Ex-Astro Customer
Sep 15, 09
1:36pm
My family has been a loyal Astro customer since 2002. We have never missed paying our Astro bill, even after Astro kept increasing its subscription rates.
Imagine my shock last month when my mother called me up at work, in a worried state, telling me that Astro had just called our house threatening her that we would be fined RM20 for late payment of the Astro bill.
She thought that I had forgotten to pay the bill. You see, it's like this. Astro has a funny billing system. They always bill you in advance for the month ahead, not for the month that has just passed.
Also, they bill in the middle of the month. My normal practice is to collect all the bills for the month and pay them together at the end of the month. This saves me making two or three trips to the post office.
So what's the big deal, right? A few days late but the Astro bill still gets paid, right?
I guess it must be a really big deal to Astro, because they are now behaving like loan-sharks, calling customers up at their homes and threatening to take action against them if their subscription fee is not paid on time.
Even worse, Astro called my house using a phone recorded message to threaten and scare my 60 year-old mother into paying the Astro bill on time.
Astro didn't even have the courtesy to use a real customer service representative to make the call. Is this how Astro treats its loyal customers?
Astro, what exactly are you trying to accomplish with these loan-shark strong-arm tactics? In my case, all you did was frighten a 60 year-old lady just to make sure your subscription fee is paid.
This is unforgivable. Astro, you should be ashamed of yourself. Please fire the moron of a manager who is in charge of your billing practices.
Because of this experience, I have cancelled my Astro subscription and I will never again buy or subscribe to an Astro product. I urge all other Astro subscribers who have experienced this humiliating and outrageous behaviour from Astro to do the same.
I'm not missing anything by cancelling my Astro subscription and I also save RM100 a month. Why doesn't Astro inform their customers about raising rates before billing them, either?
Carry on like this Astro, and soon you will have no customers to make recorded phone calls to.
by ONG - 7 hours ago
"Carry on like this Astro, and soon you will have no customers to make recorded phone calls to." Wishful thinking, unfortunately. Maybe 1-2% may cancel their subscriptions but the remaining 98-99% (which includes my wife) are so addicted to wasting their time watching trash from Astro that they will tolerate whatever insults and inappropriate behaviour dished out by Astro.
- by moontime - 9 hours ago
Recently I did not get any signal at all from Astro for a week. Called them up & they sent a technician to repair the decoder. After several unsuccessful attempts to repair it including changing the motherboard, he said it wasn't the decoder's fault! Must be the cable. He called another service provider to come and checked the cable. This guy came the next day, wiggled the cable, changed the head and billed me RM90! I called up Astro to complain about the exorbitant charge but nothing happened to this day. Continue doing this & you'll lose another customer, Astro.
- by henry foo - 20 hours ago
This is what happens when you have a monopoly. Complacency sets in and they are free to increase subscriptions knowing that little can be done by the public. That is why we get all the reruns after reruns.
- by Another ex-astro customer - 20 hours ago
My family canceled our Astro subscription for similar reasons a few years ago. We paid our bill at the post office on time on a Friday or Saturday, but Pos Malaysia transferred the money over to Astro the following Monday, which was after the deadline. They called up and demanded that we pay the late payment charges. We showed them that we paid before the deadline from the computer printout on the bill. They refused to acknowledge that, and gave a lame excuse that they did not receive the money on time since Pos Malaysia did not transfer the money to them before the deadline. Anyone with an iota of common sense would realise that this is the fault of Astro and not the customer. Unfortunately, common sense seems to be in short supply there. We canceled our subscription and refused to pay, and they have continued trying to intimidate us by sending warning letters from their lawyers.
- by lawman - 21 hours ago
Of late, Astro reception is poor with the picture breaking up frequently. This is not only during rainy days but almost throughout the day, spoiling my enjoyment of the US Open Tennis tournament. Any other viewers having similar reception problems?
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