The struggle to get reimbursed by my Internet provider for a mistake they made has required me to scream, make threats and get personal just so that someone in a position of power will listen to me. My unfortunate take away is that in many cases, the powerless can only get through to the powerful through force.
In mid-April, I experienced some problems with my internet connection at home that required several technicians from my provider (a company called HOT) to come to my apartment within the span of a week. I was so unhappy with my internet reception – which I rely on for the work I do – that I was considering leaving the company. But because the alternatives in Israel are sparse and not necessarily better or cheaper, I didn’t have much choice but to wait it out and try to save myself some time and more headaches.
The third or fourth technician who came to my house during that week was very nice. But unfortunately, he was also careless. He needed to move my laptop from my desk to the floor where the router is, in order to connect it – and after doing so, he was shuffling around with some cables, rushing, and managed to accidentally step on my open laptop with his heavy work boots.
When I saw him kind of fumble I thought, ok, that was close. But since he didn’t say anything I figured all was ok. But then a few minutes later, while he was on the phone with his manager still trying to figure out why my internet connection was so unreliable, I went over to my laptop and noticed that the trackpad was completely crushed. I turned to him, in shock, and said “Hey, you stepped on my computer just now and broke it and didn’t even bother to tell me?!”
He said he didn’t realize he actually broke anything when he stepped on it – which I couldn’t bring myself to believe – and immediately told me he is sorry and that the company would pay for it. I appreciated his sentiments but did not for a moment think it would be that easy to get the company to pay for this mistake he had made. Since I work freelance, I depend on my computer for everything and was understandably upset.
I demanded he sign something admitting he broke it and that the company is obligated to pay for it, and had him list his I.D. number, phone number and whatever else I could get from him. I took a picture of him and the damage. Document, document, document, I thought. That’s the only way there’s any chance I will be reimbursed for this. He immediately called his manager and told him what happened and relayed to me not to worry – that the company would reimburse me. I asked to speak to this manager but he said that would not be possible. I asked to get his phone number or have him call me, but I was told this is outside the bounds of the protocol – that I could only refer to HOT’s customer service.
Statement I demanded technician sign (private info blocked out)
On the day it happened, I spoke to customer service immediately to report the incident and was told that once I get my computer fixed I should send them the receipt and would be immediately reimbursed. I insisted that not a shekel should come out of my pocket since this was their fault and their responsibility and that I don’t have extra cash laying around. So I demanded they provide the exact amount based on the price quote I get and pay it directly. But of course they informed me this was impossible. Luckily my entire computer was not broken and I could still use it, despite the track pad being completely shattered - but what would have happened if the computer was incapacitated, the computer I rely on for my income day in and day out? Who would provide me with an alternative computer or compensate me for all the working hours lost?
I proceeded to go to the trouble of figuring out the fastest and most efficient way to repair my computer and on May 23, I had to pay NIS 1,000 (nearly $300) out of my own pocket to fix my computer.That is a lot of money for me.
It has been nearly three months since my computer was broken and over a month since I paid for its repair, and I still have not been reimbursed. On the same day it was repaired, I faxed over and emailed everything I needed to and received confirmation that it was being handled.
In the last month, I have been on the phone countless times with various customer representatives and more managers than I can count. Each conversation I have had has taken anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour, due to the regular wait involved in such calls, my needing to go over my story over and over – despite it supposedly being documents by them in their records – being transferred to every single department because each one shirked responsibility for it, and being forced to plea with these representatives that they give me some answers on how I’m going to get this money, or transfer me to a manager who can help me. Just trying to reach a manager who has some authority to move the process forward was a challenge.
Without exception, every time I have spoken to a customer service representative or manager from this company, the only way I received any service or answers, was through force. First i would speak with them politely and calmly, yet assertively. Their responses were always the same: We assure you we are doing everything we can and will get back to you. More times than not, they do not get back to me, but when they do, it is always a different story. I have heard everything under the sun about the status of my reimbursement: that it is being approved by the finance department, that the check has been written but needs to be signed by the entire management staff before being released, that it has already been sent (that was two weeks ago, and nothing), that a check is not being sent but rather has already been reimbursed to my account, and along the way, i have had several managers tell me that because I didn’t report on the incident within two weeks of when it happened, that it was too late to have it reimbursed. All have been pure lies.
