Author: Paul Ooi

  • Why is Telekom Malaysia So Rich?

    2 days ago, I told you Telekom Malaysia’s billing system is a big mess. Besides not wanting to print additional page for me, now they demand a pakcik (elderly man) to pay RM806,400,000,000,000.01 in telephone bills. Pakcik Wahab nearly fainted when he saw the bill amount had so many zeros at the back.

    For me, I would have surely fainted and pretend to be dead. RM800 trillion telephone bill – how to pay off? My grandson of my grandson and great grandson of my son also would’nt finish paying the bill. By year 2020, also cannot. I wonder how is it possible to make RM800 trillion in calls? 😀

    I believe the dept collector from Sungai Petani sure felt happy till thought of dying. Why? RM800 trillion – he/she just takes 10% of the amount, then can break his/her legs and hands and spend the rest of his/her life relaxing with the money. Even the great great grandson and gang can break hands/legs together.

    I grew up in Alor Setar, Kedah. In my entire life (even tho’ I am just 20+), I only know a place called Alor Setar in Kedah. But Pakcik Wahab’s bill addressed to Alor Setar, Penang. Oh, who’s the alien on earth been to Alor Setar, Penang before? Or maybe the programmer/developer should learn some geography. Alor Setar is in Kedah, bukan(not) Penang!

    Pakcik, I support you, you should sue them because they nearly made you faint. Please la, Pakcik already 63 years old, don’t play this kind of fear factor thing on him.

    The full story on NST

  • Confusing TMNet Billing

    I received my TMNet bill 2 days ago. I was confused how come it charged me RM122.71 when I subscribed for the RM88 package. Then I suspected it might be from my TMNet Hotspot?

    So I logged on to TMNet customer billing site, using firefox. I tried to retrieve my March bill, but it seemed like nothing happened when I clicked ‘to retrieve’. Then I suspected that the billing site doesn’t support Firefox, so I had to switch to Internet Explorer!

    Ahhhaaa… Now it showed the online bill. It was 2 pages. But the bill sent to my house was only 1 page.


    This is the bill delivered to my home.


    This is the online bill.

    Usually I don’t use Hotspot but because I worked in a freaking place last month with bad internet connectivity, I had no choice. Does anybody know how to deactivate TMNet Hotspot? Because it charged me RM18/month!

    TMNet Support Centre

    I know you will ask me to call that freaking 1-300-88-1500, but I have a fear calling that freaking number cos’ after calling them so many times last month they still could not solve my problems.


    See my phone bill? Called them twice last month, on average spent 12 minutes talking to them explain my difficulties. But they ended up not giving me any good solutions. Which I mentioned here before. Mind you, the calls were about 12 minutes, but the conversation was less than 5 minutes. If you have called TMNet support centre before, you should be familiar with this;

    “Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing## Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing## Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing##Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing## Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing## Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing## Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing## Our customer xxx is busy, please wait and we will xxx you shortly ##stupid music/misleading advertising playing##”.

    Yes, exactly. I spent so much time waiting them to serve me and they didn’t solve my problem. Don’t you have a fear for calling them too? Jerry recorded the conversation once.

    Another thing, if they tell you that they will solve your problem in 5 days, it’s actually 5 “working” days. So if your problem falls during a weeked, sorry to hear that 😉

    Last Edited(12th April 2006): If they promised to solve your problem in 48 hours, actually it’s 48 working hours. 48hours / 8hours mean they solve your problem in 6 days! We have the conversation recorded. Download it here.

  • Apa Khabar TMNet Streamyx User?

    I received an email from TMNet for a Dialogue Session with Michael Lai in August last year. I didn’t turn up for the dialogue session last year because it was held on 30th August, which fell on Merdeka Eve day. Who’s gonna drive in a jam to Subang Chaters Cafe just to have a chat?

    Last week, I received an email from TMNet again. It was from the Public Relations Manager. TMNet’s Public Relations Manager would like to help TMNet’s user who have problems and to try to solve their problems. She requested contact details for users who were having TMNet Streamyx problems. If you think she can help, or you hope she can help you, email her!

    I have already made a complain to her relating to TMNet’s Netmyne data centre in Brickfields which does not have a 24/7 support. And the cooling system is bad, creating over-heating to my server and it sometimes hang and does not work, causing downtime too.

    I wonder will this help? As I always say, it’s the attitude problem with some TMNet staff. I have complained about the cooling system in TMNet Netmyne Data Centre in Brickfields since July 2005 but they always say ‘next month will install more airconds’. But until today, which is April 2006, they still haven’t added any new airconds yet.

