T-Mobile and the fun of voice recognition software*

* warning - rant

A couple of months ago our lovely DSL provider Alice has advertised a new "mobile option", which included free calls Alice to Alice. Being practical people we decided to switch carriers, 'cos most calls we do are to each other. However at that stage you were only able to get one SIM card per DSL account and only recently they increased it, so we were able to get a second one. Now came the very easy (in theory) and difficult (in reality) thing called 'mobile number portability' - since everyone already knows our numbers we decided not to cause any unnecessary confusion and keep the old ones from T-Mobile. This involved writing a cancellation letter to T-Mobile (even though we're on prepaid, but in Germany you have to write official letters to every man and his cat). Then we had to fill in another form with Alice to get them to put our old numbers (from T-Mobile) onto our new numbers (from Alice). This was done 3 weeks ago to give Alice enough time to get the numbers accross. As of yesterday T-Mobile cancelled our numbers (as we asked), but Alice failed to transfer the numbers (as we didn't ask). So we were stuck with our new numbers, which noone (including us) knew. Three phone-calls (at .14c a minute - thanks work!) and two emails later we worked out that due to "technical difficulties" it may take up to a MONTH!!! Farken. They suggested that we call T-Mobile back and beg them on our hands and knees to reactivate our accounts for this time. So here I was... calling the largest telephony provider in Germany... and you know what - it was exactly like calling Telstra... and I don't mean no Indian people, I mean they had voice recognition software... in German. I think that instead of all these silly German exams for foreigners they need to simplify it and make it like this - if you can get through to an operator talking to T-Mobile, you've passed. Because even after you're stuck for hours listening to the possible options and talking to a female voice (why is it always female??) which doesn't understand you, and finally it tells you that if you say 'persönlicher Berater' you get connected to an operator. BUT even before you get connected you have to agree (or disagree) to your calls being "recorded for coaching and training purposes". Finally you get to being on hold for another good couple of mins, but at that stage it's like music to your ears (literally). Phewww...