Thursday, April 20, 2006

Customer Service?

The local cable company in San Miguel seems to have problems from time to time with it's programming from the USA. We usually get the two stations from New York and one from Erie Pennsylvania. Yes Erie....and Erie doesn't even have a 10 PM newscast but they do have the Caribbean forecast with a guy in a flowered shirt telling us how nice the weather is in the Caribbean. But at least we get the ABC programming in the evening. We have adjusted to it.

About a month ago, the three major channels were gone and in their place was a variety of other programming. Ned hiked over to the cable company about a mile away to ask what was happening. They said that the major channels had switched to some new digital format and they were waiting on equipment so that they could again receive their output. Then we found out that this change to digital was announced months ago and so we assumed that the local company just had not bothered to order the new equipment until it was totally necessary.

After a week or two, we started to receive the three major channels from stations in California. Just one problem. We are getting the programming three hours later than usual. It is hard to stay up late enough to get the 10 PM news.

So once again Ned hiked to the cable company to find out what was going on. They said that they were negotiating with the channels out of NY and they hoped to resolve the issues within a month and then they gave him a letter from the local station manager to read.

DEAR MR:
Let me tell you that we are sorry for the inconveniences the change on the networks is giving you, but all is a problem of copy right, and as long as we don"t get those copy rights for the new york or any other east or central station, we cant do anithyng abou it, we are working on that and as soon we can seattle an aggreement we'll go back to the east time, for now, all we can do, is wait. As yoy know, having satelite from the states in Mexico is iligal so if you feel good about doing iligal stuff, go ahead, we cant do to much about it, is your desision. About the reinbusement , no problem when you come to the office ask for it, but when you sign the contract with us, please relize thta is said that we can change the programing without notice, because we don't own the signals, so you were out of the networks but you always had a signal from other station. the tv screen never went blank. And about the time zone, we'd never promese you to have an specific time zone, only the networks, without compromising ourselfes for any special ones. (sorry about any misspellings, my english is not so good) -----

If this kind of stuff drives you crazy, don't plan to live in Mexico. Their concept of Customer Service has a little different twist.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah...so that was the problem...maybe. HA HA HA. We were getting cable and watched CNN for our news, the only news in english that was available. Then one day it was gone and another spanish station in its place. It didn't move to another channel, just was gone. Then about a week or so later Roy was surfing and there it was back again, same channel as before. Who knows, you just go with the flow. It's all part of the uniqueness of the place. Basically, we figured that it's our fault we can't speak the language so grin and bear it. The channel that we watched the weather on(in spanish) sometimes had the weather boards with the 5 day forecast and sometimes not. Oh well, we basically knew that it was going to be nice anyway. That's just the way it is there.

Anonymous said...

Houston or Austin is sounding pretty good right now.

Anonymous said...

Que lastima que Uds. estan en Mexico pero no hablan la idioma, y continuan a ver television de gringolandia. Por que no lee un libro, o aprende espanol p'hablar con sus vecinos? O ellos son gringos tambien?

Anonymous said...

THat is actually funny, not the part about missing out on your NOB news though. Oh Jose, I live with 6 Mexicans (family, and temporary)NOB...the TVs in our home are always on MExican news. Human nature to want to know what is going on back home...that is porque ellos miran tele norteamericano.

Anonymous said...

This if for Jose, just in case he comes back to see it.
We are trying to learn the language and find that watching the TV shows in spanish helps. As Claudine says it is human nature to want to know what is going on "back home". We love the area of Mexico that we lived in and intend to return.