    Countless phone complaints and email complaints have been given to them. They still treat me like an idiot, which is by not responding to the issue and not getting a reply from them. This is very disappointing. So, don’t you think it’s their attitude problem? TMNet belongs to Telekom Malaysia, few biji (units) aircond also can’t afford? But can afford to expand business in overseas? What a joke!

    Countless TMNet complaints here and Google even ranks my blog on top when you search TMNet Netmyne.

    So, got complaint? Email to asmaziz##tmnet.com.my, she will try her best to assist you.

    p.s: replace “##” to “@”,

  • Blogging With An Apple

    I have been very busy recently, busy with work and projects that have tight datelines to meet. I’m glad to hear spoonfork has finished one of his projects :). Wish me luck, I hope I can finish mine as soon as possible so I can have a good night’s sleep.

    Oh yea, my houstemate has just bought a new Apple iBook and yes, I am so proud to be blogging using his new toy now. I had hoped to get an Apple a long long time ago, since last year July or August, can’t remember but can find my apple testing articles in my archive.

    Apple MacBook Pro is too expensive for me, can’t afford it, RM7k and above. I need an Apple machine mainly for programming work; PHP, Apache, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Perl, Python. For sure it will be a good opportunity for me to expose Xcode2.0. I just hope Apple will release Intel “iBook” sometime this year. Programming work, an Intel “iBook” is good enough for me I think.

    When I bought an IBM X40 early last year, I already promised myself not to buy any expensive laptop in 3 years time. Does anybody know when the Intel “iBook” will be released? Anytime soon? Because I am addicted to Mac machine now! 🙂

    Ok, that’s it, back to work. I have a dream Chelsea will lose and Man Utd will win tomorrow 😛

  • Beware Of Some Malaysia Colleges

    An unhappy incidence was happened to my cousin. It was about a college which located at PJ branch indirectly cheated my cousin and her friend’s registration fees, and they did not want to or strongly refused to refund the registration fees to both of them. Well, although it’s only RM130, but can you imagine if there are students who walk in and they grab each of them RM50? They can earn good money isn’t it?

    The incidence started on 23rd December, my cousin and friend went to the college to find out courses offered by them. They were keen to know about Higher Diploma course. So, there was a marketing person who had brief both of them on the course information.

    After the briefing, my cousin and friend asked is there any scholarship offers by the College. The marketing person said it is a scholarship programme offer by the college, but the offer was going to end on 31st December 2005. So the marketing person suggested them to “pre” register the course so they won’t missed the chance to apply for the scholarship programme.

    The con job started here… The marketing person asked them to pay RM180 for the registration fees. But my cousin and friend can’t afford to pay RM180 as they didn’t bring enough cash during that day. So, they decided to pay quarter of the RM180, my cousin paid RM50 and her friend paid RM80. Before making the payment, they asked the marketing person is the registration fees refundable? “Yes, it is. But they must fax an official letter to our college and stated why they request the refund. “, the marketing person replied. With the marketing person promised, so both of them paid the registration fees to the college.

    1 week later, my cousin and friend decided not to take up the course offer by the college, so they called up the marketing person and told her that they want the refund. The marketing person asked my cousin and friend wrote an official letter and fax it to the college. After few days the offical letter have been faxed to the college, there was no reply from the marketing person. Therefore, my cousin decided to call her and clarify the refund status.

    When my cousin called up, the marketing person explained it was because the accounting department has submited the fees into the account so that the registration fees is not refundable. She also mentioned about the faulty action of the fees submission. Obviously, this is not my cousin problem, it’s the college problem, if they promsied the fees is refundable, so they have to eat their word. So my cousin told her the money must refund because it’s not their problem, what they want is the money back. After long arguement, the marketing person came out a statement saying that “Actually in our college policy, Registration Fees cannot be refund.” So?????

    My cousin and friend felt cheated and ask for my help to ring them up, get back the registration fees. I called up the marketing person, and she told me the same thing, she said the “registration fees” cannot be refund, but it can be transfer to other student who are interested to register a course with the college. Well, I said she has promised earlier the fees can be refund, so she has to eat her word and process the refund. Then she replied me with the same answer, “Our college policy is, the registration fees cannot be refund to the registrant.” I continue bla bla bla with her and the supervisor, end up with the result, No Refund!

    So people, beware!!! A lot of Malaysia colleges “sometime” giving misleading information. I suggest you bring recorder there when enquiry the course 😉