I have had to resort to screaming, threats and personal slights in order to move things forward. (And often ended up in tears because of the state I had to resort to to get any service). Sometimes that didn’t even work, and then I had to resort to making it personal, saying things like “I am sure you are a good person with a family at home, but you work for a lying cheating company, so if you have any integrity or moral compass, you will stop lying to me and make sure this money is reimbursed to me.” That worked some of the time. But when it didn’t, I had to resort to pure threats: “I have recorded all these conversations, I have a lawyer and will sue the company and report you as well.” It’s unbelievable – a polite and assertive demand to speak to a manager never worked – but personal attacks and threats always worked. Like clockwork.
The latest news today is that the check (again) has been put in the mail. This is just two days after I was told that there was no check being processed but instead they would credit my account. Well, I guess I’ll wait and see if anything actually arrives. I told the last manager that if it doesn’t come, he can go to sleep with the knowledge that he is a liar and works for a repulsive company.
I really have very little power or leverage against this large company, for which NIS 1000 is nothing, and for me, a large chunk of my monthly income. I could turn to a lawyer and legal proceedings, but that is expensive and timely and who knows what will happen. The bottom line is that there is almost no sense of accountability on their part and whether or not I get the money back depends largely on the whims of the people dealing with my issue. Ironically, my Internet has been working great since my computer was broken.
This story feels to me like a microcosmic metaphor for the state of affairs in this country, in which communities who are severely disenfranchised and hold no economic or political power in this society must turn to extreme acts of civil disobedience and resistance in order to get their voices heard. Otherwise the powers that be simply don’t feel the need to listen.
Unfortunately, there are too many examples in the world in which, when capitalism and political power are combined, the only way to get things to budge is through force.
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Danny
@Mairav: Much sympathy to you. If I were you, I would stop calling these dipshits and simply take them to small claims court. Ask for the original 1000 NIS, plus 5000 NIS damages for lost time and grief. In addition, cancel your account with them and go with the other guys. Hit them exactly where it hurts. Don’t waste any more of your time talking or pleading with them.
AFP
So frustrating…and so familiar. This reminds me of so many experiences, but one in particular stands out – when I ordered a new battery for my computer from a store in Tel Aviv, which did not work on its arrival to me in Jerusalem. I had to yell and scream for them to even agree to reimburse me (instead of sending me a new battery, which is what they wanted), and they still insisted I pay the return shipping!?!
Robert
This reads like you had to share your hissy fit and make some rather clumsily constructed analogy about Israel. I am pretty sure this happens in every industrialized country on the planet, be it Israel , the USA , Germany or Argentina. Only in Iran does it work differently, there they shoot you for accessing the www.
I love it when the personal problems of the Left are so serious that they begin to merge with something like the ME conflict or say mass rapes in Bosnia.
Lisa Goldman
Actually, Robert, Israel is pretty unique amongst industrialized nations in the way service providers cheat their customers with impunity. HOT is notorious; and I, as a former customer, had an experience very similar to Mairav’s. It took five months to resolve, with me breaking into tears of frustration on one occasion. When I finally received part of the money owed me, I told the customer service representative that she should at least apologize for having effectively stolen my money and wasted hours of my time. Her response? “You got your money back. What do you want – a bouquet of flowers?”
When acquaintances heading to Israel for a year’s sabbatical or a fellowship ask my advice, the first thing I tell them is not to sign any contracts with service providers. Use pre-paid SIM cards for your phone and free WiFi at cafes, and don’t even think of ordering cable television.
Israeli television’s consumer report shows have run several exposes of HOT and other service providers over the past few years, with no results at all. The only thing a customer can do is take the case to small claims court, but that takes months.
