Would you wast money on building a barbed-wire fence on 1 side of your property? Is it for looks? Is it suppose to gain votes? Maybe it would if you didn’t advertise you couldn’t fully fence the yard so people can walk around it. Or perhaps Conroy and Gillard take us for idiots? “Oh my children are safe now we have a filter, praise the lord, amen…”, “Luckily kids theses days aren’t smart enough to get around that…” (sarcasm)

Surely everyone else has noticed Conroy is looking after too conflicting projects too.. maybe he hasn’t yet? I mean the National Broadband Network (faster internet) and the Internet Filter (slower internet).. maybe after spending billions on both projects we might just come out the same as we started? Just a little be less money in the wallet to spend on more important things.

Scanning through Google news I came across an article “On Celebrating Darwin” which began with “This year we have an important double anniversary of Charles Darwin: the 200th anniversary of his birth, and the 150th anniversary of his classic work…”

I continued reading only to next minute realise Charles Darwin is being compared to Hitler.. then it goes on to attempt to draw links between darwinism and abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia… I’m appauled, then realise I’m reading “Christian Today”…

Nice work celebrating the guys birthday, by writing slandereous propaganda!

Even worse though, having the nerve to pretense the entire article with “Celebrating Darwin” only taint the man and his work… The author begins the article with notable attempts at sounding unbiased, until the next four pages of the article drag the mans reputation through the dirt without reference to popular opposing views.

The author then continues by drawing loose connections to the unsavoury opinions and actions of other individuals (i.e. Hilter) as though these were the direct influcence of and results of Darwins scientic theory… all easily refutable arguements a primary student (perhaps a free thinking child who hasn’t been choking on the force fed ideals of intelligent design) could tackle!

GOD created man in his image such is the religious and non-scientic theory of “intelligent design”.. With a world full of rapists, peadophiles and murders at the extreme with just plain rude, inconsiderate and self absorbed individuals towards the other end… I’d be just as apprehensive in walking down a dark alley as I would meeting my maker..

Lets get one thing straight religion has no place in science and vica versa…

Ended up calling Optus because last time this happened, in case you haven’t read the earlier post, I stormed in demanding a different phone. At the time the store staff could help so I sat in the store speaking to head office for 45mins. After speaking to numerous divisions the last guy just said put it in for repairs another time and if you have no luck ring us back… So I did!

Spoke to a few Optus divisions today and eventually ended up with the retention area (Solution services, the guys who try to keep you as a customer!) After much discussion they offered to give me an early upgrade on the contract (4 months in to a 24 month contract)… So now I’m free to sign up for another contract and get another phone!

So I’ll get the broken phone repaired AGAIN and flog it off on ebay.. This will offset the price off the new phone I plan to get, which is the top of the line latest Nokia. Yes I decided to go with Nokia again… In the past I’ve always bought the more expensive models, and have generally been a pretty happy chappy… So I figure if I stick with that I won’t run in to these issues again!

Just called an optus store and they have the phone I’m after in stock… so yay I’m excited… after months of being shitty at the mere mention of a mobile ;)

Dude you needn’t tell me love sucks… I’ve been a devout advocate supporter of that campaign for quite sometime! It seems to be one of those evil emotions put on earth just so god, or for some global scale candid camera show (perhaps orchestrate by aliens? Hehe)… can have a laugh at our expense!!…

For far back as I can remember every chick I’ve loved hasn’t in return, or have just been unsure, noncommittal, or changes their mind (could be worse, some of them thought monogamy meant getting as much wood as possible…? maybe the dumb #@$% have just been confusing it with mahogany? Haha!)…

But to make this evil emotion even more suitable for prime time comedy hour it gets better! Hehe.. No, wait for it.. Hehe.. (picture crazy laughter from some failed comedian).. For those girls whom I genuinely believed loved me I couldn’t bring myself to love them in return..

I swear on some chemical or scientific level love is like magnetic north and south poles… Never seem to wanna be attracted to each other :( Anyways enough useless rambling…!

And although this saying won’t help… Or its least its never helped me, despite to the numerous instances where I’ve been up shit creek, without the canoe, and wanted to believe in this saying so badly at the time… “Life’s to important to take seriously”

Need anything, its yours!

They said that there isn’t much they could do, the phone has already been replaced so it should be working. But they would take another look at it anyway.. They also have a commendable new policy of notifying people when there are any updates to the repair job. Just earlier I received my first ‘update’..

