This might initially sound like a rant about something that just happened, but bare with me, it’s not. It hasn’t exactly happened to me, but that doesn’t mean companies should be allowed to do it.
Why are companies allowed to offer “unlimited” services. I’ve only ever reached the limit on one of these once, but the idea of having a limit to reach is down right ridiculous. Most of these unlimited packages offered by large companies have strict limits. They call them fair usage policies and say it’s to stop you interfering with another customers service. The only fair amount of usage in an Unlimited usage package would be as much as I want and without limit.
unlimited (comparative more unlimited, superlative most unlimited)
1. limitless or without bounds; unrestricted
If your system can’t handle offering something as unlimited, then how the hell can you advertise it? Surely it’s flat out lying. If I sold someone 10 fancy new baseball caps, and when they came to collect them I said they could only have 1 of them as I intended on selling the other 9 to other people, I couldn’t get away with that for long.
A while ago I needed a new internet connection, so I phone good old BT and request to be put on the Unlimited download package. I don’t really care about speed, even 2mb/s would be fine for me, if I could leave it downloading whenever I wanted. The lady on the phone was happy to offer me Option 3, the most expensive package, called the Unlimited package. This is one step up from the Heavy Usage package, and I would even consider “heavy usage” to be more than I need. So I sign up, taking the unlimited package, so I can “Downloading as much as you want, when you want”.
No more than 3 months later, I find out that I can’t download anything anymore. Websites won’t load, and a speed test informs me that I’ve got a connection of around 100kb/s. That’s a fifth of the speed of the first broadband connection I ever had, 5 or so years ago.
This is quite odd, but I leave it a few days thinking it might just be a problem on their end. Eventually, after getting fed up with this terrible service, I decide to give them a ring. Spending maybe an hour on the phone, talking to tech support, restarting my computer 3 or 4 times, using my laptop instead of my desktop, plugging directly into the router, and everything else I’d already tried before phoning them, they tell me I’ve been limited due to downloading too much.
There must have been a mistake, I’m definitely paying the price for the Unlimited package, but maybe they didn’t set it up properly, so I ask to be put through to someone I can talk to about it. This must happen quite a lot, as I get put through to an angry sounding woman who starts shouting at me for downloading too much at the wrong times of the day. After a lengthy chat about what unlimited means and how having a limit is not unlimited, she tells me that I’m not only limited for the rest of the month in which I surpassed this limit, but the entire month following, as well. She then says there’s nothing that can be done and to go away.
Long story short, the Unlimited package from BT will limit your download speed if you download more than their imposed limit. I wonder if they cut off your phone for talking too loud as well.
My second experience with this is a recent email I received from Orange. I won’t go into detail about the hassle it took to finally receive a useful reply from them. To sum it up, after emailing the sales department I received a reply saying “Unfortunately this department does not hold information on Orange products or services”, again, that was the sales department I sent the email to.
Anyway, I got a more reasonable reply after pointing this out, in which I was offered Unlimited texts on a Dolphin package. Awesome I thought, unlimited texts, just what I required. Until, the very next sentence, which was as follows; “You should be aware that there is a fair usage policy on unlimited text messages, this will allow you 3000 text messages per month”.
So this is Orange telling me that I can get unlimited text messages, and that somehow means a limit of 3000.
There’s two companies who offer an unlimited service, and have a very fixed idea of what the limit is. Does the problem lie with me? Am I expecting too much from the word unlimited?
I would be fine if they said that it’s unlimited, did not have a fixed number for the limit, and only had a problem if I was abusing the system in an abnormal way. Maybe if I had automated text sending and was sending a text every half second during the peak hours, or something. Even then, sure, they’re applying a limit, but a very reasonable one.
To be able to hit the limit of “unlimited”, with a fairly normal usage of the system, suggests they are not in any place to offer an unlimited service, and as such should not be able to advertise an unlimited service. If your service is degraded for people around me due to my usage, then you need to upgrade the service you offer the other people, not downgrade the service you offer me to cover it.
How the hell do they get away with it. Where is the loophole in the advertising laws that say you’re allowed to do this? More importantly, why do these loopholes still exist?
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