Philos
Much sympathy Mairav. I loathe HOT. I will never do business with them although the competition isn’t much better. I agree entirely that it is a microcosm of the entire Israeli system; feckless, unaccountable and callous.
.
On that note you’ll be surprised to learn that there is no word in Hebrew for “accountability.” There is a word for responsibility “אחריות” but not for accountability. I think this explains a lot. How many times do you hear an Israeli politician just say, “I accept responsibility but the fault is not mine.” I’m sure Elizer Ben-Yehuda didn’t anticipate that. “Anticipate” is another word that doesn’t exist in the Hebrew language
XSAGal
Emm Im a long time customer of hot (couple of years)
so far no huge problems
חמסה חמסה
knock on wood
but I suppose all survice providers here are below standard (including the electic company.. postal service… Kupot holim ect..)
B7
Unfortunately, this is very typical among Israeli companies and the way in which business is conducted in this country. Some companies are far worse than others, and should be avoided at all costs. HOT, Orange, and 012 are, in my experience, the worst offenders. With HOT especially, we had to go to our bank and instruct them to cancel the “horat keva” (automatic billing) because HOT wouldn’t let us cancel our contract and attempts to do so got a similar run-around. Cancel the horat keva, that gets their attention. I’m never dealing with them again.
Mairav Zonszein
@Philos, thanks. Actually there is a word for accountability in Hebrew but it is relatively new and just an add on to responsibility, clearly not internalized: אחריותיות
You are right about Anticipate. מצפה but that could be both looking forward and anticipating, so its not sufficient. We should come up with a word for anticipate!
Tamar
Thanks, Mairav, for speaking up in this post/channel/forum. My suggestion: Let’s list here the worst providers in Israel, and why. Such a list would help us, consumers.
.
My vote for USA Worst Service Award Winner: Comcast (same kind of “service” “provider” as HOT).
max
Mairav – I concur with Danny – small claims court is the place to get reimbursed also for your wasted time.
As for “when capitalism and political power are combined” – there’re enough ex-Soviets in Israel to refute your ‘explanation’.
BTW, a possible (unused) Hebrew word for anticipate would be לקדום, but it seems like the development of Hebrew isn’t moving towards nuanced meanings, as so many people adopted the American trend of, well, ‘you know what I mean’
Mairav Zonszein
@Max, well I’m no ex-Soviet, but I’d take it a step further and points to the combination between capitalism and democracy that allows for such corruption while providing a veneer of liberty
max
Mairav, sorry, I don’t see the correlation between the lack of ‘accountability’ and the governance system.
In general, accountability is a very loaded term that is applied, with different meanings, to various disciplines; morality is probably the one you refer to, not the political domain.
Can you claim that your knowledge of countries and their respective governance accountability practices lead you to detect such a correlation?
I see here a cultural – moral – link, and Israeli society is notorious for its lack of discipline in general, and in parallel its affection and help in other situations.
Have a look at Prof. Gad Yair’s non-scholarly study of ‘Israeliness’ to find the reason for your agony: http://coolcite.com/blog/1227/?post=89
.
As for the term in Hebrew – דין וחשבון is a very old Hebrew term, and is actually mentioned when dealing with the origin of the English term. So what’s missing is the ‘role’ associated with the task: English is very powerful for such new creations, German close to it, and French – like Hebrew – has no such built-in capabilities… French – like Hebrew – has Accountability but not (the exact) Accountable.
Russian also has its accountable people, and yet corruption is rife at all levels.
Piotr Berman
I have some experience in USA, and the most friendly entity in case of errors that cost you money is IRS. Private sector is pretty awful. However, I did not hear about outright lies that Mairav described, I imagine that one could record them and have a pretty fat lawsuit. There are some red lines in USA.
So one aspect is international: the use of 21st century technology to treat customers like dirt when profitable. It involves a maze of options when you call the companies, lack of possibilities to do it in person, endless waiting and repeating etc. This also relies on lowly paid folks that follow scripts and have no idea what they are talking about. In an English speaking country, shabby treatment of customers can be performed in India, or Bangladesh if Indian wages grow too high.
