Good day Meo

I arrived in Portugal on 30 July for summer vacation, during which time I also needed to work.  When arriving at my apartment in Santa Luzia, I found that my Internet/TV was not working.  I called support and they said that my internet was disconnected but they could not tell me why.  On 31 July, I went to the Meo shop in Tavira to find out what the problem was.  They informed me that my service had been disconnected as I had not paid an equipment fee.  I was surprised as I had never heard about this fee – when I called to sign up for Meo’s services, I was not informed of this fee and never received any information on this. I also never received an email or telephone call from Meo about this. I did inform the sales person that I do not live at the apartment – it was for vacations and that I live in the Netherlands – so it was known that I was not a resident in the country. I also found that my email address was incorrect even though I called a few times to check my email address was correct as I had not received any emails from Meo, including an email with the contract details.  My phone number was correct – if there was an issue and contact needed to be made, I could have been contacted by phone.  This would have avoided all the following issues.

I paid a re-connection fee and expected that my internet and TV would soon start working again.  The next day, nothing was working so I went back to the Meo store and they then called support for me and then told me that it would take some time but they could not tell me how long it would take for my services to work again.  Two days later I went back to the store as I still did not have any Internet/TV.  The store called again and then informed me that my services would only work again from the 13th of August. I asked them how it could take so long to re-connect when it was so quick and easy to make the first appointment for a new account.  They could not tell me why.  I then had a phone call from the technical department to say that they could fix the connection remotely and we need to check that the router/modem was on and that we would be called again later.  We did not receive a call again and the services did not work again.  I went to the store again the next day and informed them what happened and they called again and spoke to the technical department and I was told again that someone would call me.  Again I was not called and my services still did not work.  I went back to the shop again and again and called the technical department but no one could tell me anything.

I was called again on the 9th or 10th, I cannot remember the exact day and told that a technician needs to come to the house and that would be on the 16th.  I told the caller that I would not be at home on the 16th so someone needs to come on the 19th.  The person said ok and hung up the phone.  I did not get any confirmation for an appointment.  I was called again on the 12th and told that a technician would come on the 16th.  I again informed the caller that I would not be home and the appointment needs to be made for the 19th.  The caller said ok and hung up the call and again I received no confirmation.

On the 19th I went back to the store and informed them that no one had come and that I needed help to arrange an appointment for someone to come to my apartment.  The store was surprised and told me that the system says everything is working but this was not the case. The store arranged that I was called and then I got transferred a number of times and then told that there is no one I can speak to at the moment and that I would be called back.  Again I was not called back.  I called again the next day and the same happened – after being transferred a number of times, I was told that there is no one to speak to and I would be called back. And again – I was not called back.  Every day I either went to the store where they tried to help me – with the same result that nothing happens – or I called myself and as with every other call was told that there is no one who can help me at the moment and I would be called back, and of course again I was never called back.  On the 21st and 22nd of August I informed the person trying to help me that if my services were not reconnected, I would have to leave Portugal and return to The Netherlands as I had been unable to work for 4 weeks already and could not stay anymore if I had no Internet access.  I was assured that a supervisor had been spoken to and that I would be called to resolve the issue, and again I was not called.  Due to this, I had to rearrange my travel plans and change my flights and leave Portugal to go back to the Netherlands so that I could work.

Until now – the 2nd of September, I have still not received a call to arrange to resolve my issue.  I am not able to come back to Portugal until the Dutch school holidays in October.

There are a number of options to resolve this issue:

• My account stays disconnected and I do not pay any monthly contract costs(the contract should be paused) until I am able to come back in October and then a technician can come and fix the issue.  Once the issue is fixed, the contract can be started again.  A customer cannot be expected to pay for a service that cannot be delivered.
• My contract is cancelled with no further costs related to the contract as Meo has been unable to deliver a service for more than a month.  In this case, the reconnection fee I paid will also need to be refunded.  I will then return the equipment to the Meo store in October when I am back in Portugal. No further costs will be charged to me as Meo had been unable to deliver a service for more than a month.

The level of service I received was absolutely shocking -  call after call I was told that no one was available to help me and I would be called back – not once was I called back despite going to the meo store or phone almost every day. The store in Tavira tried to help a number of times but this also did not help. I was twice called by the Meo technical number and the phone would ring twice and then the call would be cancelled.  It seems as if this was done so that it could be entered into the system that I was called but did not answer. Once I was able to answer before the call was cancelled and then no one says anything and then the call is cancelled again.  I cannot understand why no one was ever available to speak to and that I was never called back.  This is totally unacceptable.  I understand that there are not many support people able to offer support in English but if a company is happy to sell a service in another language (and take money from these sales), the company should be able to provide support in that language.  The only thing that had to be arranged in English was making an appointment for a technician to come resolve the issue – this should not be difficult to do.

Please can this situation be looked at urgently and a resolution found that helps both parties to resolve this in an amicable way.