Tuesday, Aug 16, 2005, 8:00 PMOur PLDT landline was down from July 10 to 27. That's quite a long time for us, especially since we use it for telecommuting. According to the Nth lineman who responded to our countless calls to 173 (and finally fixed things), something melted in one of their switch boxes. Huh? In any case, he assured us that an automatic rebate was in order - PLDT's way of saying sorry for more than two weeks of zero service.

Unbelieveable? Of course! PLDT is too damn big to worry about its puny, little subscribers. As expected, no rebates were reflected when our bill came. The big DISCONNECTION NOTICE stamped on it added insult to injury.

This prompted us to visit the nearby PLDT business office. After waiting for their helpdesk personnel to finish a lengthy personal phone call, we finally got some answers. In between bites of something that looked like a peanut-coated biscuit, the helpdesk lady told us that a formal letter of complaint was required by PLDT for rebate claims. No letter, no rebate. End of story. Oh, and it should contain positive proof of non-service, including specific dates and times. Yeah right! We tried that the last time our phone went on indefinite leave. They received our letter then, but no rebates were given. Heck, there wasn't even any formal reply! What a waste of time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

At the end of the day, wrestling with PLDT for a few bucks is just not worth it. Doing so will only waste more time, adding to more than two weeks of lost productivity. We paid our bill in full, the path of least resistance. As consolation, we considered most of what we paid as alms for the dead.