In a state of confusion, internetly...

To my friends, please note that I have terminated my tmnet account w.e.f. Oct 26.
Please direct emails to kosong_cafe@yahoo.com or keshinh@streamyx.com. Until I have sorted out my computer problems, I will not be able to open the mails unless I do it at the internet café.

After I have terminated the account, I realised I still have emails in different folders and email addresses which might be lost forever but that is something to be expected from an IT unsavvy person like myself.

Using an old computer, making do with whatever softwares that are still working and I have again encountered the same problem I had before when I subscribed for Streamyx – unable to access email using streamyx.

Like before, I had to use Tmnet, which is time-based to access mail from tmnet, streamyx and yahoo. To deal with the unfair situation, I had to leave out those mails with big attachments until I can sort out the cause of it. I could not help thinking this could be a deliberate ruse by Telekom! Reason? Why did it happen to me twice?

It was with some comfort to read about IT-savvy person like Jeff Ooi having similar problems though unrelated:
OCTOBER 25, 2007
"Gmail blues... ( 3 )
I don't have time to plot the proxy server settings to access my Gmail. But it bugs me for the 4th day now"

I have tried following instructions from Tmnet website to the letter, yet unable to solve it.

I subscribed for Streamyx again on Sept 10 and got to use it effective from Sept 13. I used my Tmnet account to check mail only which took between 10 to 30 minutes.
When I received my latest internet bill (access at 1 sen per minute) for month to Oct 10, amounting to Rm26.84, I decided to terminate the account as it will be always my word against them and in all probability, someone could have got my password and used my account.

I stopped using tmnet, except for checking mail, since Sept 13. Yet the latest bill, which would have included my past normal usage for 2 days only (Sept 11 and 12), costed Rm26.84. I have calculated, using my highest amount for the last 6 months ie. 64.83 to work out my 2 days’ average cost and it came to 4.32. Deduct this from 26.84 and the balance of 22.52 for my 28 days works out to 80 sen per day or 80 minutes! I am the only one at home using the computer and I made it a point to use tmnet for checking mail without attachments if I could resist it. The first two days when I started to record, I used only 7 and 8 minutes. Sometimes, if I am not expecting urgent mail from my children, I checked after 2 days. The reason for this particular exercise is to prove to myself that some billing systems are unreliable or like in this case, someone could be secretly using my account. Once proven, then I can make a decision to terminate the account without further argument.

We had a bad experience with Celcom before it was taken over by Telekom. Certain calls for previous month were included in the following month’s bill and when asked was explained as having missed in the previous billing. Just like that. Since then, we have stuck to prepaid in spite of all the attractive offers for post-paid. Those really good offers have minimum amounts, which are higher than our usage so it defeats the purpose of saving.

All along I was unhappy with the tmnet bills (because of different names) using different dates, which make it impossible to check the accuracy. Eg. our telephone billing date is 25th which includes the internet 1515 rate at 1.5 sen per minute while the internet billing date is 10th which charges internet access at 1 sen per minute.

For the record, my Tmnet bills for the past 6 months were as follows:
25th /10th
May 74.76 /64.83
Jun 64.32 /47.91
Jul 29.31 /47.68
Aug 60.67 /22.99
Sep 33.30 /34.10
Oct ? /26.84

For the month of July, I was away from July 6 till July 31 which made it all the more difficult to check for any unusual charges.

Note the combined amounts far exceeded the unlimited broadband charges, which start from Rm66 per month. That was in spite of much restraint in usage (eg. in May averaging 3 hours per day!) But for this I had myself to blame for putting off subscribing for Streamyx because of my phobia.

What is important now is the use of broadband for internet banking, especially for real-time stock prices and trading, update my blogsite and be able to surf without worrying about the time. The email problem will hopefully be sorted out when the technician comes.

By the way, Mary Schneider had described her frustration before when dealing with recorded messages.

Last Friday, around 4 pm, I wanted to terminate my tmnet account but I was unsure of Telekom’s closing time. I called 3669191 which I had in my list. A recorded message directed me to 100. After dialling 100, select 1 for Bahasa Malaysia and 2 for English; then select 1 for telephony and data services, 2 for internet, 3 for Celcom; then select 1 for technical assistance, 2 for billing, etc. etc. I used to walk past Kedai Telekom almost every day, yet I cannot dial a number to speak to one of them to enquire about closing time!

Sometimes, I prefer the good old days.