Lousy customer services

Johanna & I have moved in to this house since 7 February.

Ever since, we still have the following unresolved problems.

• Faulty bed - no holes were drilled on one of the piece where there were supposed to be 3
  
• No Internet broadband yet due to the delay in the provider in contacting us
  
• LCD TV that can't seem to change source to PC Input so that I can connect my laptop to it

Faulty Bed

We bought the bed from a Fantastic Furniture. The furniture are definitely good in terms of look and price. They are all made in Malaysia. Unfortunately, the quality is quite poor - not only the material but how the pieces are packaged. The quality of the material is of course expected given the price. But the packaging is somewhat disappointing. One piece of our bed is suppose to have 3 holes drilled into it but the holes are missing. Two other holes on two other pieces are in the wrong order. It took the furniture shop more than one week to send over a staff to inspect the pieces and until now we haven't heard from them about delivering us the replacement. The reason given was 'stock has yet to arrive from Sydney'.

Internet Broadband

Internet is always a priority for us. We were quite appalled to find out the in Australia, broadband packages start off with around 400MB of monthly bandwidth, some with maximum of only 2GB! For a 400MB 'deal', the cost is $30 per month. This is really outrageous! Not even enough to check e-mail and read news.

The first day after we moved in, I immediately registered for one of the rare high bandwidth services provided by iiNET. The product is an award-winning product called Naked DSL, meaning I won't need to register for a separate phone line as iiNET will not require me to do so. After the registration, the only thing I received so far is an e-mail with my customer ID stating that my service will be provided within the next 10 to 20 days. Ever since I haven't heard from them and it has already been more than 15 days after my registration. The logical thing is to call them up. And so I tried only to be greeted by the automated service informing me that they are suffering from higher than usual number of calls and I can expect to be connected in 30 minutes, no matter what time of the day I called (attempts so far, 8am, 1am, 1pm). Right now I don't even know whether this company will really contact me, other than sending me their monthly newsletter. Because of this I have not been updating my Flickr for a long time as one upload will be more than 1GB usually. Jo & I are depending on our mobile broadband service provided by 3 with only 2GB monthly limit. So far 3's service has been good, both for phone and Internet, unlike Optus where we need to wait for more than 30 minutes to get connected to the customer service only to end up with a rude, unhelpful Indian with a difficult to understand accent on the other end.

LCD TV

We've bought a Samsung LA32R81BD TV on the 11th. I was so excited to connect it to my Dell 640m laptops. But after more than 2 weeks posting my problem on Internet forums, calling support, I still can't choose the PC Input in the source list of my TV even though my laptop can detect the TV as a monitor. It is also extremely difficult to contact Samsung customer service. My first e-mail (with product serial number) was ignored, the second one was replied but telling me to call the support helpline. Of course the reason I e-mailed them is because it is impossible to get through to them by calling the helpline. Eventually I managed to get through one morning by calling at 8.30am when the helpline starts operating, only to be told to contact one of the service agents. I tried calling the number provided to the service agent and the whole process of being put on hold started again. In the end I had to give up again. The worst thing is while being kept on hold, this message kept on being repeated.

We know your time is valuable. We will try our very best to connect you shortly.

Just get more people in the call centre! This applies to all other Australian customer service we've experienced except for 3. But 3 is not perfect either. In my latest phone + mobile broadband bill, I was charged more than $300 for cancellation fee, i.e. breaking my mobile broadband contract. I never cancel my contract in the first place. In fact I'm using the service now to post this blog. The good thing is it's not difficult to call them. I was told that their IT systems is F-up and many people have reported the same problem. Sigh.

No doubt it is very relaxing to work in this lovely country. But everyone is probably relaxing too much to provide good services.

From this experience I've learnt to appreciate Malaysia's tele customer service. It is so easy to call Maybank, Maxis and even Astro. In the past Astro has poor reputation for being uncontactable. But they've come a long way ever since.

Finally moved in!

Updated: Managed to take some photos yesterday. The frustrating thing is our faulty bed has not been replaced!

After more than 2 months putting up in Janet's and Duane's place in Melbourne, Johanna and I have finally found our own apartment, right opposite Albert Park. We are really grateful to Janet and Duane for their generosity in allowing us to share their great apartment.