However, you cannot outsource Hebrew customer service to, say, Egypt (or who knows! a money making idea! learn Hebrew and make the living by treating Zionist like dirt!). And the lies told to Mairav had a touch of creativity. Ehud Barak had a long interview with Benny Morris on Camp David negotiations and in that interview he said that some cultures do not have the concept of remorse when you lie, or any regard for the truth. The illustration was that Arafat denied something “that we knew was true”. But IDF is notorious for quick denials with outrageous counter allegations, and Barak could not be unaware of it. Ben Gurion was already quite involved in stuff like that, and since then, it did not get any better.
Truth is the first victim in a war, and Israel is forever at war.
Piotr Berman
Interestingly, Wiki entry for “accountibility” has very few corresponding entries in other languages, and it seems that most translations say “responsibility”. German has the most elaborate entry, with a nice diagram. Lithuanian entry is very terse, although it mentions atskaitomybė to klientai. No other entry in Central-Eastern European languages.
Among languages with Semitic alphabets, there is only Persian entry with the following Google translation: “Currently no text in this page.” One can hope soon as theologians of Qom will issue relevant guidelines there will be more. I wonder how a small claims courts are conducted according to Sharia or Halacha.
May
Sorry this is the way you have to deal with such matters. I too would go to Small Claims Court and sue for significantly more, for all your time, trouble, aggrivation.
Good luck!
AYLA
oh, Mairav, I feel your pain! For years I said that if anything drove me to move back to the U.S., it wouldn’t be war, or my own politics (which lead me to question my own right to be here as things stand today) or the economy (that I make half the money for the same work and my expenses are more or less the same in total)–it would be customer service. And yes, it has made me cry, and has made me feel like I live in a lawless, wild west where there is no reasonable system of any kind. The worst is when you go to some office and are given a particular Tofess and told exactly what to do, and you do it, and you go back (for me this always includes 45 minutes of travel) and you wait in the long line and you get up there with everything all prepared, and the customer service person looks at what I’ve prepared and screams at *me*: this is the wrong form!–Why did you fill this form?! I also inherited a phone along with its plan when I first moved here, and the former plan-holder and I went to CellCom together to make the transfer so they were fully aware that I was inheriting the plan from someone who had, earlier, inherited it from someone else; this was all in the records. It seemed strange to me, but when in Rome. Years later, the rates mysterious increased, and after many exhausting visits and phone calls, I decided to cancel the plan. Ha! For starters, we had to find the original person from the plan, and he was no where to be found. We tried explaining that he was MIA to Cellcom. Their response? Without his signature, I would die with this plan. Very, very long story short, we finally got out of the plan, but after paying many fees we should not have had to pay. What I would give just to hear an Israeli customer service person say, just once, “You know what? I’m not sure about that; let me check”.
Mitchell Cohen
Small claims court is great if you have money on the side to tide you over for the six plus months or so until your court date and, if you are suing a big corporation, to pay for a competent lawyer to take on the corporation that, no doubt, has a lawyer of their own just for cases like this.
Mark
I have to agree with Lisa, Robert. I have had countless encounters like this since moving to Israel from the United States. Most recently, when a finance manager at Sixt tried to take me for a ride on an outrageous car loan rate, my wife and I headed confidently to Discount Bank to get a fair quote from a company we’ve maintained an account with for years. Several agents then proceeded to try to extort from us the exact same, exorbitant rate. Only when we threatened to pull our account and leave (to where, god knows) did they relent and bring the offer down. To give you an idea of the extent of this nonsense, the offer fell from 16% (!!!) to 4.5% in the course of three days of fighting and threats. In the US, the average Joe may be getting screwed on health insurance, but in most cases, you don’t need to negotiate tooth and nail just to survive. In Israel – whether in a taxi, bank or port – business is bazaar [sic].
Prometheus
Welcome to the Promised Rip-Off Land
rofl
Yep. Everything here is bazaar, of a rather low grade one might say.
What’s interesting is when Israel turned to be like that.
From what I’ve heard of elderly people is that once the country wasn’t a rip-off land.