[discobay]

My wife has moved over to Smartone and within a day has regretted it. She missed a number of calls which were important to her because of poor reception of because she had gone to the gym. The callers couldn't leave a voice mail message as they heard a ringing tone then a recorded message saying that the call could not be completed.
Call me "old fashioned" but if your mobile is switched off then why play a ringing tone to the caller? All networks I have been with put you straight to the voice mail system/recorded message. And if the mobile is switched off all calls should have gone to voice mail without the "this call can not be completed" message. I asked their customer service and was told that the user needs to activate the voice mail system which they do by typing a combination of asterisks, hashes and numbers. Very user-friendly and very GSM eh! I was also told that should the user later decide not to use voice mail that deactivation had to be done by Smartone themselves. Re-activation at a later date would also have to be done by Smartone and would be chargeable! And the icing on the cake is ... accessing the voice mail system is free when using your mobile (though chargeable to your monthly minutes) but costs HKD1.00 when using a (free) landline!
So much for me thinking of moving over to Smartone.

[nivantj]

Ahhh.. finally.. DB,
I had same stupid problems with them 3 yrs back and surprised to know they are still the same.. Though i wanst aware about some of those 'icing on cake' at that time.. not sure if its new things.. Finally i had to switch back to Orange due to poor reception of unSmartOne in the office...

[discobay]

Yes and so much for the poll thread on cell phone service.

[opps]

been using smartone for years and quite happy with it, until getting a new number from them recently.....what upset me was

1. the default ringtone is their advert theme song, you have to call the hotline and ask them to disable it

2. besides the activation of voice mail, as DB said, many features of the voicemail (e.g. language, sms alert, etc) cannot be changed through the menu, but to call their hotline

DB, in case you haven't disabled their promotion text msg, make sure you have uncheck-ed everything for your account in the website www.smartone-vodafone.com (see attachment)

[discobay]

OK, thanks for the heads up.

[JaredHK]

If you complain about their service too much they blacklist you and will not give you an account. These guys suck.

[discobay]

Hey now there's an idea ... get's us out of the contract.

[Max]

LOL!

and to think I was considering leaving CSL for Smartone....seems like you hear something new everyday.

[KnowItAll]

Weird .. I must be their last happy customer from the looks of it.

Anyways, just waiting for the contract to end.. then got to hit up someone out there for an unlimited 3G account.

[discobay]

What kind of phone do you intend to use with that unlimited 3G contract?