The title 'should' read Customer Service - but make up your own mind... this could only happen in Italy!

The Telecom Italia engineer who came yesterday morning to 'solve' the problem of my intermittent phone and ADSL line is no doubt squeaking in a voice two octaves higher than ususal.

Why? Well you might well ask! The problem was, as I've said, a phone line and internet connection that came and went with no warning whatsoever. Plus - the 187.it web page which was OOO for several days. So even if I could phone them - their link was down

I finally managed to reach them on my mobile phone - thank heavens it was a 'free call'... the promise was that an engineer would arrive within 48 hours and - miracle of miracles...he did! Once here he checked the line from the pole in the road. Then the line from my hay loft (where it was ancored) into the house and assured me that was "All A-OK"!

Then onto the line from my cordless phone link onto my 'Alice Modem' upstairs (my Internet was working at that moment). Well that seems OK he says - but then my link crashed - so off he went again

This time he tested the link by unscrewing the plug from the wall and 'jiggling' the wires around (very scientific), but he did try his line tested on the link and declared 'that' to be the problem.

"So" - I stupidly asked - "how long will it take you to fix it?"

"Me?" he asked... "I can't do it - you'll have to get an electrician to do that. It's a special kind of wall plug for the ADSL!"

"But it's a Telecom Italia modem and line - WHY can't you fix it?"

But he wouldn't have any of it - he just packed his tools and left. Having left - I discovered - all the wires out of my phone plug - so not I'd not even got an 'intermittent' connection now. Thank goodness I still had the number of the guy who did the rewire on my house, and after a grovelling call to him - he reluctantly agreed to see what he could do in the early part of the eveing. It took him 2 hours to track down the fault which was a burned/broken wire in the wall duct from the outside to my sitting room. He replaced that and I was back on line again for the princely sum of €40. But a stiff complaint has gone in about 'chummy' to Telecom Italia - not that they will care, but it makes me feel better....

Yes indeed - Only in Italia!

Carole I know EXACTLY how you feel. I get sooo angry when I hear things like this happening, why are they employed to do repairs when they know nothing about what they are doing. It was the same with me when I had problems with my conservatory (Remember I told you about the 10 year battle with the firm before they finally took it down and rebuilt it and cost me a fortune in lawyers fees etc) One day there was water coming in from the roof it was dark when the workman came out to find where the leak was coming from and my son was with me at the time, the workman went outside with a tube of silicone and just started (anywhere) to put in squirts of the silicone. My son enquired what he was doing because putting that on when it was raining it wouldnt work.
His answer was he knew that but he didnt know what he was supposed to do and felt he had to do something to justify him being at my house??
Why cant firms employ people who REALLY know the job they're supposed to be hired to do!! So it's not only Italy I bet this happens worldwide!
Emmy

You definitely do NOT want a phoneman messing with your electrical wiring. They arent trained to do that. If he messed with it and didnt know what he was doing, he could cause a fire.

Last june, my cable wire was struck by lightning. I was napping, and it wasnt raining when I went to snooze. I was woken up by the biggest boom that I ever heard in my life. I jumped up and ran into the computer room (my computer was only 8 months old). I could see my modem lights were out, so knew immediately, the cable was struck by lightning.

I did the plug-unplug ritual, several times..nothing worked..so I called the cable company. They had me repeat the ritual and then told me I could go there and get a new modem, which I did. Nada..it didnt work. I called them again and they told me a man would come the next day. My tv was also working badly..fuzzy picture.

So the guy comes out. Very nice young man. In less than 5 minutes, my tv was crystal clear..but no internet. I knew from when the new modem didnt work..that something inside the computer was struck, also. However, this guy was determined to get this thing working. I dunno..maybe he didnt know computers as well as I do. I KNEW that neither him, nor myself would get this to work. I stood behind him as he sat here messing around with the computer (which, they are NOT supposed to do). He was trying to be helpful..as I was dying a thousand deaths that he would mess something up. The computer worked fine..it just wouldnt connect, online. Believe me, it didnt take me but a few seconds to see that this guy had NO idea of what he was doing..and all I wanted was for him to get off of my computer. He finally did. He also admitted, he wasnt supposed to be sitting at the computer, trying to make it work.

I ended up taking it out for repair. It had to be sent back to HP because it was the network card that was hit, which on this computer, is on the motherboard..so that had to be changed. This took..almost a month.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is..if it isnt their line of work...then dont let them touch anything. You might end up worse that before.