 instead of 17.  The charging for the 24/7 back then was still P250.00. Believe it or not, the computed pro-rated value for 4 days of sun cellular's billing system is 268 (how can a pro-rated value be bigger than the original value?).  I called their hotline everyday since I received the bill but the representative cannot give me a consistent answer. Every explanation for each call was different from the day before, after a couple of weeks they said that it would be adjusted the following bill (that was February). When the next two bills arrived, there was still no adjustment. I did not pay the wrong bill, as a consequence, my outgoing calls/text was disabled even though I did not reach the credit limit.  I believe that sun cellular's down fall was triggered with its 24/7 unlimited call and text program. They should state is as 24/7 unlimited problems instead. I also know a lot of people experiencing the same problem." - Joey.

*****

"How come after 1 week of unlimited consumption of their services, my SIM just got broken? when i read your column, i got the idea that maybe sun is just trying to get the new users to buy new SIM cards or in some conditions after overusing the services the SIM would just terminate itself or whatever. it's a scam. my 150php is not worth it! - Grace.

*****

"I had availed of a post paid account with Sun Cellular about 2 years ago.  I got a frantic call from my brother asking me to come home at once because of my daughter.  Worried, I tried to call using the line and - come hail or high water - I could not make my call come through!  All the while I was driving home and was using my earphone, and the network was way too busy.  I was able to get home to find a band-aided daughter just above her brow, had a cut which bled quite a lot and panicked everyone around.  The point is:  I was so frustrated because what if it was like a MAJOR emergency, then I could have lost someone dear or I might have crashed myself just out of worry.  To my mind, the reason why we availed of this cellular gadgets is to keep ourselves in touch with the people that matters to us most.  When it fails to do that and more so if the network fails to deliver what is PROMISED, then I guess there is much too account for. - Dfezie.

*****

"Why daw po nagka-cut ang unlimited ng sun pag marami kang masend na message? san po pwede magreklamo? they are using kasi the word unlimited, di po pwede yun, unfair po kasi masyado." - Rolly.
 
*****

I would like to thank all our readers who shared their experience with us and at the same time apologize to the emails I was not able to print due to space constraints.

In fairness to SunCellular, some of my friends who are SunCellular users said they didn't experience the premature cut-off eversince.  So I guess, this is a random thing.  How they select the numbers to cut-off is still a question.  I think we should call the SunCellular service the "Lucky & Unlucky 24/7 SunCellular (un)Limited Service" from now one.

I will not renew my call for SunCellular to respond.  I am sure they won't.  Instead, I am calling on NTC commissioner Ronald Olivar Solis to investigate the matter at hand.  By the way, I got a report released by NTC regarding the network performance of the mobile operators.  I will discuss this next week.

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