Unceremoniously booted out of SingTel

[taxico]

all good things come to an end. i got a text yesterday morning...



as i've been overseas most of the time, i don't check mail that looks like junk mail and usually throw singtel flyers/mailers out when i get back into Singapore.

and a big reason why i do that is also because i'm on a paperless/e-statement service with singtel and do everything with them online.

from 30GB of data on 3G speeds... they have offered me the following replacements (photo from the internet):



and if you noticed from the text message... they gave less than a month's notice. and the new plan must be picked up before Mar 31st.

and what they don't tell you is, you cannot keep your old phone number and you have to pay for a new sim ($39 or somesuch).

apparently if you bitch and moan enough, they'll about double the number of GBs on your plan for 24 months.

i might pass on it... i've missed the deadline anyway and i really don't want to have to talk to 3-4 people to get my displeasure across.

if you're on a high-limit (30GB or 50GB) 3G plan from singtel (with/without voice) and you haven't got the mailer/text... you're next!

[x9200]

I got exactly the same mail for exactly the same 30G plan already like 1 month plus ago, but besides being disgusted by all the usual wording of the liars, you know, that they do it to improve and serve me better, it has on me very little impact - I am not a heavy user, I need like 1-3GB per month.

I had such situation with another singtel plan before and even called them trying to negotiate. They were completely inflexible so I terminated the line and switched to starhub. This time I am not going to even call them. I have one extra sim card from starhub that came with a "hub" plan and I will be using it instead.

Comparing with what I had with singtel only 3-4yo (I was even a privileged customer at one point or whatever it was called) they already lost 50% to other providers.

From my experience singtel sucks much much more comparing to starhub when it comest to the customer service and related. For the technical service quality, I don't see any significant differences.
Starhub gained a lot in my eyes when I had some problems with cable bb ca 4y ago. The lady I was talking to at that time was very competent and the issue was quickly solved - IIRC, a dynamic table in one of their node routers got degenerated. I can not imagine any interaction like this with singtel front desk staff.

[ecureilx]

. I can not imagine any interaction like this with singtel front desk staff.

Singtel ? Who's front desk answers from Philippines ?

[Wd40]

The 4th Telco is coming and if you notice, both Singtel and Starhub have introduced some newer/flexible plans for both prepaid and postpaid mobile. Just 2 years ago I got my 1st ever postpaid mobile from Singtel, reason I moved to postpaid was for data, prepaid data was very expensive. Now they give 1GB data on prepaid for $10 recharge, now my 2 years contract is getting over and I am considering going prepaid, but they dont allow postpaid to prepaid number porting. So I need to evaluate how valuable my current number is. May be I will move to M1 postpaid and take their lowest plan as they give 1GB extra on your mobile data if you take their fibre broadband. Their fibre broadband is cheapest at $29 for 200 mbps. But this is still 3 months away, both my starhub cable broadband and my singtel postpaid sim contracts are getting over in Jun. I have the option of early recontracting my singtel postpaid mobile connection and the offer is very tempting for CIS customers, I get 20% off monthly subscription and get $100 off the phone price on the combo 2 plan. But I am resisting it. I will wait till Jun end.

[taxico]

(dis)heartened to hear i was not the only victim of singtel's awesome service. i will also not bother with calling them because, as wd40 astutely observed, prepaid data's reasonably priced now. And beyond $10 for 1gb, i even get 500mb free for a month when i top-up $10 at m1.com.sg...

i have a really nice (okay, nice IMO) post-paid cell number... and now that i'm overseas often, i don't use it but can't really bear to part with it as it was a gift from my wife.

it's on a $15 plan from M1... BUT... i suspend it for 6 months ($5/month), re-activate for a month (without caller-id), and suspend again after that month is up.

if you forget to re-activate after 6 months, there's an extra $20 fee and at some point the line will be terminated and the number unrecoverable. i paid something like $250 in advance to take care of the bill for a year or two.

back when i suspended my line, they did not have cheaper plans on any telco. but starhub now has a $14 plan... not enough to lure me away as starhub and singtel loves charging for sim card/registration.

now for e-banking i use an m1 pre-paid sim as it roams for free and receiving texts are also free. useful for when i'm back in Singapore and i need to make that call or two.