Our new place is an apartment within a heritage building built in 1930s. But the apartment has been nicely refurbished. It is only 300m away from my workplace (AIG Life) along St Kilda Road. Come March, I may be able to watch the Australian Gran Prix from my window if the organisers do not put up high barriers around Albert Park. The apartment is very spacious, with 2 bedrooms.

We got our keys last Wednesday evening. The weekend before that we have booked our furniture so that they could be delivered within the week itself. Last weekend we bought electrical appliances, including an LCD TV and a fridge. We've rented a car so that we could buy other household items as well. Despite the hefty amount spent, it was great to shop for all these together with Jo. It is a part of marriage which I haven't experienced before as I've got my home in Malaysia before getting married.

The furniture arrived on Thursday and ever since we've been busy fixing them up. Both of us really enjoyed the DIY experience. Unfortunately, there was some defect on a piece of wood for our bed. Apparently, three holes are missing from it. We are still waiting for the furniture shop to come over to inspect and replace the faulty piece. Otherwise, everything has been put in place. We've also cooked our first meal over the weekend.

More pictures to follow soon.

Shooting Melbourne

Some of the photos I've taken lately.

CBD from Southbank


Eureka Tower, the tallest building in Melbourne


Yarra River with CBD on the far side


Rod Laver Arena on the day of the Final between Djokovic and Tsonga

2nd Trip to Adelaide

Johanna is attending a 2-week workshop in Adelaide. As I was still trying my luck with jobs in the past few weeks, she was suppose to go to Adelaide on her own.

She flew off on 13 January. On 15 January, I've decided to accept the job offer from AIG Life in Melbourne and will start work on the 29th. Hence I flew to Adelaide on Friday the 18th to join Johanna in Adelaide.

It's probably the last holiday before I get back to work. Life has been great since I stepped out of work since 16 September 2006. We spent the whole weekend watching Australian Open, playing table tennis and pool at our YHA accomodation, strolling along the Rundle Mall (shopping area) and catching Miss Saigon which was showing at the Festival Centre.

The match between Fedex and Tipsarevic was really tense - no one would expect the 49th ranked player to win more than a handful of games. Instead he stretched Federer to the limit and nearly caused the biggest upset. It's probably good for the sport as Federer has been disposing his opponents too easily all this while, too predictable.

Miss Saigon

Miss Saigon is the first musical I've watched in my life - Theatre Royal in London 1999, right before the London performance closed down. I've always wanted to bring Johanna to watch this musical but it was not in London during our stay there last year. We watched Puccini's Madam Butterfly instead, which Miss Saigon was based on. Alain Boublil and Claude Michel Schönberg was inspired by this photo of a woman giving up her child at Saigon airport in the hope of a new life in America, meeting her dad that she has never seen (ex-GI during Vietnam war).



The version we watched is slightly different from the one I've watched in London. According to Wikipedia, this is a scaled down version to suit smaller theatres so that the musical can be shown worldwide. The most notable prop missing is the helicopter, which was replaced by projected 3D video. I thought the "Engineer" - played by Leo Tavarro Valdez, a Philipino, was great.

To me, the best part of Miss Saigon is its potrayal of the undending miseries caused by wars - the poor children conceived in brothels or rape cases, who may never know their fathers.

War isn't over when it ends
Some pictures never leave your mind
They are the faces of the children
The ones we left behind

Adelaide via Great Ocean Road

This post is one month late...

I followed Johanna to visit her University in Adelaide for the first time on 15th December (last month). We've decided to drive all the way from Melbourne, via the famous Great Ocean Road. And what a drive that was - greeted by great sceneries of the ocean, beaches and magnificent cliffs. The outbound journey was more than 1,000km. We stopped over at Port Fairy to break the journey into two. We took a shorter way back to Melbourne (around 700km). We were very lucky to be given a brand new Subaru Spectra Impreza by Europcar.

Great Ocean Road

12 Apostles



Adelaide is a great city, a lot better than my expectations. Not only there is the great Glenelg beach for those who love the sea, there are also hills and valleys. We visited Barossa Valley, the home to many South Australian wineries. The city itself is very well planned, with a grid-like CBD (Central Business District) like any other Australian capital cities. For the whole week, we stayed in YHA Adelaide, which is very new, neat and clean.

YHA Adelaide

We were quite surprised to see the common room filled with IKEA furniture, complete with brand new wooden flooring.



Glenelg Beach

Along the beach are luxurious villas, restaurants and apartments.













