They may be working for a company named Smart but they are not that smart. Really.

I have had tons of bad experiences with these Smart customer care people. I have been arguing with them most of the time and only around 2 or 3 people are exceptions. I am not finding the whole Smart experience funny, that I tell you.

I used to be a loyal Smart subscriber. A few years ago, I realized that even when I was not using my mobile phone, my load has been deducted. I mean, nobody was using my phone at home and it was always beside me. How can such happen?

I called 'em up and they told me that I had subscribed to some service of theirs which I honestly do not remember. I told them that and they said that to deactivate the service, I would have to type in some message and send it back to their company. Wow. That's another P2.50 just to stop the services. But the thing is, I am not receiving any kind of product from them - messages, ringtones, photos, etc. Nada. So how can I deactivate it?

For the tons of times that I had called them, one was only able to answer my questions and had been able to listen to what I had to say. She even said that she would then send in a request to their technical team so that the services would stop. Well, at least she did something. But the thing was, I did not get any refund. Boohoo.
Then there's this thing with my SmartBro connection. For a week at the very least, I had no Internet connection. So I told them such. To contact them, I had to wait like 5 to 10 minutes just to talk to somebody. My emails went unanswered. And because I was pretty busy, I had not much time talking to them much less wait for them to answer the phone. Those times that I was able to talk to somebody, we did some troubleshooting. But nothing still happened and they told me to have my LAN card reinstalled.

Being the PC inept that I was, I had my friend reinstall my LAN card and nothing was surely with it, he told me. So I called them up again (after almost an hour of waiting for somebody to pick up the phone and trying to call again), and they said that they would be sending in a report and I had to wait like another 48 hours. Geez!

I sent in a letter asking for a refund for it was money that was spent on nothing. But come my June bill, I see that no amount has been deducted at the very least. I told them to give me a refund for the reasons I have already stated and now they send back a reply saying that I got a P93.67 something refund. I mean, for a week's worth of no connection, you give me that mere amount as a refund? Please.

Not only that. They could not get my address right. I've sent in my information to them and still, they put in the wrong address so much so that I get to receive my bill super late. I mean, the due date is the 30th of the month, and I get it like after three days.

I wonder if Smart's doing something about this because if such continues, there will be a lot of people complaining about their services and how they handle their consumers. I realized that they are still offering the unlimited texting offer but you have to be very patient and wake up early to register. Or else, you won't be able to. I mean, how's that for an offer. Globe is offering unlimited texting as well but registering is no big deal. Send in the message and in less than 5 minutes, you're in. No need to wait for schedules or when to register and all that.

I also did get other complaints like this one from Tonyo Cruz and this one from The Smart WiFi Chronicles.