We received this e-mail this morning: “I am writing about a situation that has arisen due to TELEFONICA implementing a Caller Identification service (Servicio de Identificación de Llamada) charge. This may be affecting you and your readers as well. (Note: JimenaPulse first reported on this in August!. Timo means ’swindle’.) When a contract is made then only due to certain circumstances will it be needed to be changed. We have a contract with TELEFONICA to supply broadband to our property under their DUO package and this they do very well. We received a letter from TELEFONICA stating their intention to implement a standing charge for their Caller Identification service, but it also stated that customers who had ADSL, DUO, TRIO or Línea Básica con Tarifa Plana Bonificada, the service would remain FREE.
So, when we received our bill and it showed a debit of 50 cents per month for Caller Identification, we were not very pleased.
I contacted TELEFONICA and they tried to steam roller me and stated that everyone is being charged. I pointed out the wording on the notification letter but the enquiries personel seemed to have great difficulty in understanding that free means without charge. I did get a reaction when I stated that a formal complaint would be made to the GUARDIA if things were not changed, but only in so far as a report would be made by TELEFONICA. It was also stated that if any other customer had a problem, then it was for them to contact TELEFONICA.
You may say ” Well, what’s a euro between friends every two months?”
It is understood that those people who have the so-called TRAC / Radio phones do not have the Caller Identification Service available to them, but they are being charged all the same.
It is also understood that the Caller Identification Service is not mandatory and is an extra service should you wish to utilise it.
I feel that TELEFONICA have over stepped the mark by assuming the right to impose charges for a service that some cannot receive and which are supposedly free to some customers under the terms of their contract.
What is only a Euro every two months soon adds up. If I was to be very conservative, then my calculations are as follows:
The current population of Spain is around the 40 million mark and if you say 1/2 are children and, for the sake of figures, we halved this again for husband and wife families, then we have 10million. Excluding businesses, if every family has a phone then TELEFONICA has enforced the right to take 60,000,000 EUROS per annum to boost their profits without consent, the ability to supply a service, or are in breach of their contract.
We are giving away our money to TELEFONICA for free. No wonder they are reputedly the richest telecommunications Business in the World!”
Related website (in English): FACUA, consumers organization. Also, as we said in our original article, you should first try to “call the 1004 number and ask for it (the service) to be removed (dar de baja) – if, that is, you can get through their interminable recorded list of promotional bumph and other fouled toilet paper.”
IF THIS IS AFFECTING YOU, PLEASE COMMENT BELOW. THERE IS STRENGTH IN NUMBERS!
November 10, 2008 at 22:27
i’m talking lots with locals about telefonica, here better known as ‘mafia de telecomunication’ . Only i can say ALWAYS check ur bills!!! Nearly everybody pays more then they have to… But this is known since many years… Looking forward that tele2, ono and all the other providers come to jimena…
November 11, 2008 at 22:18
There is a way out. You do not have to use telefonica
You can get on the internet without a landline. Once on the internet you can use Skype – or similar (it’s called VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol).
There are various ways to get online. We use a Vodafone USB modem. This costs nothing to install, the downside is that it costs 39 Euros a month but that is less than Telefonica’s standing charges. Incidentally it would only be £15 in the UK.
It puts you on the mobile phone network which as we all know can be dodgy in Jimena.
For your 39 Euros you get pretty good 2G coverage (which is about the same speed as dial-up) and intermittent (in Jimena) 3G coverage. The 3G is supposed to run at up to 7Mbps but it doesn’t. It is enough to give you reasonable speed while surfing but if you download lots you would find it a bit slow.
There are other ways to get online without a Telefonica landline – other mobile phone networks do similar to Vodafone and there is also Iberbanda who use an antenna on your roof to link with a base station on Sierra Bermeja although we had a bad experienced with them and they are 51% owned by Telefonica.
Skype is a software package – free to download – which has various ways to get you telephoning at very low cost. If you have friends and family on Skype (we do) all calls to them are completely free – together with video. To call landlines, anywhere in Europe, you pre-pay 10 Euros. It seems to last forever.
We pay a small amount (4 Euros a month from memory) to have a UK telephone number – ours is a Bristol style number. This gives us 10,000 minutes per month free calls to landlines anywhere in Europe. If someone in the UK calls our UK number – it is the cost of a local call to them.
It’s not ideal – sometimes the call quality is poor but it works for us.
Visit http://www.Skype.com to see what it’s all about
If anyone has anything to add to this, I would be very interested to hear about it. Our year’s contract with Vodafone comes to an end shortly and I will consider changing to another provider.
You do not have to use Telefonica – their days are numbered.
I WILL NOT under any circumstances use them.
Ever again.
Ever.
Sorry, Am I ranting
November 12, 2008 at 17:12
Sadly we have looked at alternatives to Telefónica, but because of where we live our mobile coverage is virtually nil. IE, we walk round the garden until we get a signal to send a text. We have also contacted Iberbanda and because we are not in direct line of sight to a tower we cannot get their signals. Move that mountain and all would be ok. So for the moment we are stuck with Telefónica as satellite is out of our price range, their time will come however I am sure.
Evie. who also rants about things.