Barossa Valley

Gawler, Tanunda, Nuriootpa, Angaston, etc. are homes to many early European settlers, mainly Lutherians. Wine making has been the main activity since the early days of Barossa Valley. Barossa was supposed to be spelt as Barrosa. The mistake was not rectified since.


Borossa Villa, house to 30,000 roses


Penfolds winery


A popular cafe in Angaston


Working in the vineyards

Adelaide City

The city has a nice botanical garden, a great shopping street, an average-sized zoo and a few museums. The summer is hot, very dry and very glaring - very high UV index.


A view of the Nothern Terrace


3 little pigs along Rundle Mall, the shopping street of Adelaide

Adelaide Zoo

I took a 2-hour tour of the zoo while Johanna was visiting her PhD Supervisor. Disappointingly, most animals were sleeping or hiding in the shades due to the hot weather.


Penguins swimming in the heat

UniSA


Johanna's university's Mawson Lake campus. The main campus is at the Northern Terrace of the CBD.

Happy New Year 2008

Due to limited bandwidth, I've avoided blogging recently.

2007 had been an interesting year for me and Johanna. Our stay in London had been really great. Despite not gaining as many exams as expected for my actuarial profession, it still feels great to have cleared 3 more papers in one year.

2008 is a year of new challenges as I'm still looking for a new job and settling down in Australia - either Sydney or Melbourne depending on the job offer I'll be getting. The weather in Melbourne had been extremly hot and dry for the past few weeks. On New Year's eve, it touched 42C, the hottest weather I've ever experienced in my whole life. On New Year's Day it touched 41C. The hot weather is worsen by the irritating bush flies which feed on sweat. Makes me miss British weather a lot, even though it is cloudy and rainy most of the time. At least the temperature and humidity is bearable and British summers are great (not the 2007 one though).

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope there will be more tolerence and less violence worldwide.

Solve this

My cousin-in-law, Jek Kin has started a new blog on Mathematics. He was formerly a maths teacher in a secondary school in Sungai Petani.

Thought of posting an interesting math question I've seen many years ago. The solution is quite easy, but only if you can figure out how to start.

Feel free to attempt and post your solutions (or describe it) here.

Good luck!

Kevin Rudd 陆克文

I'm amazed with Australia's new Prime Minister's ability to speak Chinese perfectly. He even has a Chinese name 陆克文. His son-in-law is a Chinese-Australian. All his children studied Chinese in their schooling days. Hope he will improve the ties between China and Australia as the previous government has been trying to distance itself from Asia.

SMTP Server Problem

I have not been able to use my Thunderbird to send out e-mails for quite a few days.

Only until today I know the reason why.

My webhost e-mailed to inform me that TM has blocked port 25 from dynamic addresses. All outgoing mail will be directed to smtp.streamyx.com or smtp.tm.net.my.

I've tried out the above and they didn't work.

However, the alternative solution was provided by my webhost - simply change the port from the default (25) to 26, without having to change the SMTP server.

It's a lot of hassle to inform all my clients.

Also, the changes have also caused a lot of unhappiness among TM's customers, who need to spend a lot of man-hours to change the settings. Please read here for more information.

Take Two: Climate Change

The world is full of ironies...

Take these two headlines today for example:

Carbon emissions growth - we're world's No 1

Malaysia's carbon emissions have spiralled since 1990, increasing faster than any country on earth, a United Nations report released today said.

The UN Human Development Report on fighting climate change showed Malaysia's carbon emissions grew by 221 percent from 1990 to 2004, placing it in 26th place on a global league table of emitters...

Down Under, a former Malaysian - Penny Wong, a former Sabahan, has just been elected as the Minister for Climate Change and Water, the first Australian from Asian background to do so. In a world where carbon trading, carbon emissions and carbon footprint have become global buzzwords, her portfolio can be seen as one of the most important under Kevin Rudd's new government.

Read the following article from The Sydney Morning Herald.

Climate of change: a proud day for Labor's rising star

IN MANY ways Penny Wong's is a very Australian story.

The woman who can trace her family back to 1836 and one of South Australia's original settlers was born in Malaysia and moved to Australia as a seven-year-old .

Yesterday the 39-year-old former lawyer was catapulted from relative obscurity to one of the most important jobs in the Rudd administration as minister for climate change and water...