“Job ASP000xxxx is awaiting delivery of your replacement Nokia handset. We will contact you when it is ready for collection. Thank you.”

So far I imagine they’ve thrown away two phones because of this problem! I don’t imagine that this new one will work either, so it can’t very cost effective… I’m surprised they don’t just give you replacement phones of a different Make or Model at least… “Nokia Job ASP000xxxx is awaiting delivery of your replacement Sony-Ericsson handset.” Hahahaha! Would seem to me this is a cheaper solution!

Also with my new job number I was able to estimate they’ve had 1022 broken Nokia’s check in for repairs since I dropped mine off about 4 or 5 weeks ago. Seems like a lot for a self proclaimed small store…?

Interestingly enough, I found out some of the more minor problems I had which are still occurring… Are “known problems”! And “have not yet been fixed by Nokia”…

In other words some of the problems were KNOWN to still exist when the phone was returned to me ‘fixed’…

The girl in the Optus shop was polite and sympathetic, but could offer me no more than finding out how much my contract cancellation fee would be… Interestingly enough when calling through to the head office to find out how much this would cost, she asked the customer service rep to ask their manager, to see if they could discount the $300 fee… Taking in to considering my situation… Screwed phone which Nokia didn’t repair and being a model customer for 6 years…

DISCOUNT DENIED…

She said the only way I could try get a replacement handset through Optus would be to speak to their Customer Service team over the phone directly. I sat down and used the phone in the store to speak with them… after the lengthy explanation, they then said sales were the only team who could do this.. so I was transferred, placed in another queue… after another lengthy explanation, I was place on hold while the Sales Rep check what they could do… quite sometimes later someone from Phone Activations picked up.. somehow the call got transferred… after another the lengthy explanation, and dealing ‘holier-than-thou’ a individual I was transferred back to sales…

The end result of dealing with Optus was that they don’t want to take any responsibility for the Phones they sell (nor do they see any duty of care to a customer after selling a phone)… And that I should speak to Nokia again and get the phone repaired – Ironic since a brand new model still had the same faults!

Just in case you missed that these are the areas of Optus I had to deal with, in order.  Also, before each, I had to wait in a queue.. and when speaking to someone new re-explain the whole entire problem and its history again…

1. Optus Counter Staff
2. Customer Service
3. Sales
4. Phone Activations
5. Sales

Well I left you I had been told that the part had arrive and the phone would be ready (twice, but who’s counting), but the following day I was told they were waiting on a part, more specifically the same part! This was on Friday and I was also told that I should ring up on the following Monday… Even though I’d established they don’t receive deliveries until Tuesdays or Wednesdays…

So I didn’t ring on the Monday, but I did ring first thing Tuesday, and the result was..

‘We’re waiting on a replacement handset. It was deemed that your phone was not financially viable to repair. After repairing the phone the technician performed some tested which is it didn’t pass‘

At this point I had mixed emotions… I was getting a brand new phone from the factory rather than one some guy with a soldering iron had been tinkering with… But on the other hand it had taken them 3 or so weeks to figure this out?!  However upon asking how long it would take to get a replacement in I was told 1 – 3 weeks!!!

I called again the following week, but there was no news..  But I received a phone message later that week with news it had arrived!

I picked up the phone the following morning on the way to work, and started using again that night… After adding all my phone number and spending ages repersonalising it (themes, ringtones, layout etc)… I EXPERIENCED THE SAME PROBLEMS AGAIN…

The phone lost its reception! I noticed this happen as I was lying in bed about to go to sleep… I was LIVID… I didn’t get sleep for the next 2 hours! Especially considering earlier I’d noticed a few of the more minor issues I’d complained about were still happening as well!

And so the dramas begin again…

I recently purchased a brand new Nokia 6280. I was completely satisfied with my purchase for the first day or two. This is the story how this satisfaction turned to deep regret for my purchase, and more recently vowing never to purchase a Nokia again (after being a devout parton, only ever owning Nokia’s).

Since purchasing the phone a little more than a month ago I had begun noticing more and more problems with it. I’ll admit some of those ‘problems’ maybe not be a huge concern to everyone..

A good example which had me in tears (but likely not everyone else) is that the phone doesn’t store Company names in the phone book, only First and Last names. So when I transferred all my contacts to this new phone I had 30 nameless numbers in the phone (which were named in the past)… Yay!

