The Beanster Blog

In my use-case SMART's signal has been deteriorating.  When I turn into my street the signal goes from 3G to No Service or GPRS. When I am in my room it also goes from No Service to fake 3G. Fake 3G meaning the iPhone displays three bars but sometimes there is no data connection. I am quite certain it is not my iPhone because even my Samsung loses it's signal sporadically. I have four accounts with SMART.  1 999 iPhone plan for my personal mobile 1 freedom plan for my 3G USB modem when cable internet is out 1 freedom plan for work 1 freedom plan for work I have two prepaid sim cards with Globe 1 Samsung Galaxy Data SIM - I got this free when I bought my work phone 1 Prepaid SIM card  Contacting SMART's support via twitter or their hotline they always repeat the same script: Apologize for the inconvenience Ask me to reboot my phone Tell me their network doesn't have any issues in my area. This is no good. I moved from Globe to SMART in 2011 in the hopes of getting LTE it...

the saddest part is that we have no choice: Globe is even worse than Smart. 

Straight from the telco's mouth (er... Email address) So 11 months in with SMART and LTE is still not available for both my home and work locations. Globe is worse so I have to stay with SMART for now.

Got a response from SMART within two (2) days of sending my email complaint  not bad response time really. The content of the response while polite contained no apology from SMART. SMART Customer Care did admit that the two (2) different staff, from (2) different wireless center branches lying to a customer are lapses on their end. (no shit, sherlock), also got the standard promise that my complaint has been forwarded to the concerned group. and standard thanks for reporting it in. If you have experienced problems with SMART staff I do recommend you write in. This way SMART becomes aware of the situation and they can train their staff better. I am attaching the polite and standard response below: ============================================== Dear Vincent, Good day. We understand your frustration and appreciate your transparency.  Your feedback has been forwarded to the concerned group as it is important to us.  Rest assured that  Smart  is exertin...

So SMART data has been terrible lately (at home & at the office) for about a week now. I have been tweeting them and also sent in an email. I got their standard response: 1. Sorry 2. Restart your phone 3. Monitor Their twitter staff informed me there was no service interruption in my area. My bill is fully paid. I get better speed at the mall & some parts of EDSA so it's not my phone. So I have to say it's a network issue, are the new buildings along shaw messing up my reception? If so SMART should really add more cell-sites. I have mentioned in another post that it had been 10 months since they launched LTE and still I have no coverage at home or at the office. I have been monitoring their LTE coverage page  http://www1.smart.com.ph/Bro/lte/coverage  and it seems there have been no sites added in the past months that would benefit me. So my complaints have been sent via twitter and email, I am not sure when or if SMART will even add more cell-sites. My f...

Below is my letter sent to SMART to customercare@smart.com.ph dated today 26-October-2013 Saturday at 2:30PM. I have removed the SR number, my mobile and account number before posting this. ======== Dear SMART,  I do not appreciate being lied to.  Last June, when my 6 month contract with SMART ended I went to your Shangri-la branch because I wanted to downgrade or switch my Unlidata 1500 to an iPhone plan 999. I was informed this was not possible and that I had to stay on 1500 if I wanted Unlidata. I had no other option. It was the cheapest Unlidata plan they had. That's that.  24-October-2013, Thursday — I went to SMART Megamall because I wanted to complain about the lack of LTE coverage and inquire about a new line for work, and tried once again. Again I got the "you have no other plan to go to” speech. He explained that iPhone plan 999 was bundled with a phone and could not be applied to my plan unless I wanted to cancel my current plan and get a...

SMART International Roaming Deposit is GONE... hooray we (the consumers) won! I don't know when this happened but I am sure glad it did! SMART has gotten get rid of this discriminatory, anti-consumer, flat-out-unfair, exploitative International Roaming Deposit policy. I have written about this before  (and some more ) which culminated in me settling my balance and closing my account with SMART for good . Food for thought: were did the interest for all those deposits go? did they credit those back to customers as well   or did they spend it on Ramon Bautista's TF for this hilarious switching video?   This comes as good news for me personally because... I am re-evaluating my current mobile subscription with Globe and most of us (subscribers) would say that it has been shitty for months. Globe has scheduled network improvements thru Q4 2012 but who has the patience to wait? Now that SMART has done away with IRD, I can seriously consider the...