[ecureilx]

(dis)heartened to hear i was not the only victim of singtel's awesome service. i will also not bother with calling them because, as wd40 astutely observed, prepaid data's reasonably priced now. And beyond $10 for 1gb, i even get 500mb free for a month when i top-up $10 at m1.com.sg...
.

Talking about Singtel, having been with them for more than 12 years, billed under my name, and average of 500 $ plus a month, due to roaming (company paid it though), when I was out of town for 2 month and couldn't make a payment, line was suspended. Customer loyalty ? Nope. Not for Singtel. Even after making about $70k ++ from me.

Singtel rocks!!!!!

[x9200]

So assuming it's the same for everybody (I didn't bother to find the original letter from singtel) the 30GB service should cease to work from today. It is already removed from my Account Summary on the singtel web page, but the card still works. Curious if this is still going to be the case on tomorrow.

[taxico]

my service was stopped at around 4AM on April 12th. (early morning of the day before the date listed in the text)

nice!

[x9200]

This morning mine dead too.

They clearly have too many clients. I realize that this is not like a big deal for them (I paid ca $14 for the service) but then, seeing from the usage history I am a very modest user, they should have proposed something fair yet something I could feel comfortable with, for example LTE/5GB/~$10.

I remember when I came to Singapore I subscribed to Starhub mobile and few months later terminated the line, because at that time the text messages didn't get through to my home country. At the termination request I received the call asking to explain my decision. For Singtel, I terminated in last few years a residential line and 2 mobile bb and nobody cared. I have to check what is left and what the other can offer and just terminate all of them.

[rajagainstthemachine]

i've always been prepaid for the last 4 years i've been here, and doing 10$ topups, the bare minimum.
I don't see a point to subscribe to useless shoddy services i don't need.
10$ top ups give me 500MB of data for 15 days, its enough to check emails/whatsapp for 15 d and then i top up 10$ again. (pro tip: better to do a 10$ top up twice a month than doing 20$ once because these asshats give you 500Mb per topup irrespective of the amount)

[ecureilx]

my service was stopped at around 4AM on April 12th. (early morning of the day before the date listed in the text)

nice!

They aren't gonna miss you and x9200 .. they never missed me

Welcome to The Business Driven Telco

[x9200]

i've always been prepaid for the last 4 years i've been here, and doing 10$ topups, the bare minimum.
I don't see a point to subscribe to useless shoddy services i don't need.
10$ top ups give me 500MB of data for 15 days, its enough to check emails/whatsapp for 15 d and then i top up 10$ again. (pro tip: better to do a 10$ top up twice a month than doing 20$ once because these asshats give you 500Mb per topup irrespective of the amount)

You have to remember to top it up and I am not too good in this - its a dongle I use under linux or iOS, it doesn't tell me, hey, top me up please, and even if it did I have better things to do then topping it up every 15 days.

I had the same problem with the mobile bb I keep for my mother back at home. I wasted a few $100 over 5-6y just so I could have a break in this idiotic topping up every few months. Finally I convinced her to get a post-paid plan. Huge relief and savings.

[bgd]

Never had any issues with Singtel. I was on a corporate scheme and needed to change my phone. They said call back in a week, redoing the corporate plans. Three weeks later it was call back in a month.

Transferring to Starhub was seamless and so far all is fine.

[ecureilx]

Never had any issues with Singtel. I was on a corporate scheme and needed to change my phone. They said call back in a week, redoing the corporate plans. Three weeks later it was call back in a month.

Transferring to Starhub was seamless and so far all is fine.

Yes, Singtel takes care of corporate plans. All others - nope, not interested

[Wd40]

Without CIS(Corporate Individual Scheme) it is senseless taking a postpaid connection. Consider this: Without CIS, you need to pay for caller ID, $5, you need to pay for autoroam too. Also typically for MNCs you get around 20% discount in the monthly bill, inspite of this postpaid feels like a rip off.
I was on the old singtel plan equivalent to combo 2. After 20% discount my monthly bill is $30. I get 100 mins talktime, 2GB data. They gave me a $300 worth phone for free in the beginning for a 2 yr contract. I sold the phone right away for $270. So amortizing the $270 and then taking into account those stupid sim charges etc, my monthly cost works out to about $20.

Now that contract is coming to an end, but I have no inclination for going for another 2 yr contract.