Oh and if you’re an organised person who stores birthdays against your phones contacts… Yep.. It doesn’t store; and lost them as well… Sorry everyone, wish yourself a Happy Birthday this year for me! Mum that includes you… Its June sometimes isn’t it? Hehe!

Of my complaints with the phone, more serve problems included:

• Periodically decides to restart…
• Loses reception, needing to be turned off…
• Only pretends to send some SMS… (No, you can’t tell which!)
• Dictionary randomly decides which new words are worth remembering…
• Automatically calls your parents during sex…

Ok so the last one was made up, but these are only a small selection of the unabridged list I had. I took the phone in for repairs to the Aspley Nokia Service Centre a month ago. The girl ‘checking the phone in’ went to ask the next question about 3 times while I was in the middle of responding to “What is wrong with the phone?”. Hahaha!

Dropping off the phone went well. The girl said their turn around is usually a few days, and empathised with me noting her Nokia 6280 had some of the same problems! Hehe!

Now the Nokia Service Centres policy is that customers need to ring up to check on their phone, they don’t bother to ring you when its fixed. So I called after 3 days to see how things were going. I was told after a check of the computer that…

‘The phone is sitting on a Technicians. They must be working on it, ring back tomorrow.’

So I rang back the following day with high exceptions! But this is were my frustration and loathing of Nokia’s “Service” Centres began. Again I was told after a check of the computer that…

‘The phone is sitting on a Technicians. They must be working on it, ring back tomorrow.’

Before the person could hang up on me, I queried why this was the case, considering I’d be told the same story yesterday. The person put me on hold while they check with someone more competent, and apparently better informed. Upon return I was told…

‘Sorry that’s just what the computer says, apparently its waiting for a part.’

So my next obviously question what, was wrong with it and when should this part arrive?

‘There was a part missing from it off the production line, there is actually 7 other phone sitting there waiting for the same thing. It’s hard to say when we’ll receive the part we’re only a small store. The bigger store always get priority…’

By this point I was a fairly frustrated because:

1. If unquestioned.. How many times was I going to be told that is was being worked on? Rather than were waiting for a part!
2. The phone was brand new and MISSING a component.
3. My phone wasn’t a unique case.
4. Because I went to a outer suburb store I was expected to wait longer for parts!

Remaining polite (perhaps mildly sardonic) as always, I asked whether I should continue ringing on a daily basis or weekly? To my surprise I was told…

“Definitely weekly, we only get deliveries weekly, Tuesdays or Wednesdays, and we’ve had our this week.”

I rang the next week after their delivery and was told it hadn’t come in yet.

I rang the following week and was told the same story…

Now I don’t know about you but I use my phone more frequently than I do my car. When I need a part for my car the repairer finds it somewhere in the country and has it the next day. Now I should also mention I own a grey import vehicle, which was never even sold in this country, and isn’t particularly common. Now maybe its just me, but I can’t seem to justify the time required to find a part for a phone sold in every phone shop in the country!?

This aside I rang the following week (earlier this week) and was to my rejoice told…

‘The part has arrived it should be ready by 2:00 pm tomorrow, but ring just in case.’

So I rang to double check, having made plans to leave earlier to pick it up. But instead was told…

‘I’ve just checked with technician it should be ready by tomorrow at 12:00 pm.’

Which brings us TODAY… I rang to see if it was going to be ready!

‘That phones waiting on a part that hasn’t come in yet’

Calmly I asked her to double check before she hung up, informing her I was told it had arrived. She return a moment later…

‘Sorry its definitely still waiting on a part.’

So my obviously question was.. the same part or is something else broken?

‘Yes the same part. Ring back tomorrow or on Monday.’

Too frustrated to take in her comments I said my goodbyes! However in retrospective… They aren’t open SATURDAY! (tomorrow) and they also won’t have any new parts delivered over the weekend or on Monday!

I made the mistake years ago of continuing to buy Nokia’s after the troublesome 8210 model. This model was notorious for screen fade (slowly you couldn’t see the screen / sporadically it would completely fade)! To paint a picture of how notorious, 4 close friends and I all went to a Nokia Care Centre on the same day all owning the same phone, all wanting this same problem fixed.

Come to think of it, I’ve just realised none of them bought a Nokia again…

I only wish I’d learn my lesson back then as well…