Last Saturday I went to the SMART Wireless Center in Greenhills and surrendered my SIM card & had my account closed. I’ve been with SMART for about 4 years. My troubles with SMART started when they implemented International Roaming Deposit. Aside from the inconvenience and stress that happened when they retroactively implemented this policy. I also felt that it was unfair, and discriminatory to their customers. I gave SMART multiple chances to rectify the situation but they have failed miserably. Emails, calls, tweets and appearances to their wireless centers have gotten nothing for the consumer. My dissatisfaction with SMART increased some more when they started offering unlimited data to pre-paid users but not post paid subscribers. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and so I have decided to vote with my wallet and end my relationship with SMART. SMART still has the best network in my use but I cannot stay with a network that treats their post paid customers so ...

Hello kiddies… I am back with an update re: MY LETTER TO SMART TELECOM’S PRESIDENT … so after close to seven (7) months all I got was 2 or 3 emails thanking me for my email and telling me they will tell the concerned group. So in 7 months they have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about my complaint. I got my IRD waived and you should get yours waived too! As a service to you my readers here is the issue in a nutshell: If your plan is bellow 1500, SMART will charge you PhP 2,500.00 as INTERNATIONAL ROAMING DEPOSIT (IRD) this amount WILL NOT be credited to your ACCOUNT until you TERMINATE the roaming service. Ex. If you are plan 500 and you turn on roaming forever. your 2500 is with them forever. If you are plan 1500 roaming is on. If you are on pre-paid you are not charge an IRD. Here is why I think this should be abolished. This is NOT NECESSARY. SMART already has a credit limit to protect their company. Why ask for an additional deposit? This is DISCRIMINATORY against lo...

Still no word from SMART re: the status of my request to remove IDD ROAMING DEPOSIT for ALL SUBSCRIBERS. I emailed SMART on 31-Aug and again today, I will send them an email every 2 weeks or until they respond. Hey SMART get a clue: you see roaming activation is FREE on Sun Cellular Read more: #BNYvsSMART

A few days ago I had written to SMART telecom’s president Mr. Manny V. Pangilinan about their new International Roaming Deposit policy. You may read it HERE . Today I went to the SMART Wireless Center where I had my plan changed. I explained [although I must admit not in the calmest way] why the whole thing was #1 offensive #2 unfair #3 bad for business #4 their fault the service rep promised that she would elevate the matter and true enough I received a call moments ago from a SMART representative. That’s 3 hours turn around… raising hell and my blood pressure at the wireless center works wonders for response time. Resolution: Of course the lady on the line apologized profusely for any inconvenience that beset me. Ok apology accepted. They also activated my international roaming and waived the ridiculous deposit. Ok very good. Thank you SMART. She was about to let me go but I would not have it. I pressed her to let me know what they were going...

Here is my letter to Mr. Manuel V. Pangilinan president of SMART Telecommunications Inc. I also sent a copy to their customer service address just in case the email address I was provided with was not real. I am hoping he reads it and responds to it. subj: SMART TELECOM INT'L ROAMING DEPOSIT IS DISCRIMINATORY, UNFAIR, and WRONG Mr. Manny Pangilinan Dear Sir I am SMART subscriber in good standing. I pay all my bills on time. A month or so ago I decided to lower my plan from 1200 to 500. I did this because I had noticed that I was not hitting 1200. As I was getting this done I asked the service rep to make sure that international roaming and data services would still be active. She said it would. Now early this month I went on a business trip to China. To my surprise my roaming had been turned off. Upon my return to the PH I gave the SMART hotline a ring. I was surprised to find out that my roaming had been cut because my plan is bellow 1800PHP. I asked t...

I had recently changed my service plan from 1200 to 500 [last April] because I had a SUN 350 line and I wanted to lower my monthly expenses. When I was getting this done I expressly asked the service rep about roaming. Fact of the matter is I was only keeping SMART because SUN had weak to zero coverage outside Metro Manila and because I assumed SMART [being bigger and older] had more roaming partners over SUN. When I went on my 4 day trip to China last week, roaming was not working. Good thing I had brought my SUN SIM card which did roam successfully take note my SUN plan is only 350/month. That is even lower than my SMART plan. So I decided to call SMART and have roaming activated on my SIM. I was surprised when the rep on the phone said that activating roaming now required a 2500PhP roaming deposit and that this deposit can only be credited to your account as bills payment when you decide to deactivate roaming. I asked if this deposit would be used if I roamed and she said no. I argu...