Brazilian telephone companies / How to get p'd off without trying

Well, while the rest of my move to Macaé - RJ has gone quite smoothly and I'm now in a rather cute little house and all is organized... trying to arrange for telephone and broadband internet service has been nothing but a nightmare.

I must confess that when I lived in São Paulo I thought that Telefonica was the world's worst outfit to deal with as well as being the laziest. However, Oi RJ has got to be the record holder on both counts. Absolutely nobody who deals with the public seems to know what they are doing, they can't get basic information right even when it is given to them quite clearly and they enter incorrect information into their computer system that causes delays and services not being provided.

Upon arrival in Macaé I contacted Oi to request a residential telephone line and internet hook-up. To my surprise, even though the call center operator had informed me of a possible 7 day wait, I got a phone call from the installer two days later trying to confirm my address because he couldn't find it. As it turned out he was given an address that was completely wrong and not even in the area where he worked. He apologized and informed me that he would pass the work order back to operations and it would be forwarded to the appropriate installer. To this point no big deal.

Almost a week later I got another call from a different installer, again asking for confirmation of my address (still incorrect) a short while later he arrived to start working on stringing the phone line from the lightpole to the residence, connect the terminal at the corner of the street and then was off to find the central switching station some blocks away to track down the line that had the signal from the beeper that he left connected to this end of the line. Finally I got my phone installed. In most cases this would be the end of all problems and cause for celebration... not in Macaé.

Next followed a series of phone calls from none other than Oi (about 10 in all) each of them asking for all the same information that they had been given with the initial request for service. Address, complete name, RNE, CPF and all that good stuff. Each time I gave clear answers in fluent Portuguese, however it appears that none of the operators I dealt with were able to correctly enter the most basic of information in the computer system, nor could they give accurate information or responses to my questions.

I was advised that the modem would be sent to my residence within 7 days - NOT. On the eighth day I phoned Oi to complain that the modem had not yet arrived only to be informed that it had been sent out 2 days before and returned because the delivery service was unable to find the address (which had been clearly given to Oi no less than 12 different times). Once again I gave the operator my address in perfect Portuguese thinking that maybe this time I would soon have a modem in hand and get back into cyberspace. She told me that she would put in an emergency request for a modem to be sent out the following day. The next afternoon I got a phone call from the delivery service driver who was lost and couldn't find the address. I gave it to him and he arrived a short time later with my modem. The address on the delivery form (despite all the repetitions) was totally wrong. Seems that nobody at Oi has ever heard of or even used Google Maps.

I unpacked the modem and installed the software thinking that my problems were now over and I would be online in a matter of moments - NOT! To my dismay the configuration process wouldn't complete and it appeared that there was no ADSL signal. After another call to Technical Support and trying everything that the technician suggested still nothing. He arranged to come to my resdidence the following day between 8 a.m. and noon to resolve the problem - NOT! He never did show up. Another call to Oi, much to my surprise, confirmed that there was no ADSL signal because the line had not been activated for internet nor did it appear that it even would be.

Finally, completely out of patience I called Oi and requested that they cancel all services, telephone, broadband - the whole shot. That's where their bureaucracy kicked in. What followed was a series of no less than 10 separate attempts to contact the department that deals with cancellations - on 4 of them the call was answered, however nobody spoke, just left the line open for me to hear all of the operators laughing and joking amongst themselves, playing about when they should be working. On the other calls nothing was resolved and mostly the operators were rather rude. On my final call, still nothing resolved, I informed the operator in no uncertain terms that I wanted nothing further to do with Oi and that I intended to get up on the roof and pull out the newly installed phone line and throw it into the street and that if they didn't send somebody to collect the modem it would soon meet the same fate. Still nothing resolved that is exactly what I did. I'm still waiting to see if somebody shows up to collect the modem.

I registered an online complaint with ANATEL the national agency governing telephone companies, however I don't hold out any great hopes of any resolution. In the meantime I bought a chip for the 3G modem I had been using on my notebook in São Paulo in the past and I am using it on my desktop pc, if it serves my needs I will be getting another 3G modem and chip and this one will go back to being dedicated to the notebook.

As far as telephone service here goes I have only one word to say and it is not Oi, it's TCHAU.