AS Starman - Can you hear me ground control?

Excuse me for such a frivolous comparison to a classic. I'm not even sure what made me think of it. My situation with cable and Internet service is probably the exact opposite of what Major Tom was experiencing in the song. In my case Starman would be the ground control that couldn't care less that "I'm floating in a most peculiar way".

See, for three weeks now, instead of the 77 channels I got only 6. Yes, I wasn't really watching most of them to begin with, but still. I'm paying for them. Plus losing the international news channels does annoy me.

I do take full responsibility for my failure to stay on the phone line for longer than 10 minutes and because of that I have not been able to talk to a actual physical person customer service rep. That is - if they do exist.

So here I am with six channels and Internet connection that's iffy at best. Since I do like to vent and like most people enjoy complaining about bad consumer experiences, I told my story to a good friend. Do you think he was shocked or surprised? No. I may add that he's also a Starman customer, if only for few weeks.

To my great disappointment he managed to top my bitching story with one of his own.
And it's a good one. He decided to get Starman Digi-TV service at the end of May. One of the deciding factors was that they were offering two months service for free. As it happened, he became a Starman Customer on May 31 at around 16:00. Just recently he was attentive enough to notice, and this is a riot, that they counted these 8 hours in the month of May as A MONTH.

I know and you know that this is not a coincidence. Long conference table with at least eight people sitting behind it was involved and a conscious decision was made. I just can't believe that they didn't discuss what should happen in case some one calls. See, my friend was told that his situation will be investigated.

Unfortunately "your situation will be investigated" is the corporate equivalent of giving a finger. What is there to investigate? You tried to trick your new customer and you were called on it. So apologize and fix it right then and there. Done.

But no, AS Starman considers us all idiots with bank accounts. I will spread the word and tell this story on every possible occasion. This is our last chance. They don't realize that this is not 20th century. All they have is the service they offer and we have the power to reject it.

If you do the math solution taken from a pretty good book by Mark Hughes - for every 23 unhappy customers who take time to complain to you, your company will have ten thousand enemies who didn't bother to write or call. Starman are you getting this? Right now it's 2 down 21 to go and 10 000 is a freaking ARMY.