Normal Service is Resumed

A series of problems have conspired to keep me from writing the blog for almost two weeks. The first was lack of internet access courtesy of AOL, but more of that later. We had a very stressful few days before we finally got back online, but then I was ill. I don't know exactly what was wrong, no doubt the doctor would say it was a 'virus' but whatever it was I felt absolutely dreadful and I spent several days in bed. I am feeling better but I hope nobody else gets it because it really wiped me out.

On a Thursday morning two weeks ago our internet connection failed at about 8am. It seemed that no internet signal was reaching the router but our telephone was working perfectly, so I wondered if there was a problem with our cables. I popped out to buy new cables but when I tried them there was still no signal, I even tried a different router but still there was nothing. I got the line checked and there was nothing wrong with the line, so there was no alternative we had to ring AOL. Robbie rang them first, but he had to give up on the call after half an hour because the man would not deviate from his script and was no help whatsoever. I hate having to talk to call centres in foreign countries at the best of times, but AOL have taken poor service to an all time low. 


Anyway after over two hours of being passed from one unhelpful person to the next totally useless person I was reduced to tears of frustration. Not one of them spoke good enough English to understand me and I had extreme difficulty understanding them. To make matters worse they kept putting me on hold and playing dreadful music down the phone. My blood pressure must have been off the scale! They couldn't solve my problem, they didn't even seem to care about it. At one point they told Robbie that they could not check our internet signal because their equipment was broken and they had no idea when it would be working again! I told them that I had suffered enough and I wanted to leave AOL - NOW!! They treated me with total contempt and disconnected my call, but after calling back and queueing for an eternity they finally gave us the mac code needed to transfer to another provider.


We now have a better and faster internet service at less than half the price charged by AOL and as an added bonus  their call centre staff speak and understand English! So normal service has been resumed and I will be able to bring the blog up to date.

In a Queue

Robbie seems surprisingly chilled about losing his wallet, all he could talk about last night was train stuff. He seemed very impressed that a charter train had gone through Northampton - I was less impressed! I had spent what seemed like hours on the telephone in a queue, trying to sort out the mess caused by lost credit cards. He is a second card holder on my credit card, so he was only able to put a stop on that account, I had to ring them to go through a whole set of questions with them. Then I had to try to rescue my Boots card points, I had let him take the card to get some aftershave, on Sunday, I had a lot of money on it so I was very upset about it being lost. I hate having to queue on the telephone, they always want to inflict dreadful music on me. I detest classical music, any sort of music played via the phone sounds horrible, it is irritating and by the time I get to speak to a live human being I feel feel murderous!