China Mobile De-Laurelled

China Mobile, twice awarded Liuzhou Laurels for their excellent service, have now had them ignominiously withdrawn and their miserable company demoted to only slightly better than the Railway Station, which is hell on earth.

So, you ask, what have they done to deserve this fall from grace? First, they decided that when you call me, instead of hearing a reassuring ringing tone to let you know you are being connected, they play some ghastly piece of Cantonese pop music. Not only do they inflict this pain on my callers without my permission, but they have the nerve to charge me for it. I demanded that they restore the proper ringing and they agreed to do so - if I paid again!

Then they did away with the rather attractive, very friendly and efficient young women who relieved me of my phone fee from time to time and replaced them with machines. For various reasons, I usually pay between ¥500 and ¥1,000 at a time. The machines require you to enter your phone number twice and then insert your cash. The trouble is they can only deal with one note per transaction. As China's highest denomination is ¥100, this means to pay ¥1,000, I have to enter my eleven digit number 20 times and feed notes one by one, ten times over. Automation has turned what used to be a five minute operation into a major outing requiring extensive preparation and patience.

A plague on them!

tags: china  liuzhou  mobile  

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