Falling Out of Love: HTC Hero on Meteor Ireland
Posted 23 Apr 2010 in Customer Service , Meteor Ireland , Mobile Phones , Rant | 12 Comments
I’d heard good things about the HTC Hero for some time, and interested in the Android platform I decided to switch from Vodafone and avail of the HTC hero with Meteor.
My first impressions were that I loved the phone. I loved the ease of use, I loved the logical layouts, the ability to get into the settings and easily customise. The ability to set different ‘desktops’ was a huge bonus. I could hide away my work-related apps at the weekend. I thought that this phone and myself were going to get along famously.
The day after I bought it, I woke up to find that I had no service and it was operating on emergency only calls. After turning it on and off a couple of times didn’t resolve the issue, I phoned customer service. They informed me that the sale hadn’t being ‘closed properly in the system’ and that I should turn it off and on again, after they had ‘closed’ the sale on their system. This worked, issue resolved.
Or so I thought. A week later, the same thing happened. A few days in a row. So I gathered the bits and pieces and headed into the Meteor store in the Crescent Shopping Centre in Limerick and spoke to the manager, Laura. Laura herself owns a HTC Hero and told me that it had happened to her phone at the start but the issue had been caused by the SIM card being slightly loose. Once she had reinserted her SIM card she hadn’t had the problem again. So Laura removed my SIM card and reinserted it. She also told me that if that didn’t resolve the issue to come back in and they would exchange the phone. If she wasn’t there at the time, I was to mention that I had spoken to her and that it was a flagged issue and I was to get the phone exchanged.
So far so good in terms of customer service. Unfortunately a couple of weeks later the same issue started happening again. So, today I took my HTC Hero back to Meteor in the Crescent. Where I was told I was outside the 28 days and the phone couldn’t be exchanged. I duly explained that it was a flagged issue and that I had spoken to Laura. I was again told that I was outside the 28 days, and I explained that I had initially come back within 28 days of buying it and that the ‘fix’ that time had not resolved the issue. I asked them to phone Laura who was working in another store at the time. Laura agreed that I was outside the 28 days and therefore the only thing they could do was send the phone off to be fixed.
I refused. The phone hasn’t worked properly from the start. So another Manager called Kate was phoned. Kate couldn’t do anything for me either. So apparently an area manager has to get involved, Ellen. Ellen is on leave at the moment and won’t be back until “Tuesday or Wednesday”. At which point I will have to make my 3rd visit to the Meteor store in the Crescent.
And in the meantime, I find myself falling out of love with the HTC Hero. With it’s sluggish start up (my PC loads faster) with it’s poor opening times for apps, with it’s loose SIM issue. I am beginning to wonder if this was all a mid-life crisis. Perhaps I should abandon my fling and return chastened to Vodafone and the iPhone.
I will suffer no guilt issues cancelling my direct debit with Meteor, and letting them loose time and money chasing me for a change.
*** UPDATE: Apparently this is a known dropped service issue with the HTC Hero on the Meteor network. It is not a handset issue, despite what Meteor tell customers. I suggest you do not touch this phone on Meteor until the issue is fully resolved. See this boards thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055851942
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That’s a shame about the phone, I had heard good things about it. So it’s the HTC Zero now?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andrew Betson and Martina Skelly, Martina Skelly. Martina Skelly said: Blog Post: "Falling out of Love: HTC Hero & Meteor" http://activate.ie/2010/04/falling-out-of-love-htc-hero-meteor/ (Anger is a great spur) [...]
Hi Jennifer, thanks for commenting.
From further reading it appears that it’s a widespread Meteor service issue with the HTC Hero, and not an actual handset issue. DON’T TOUCH THIS PHONE ON METEOR UNTIL THEY GET IT RESOLVED!
Jesus you think they’d test something like that first! A whole lot of people are about to fall out of favour with Meteor.
I’ve created a group linking to this article.
Meteor, they have done the same to me.
Customer service is segmented into several groups. All of which have zero connection with each other.
You’d think offering an alternate phone that ‘worked’ would be an option.
No, they take the phone off you(no refund) and cancel your contract after several phone calls.
But thats not an option
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115304425177233
Here is the group
Thanks Caleb.
I’ve been offered the same option of termination of contract with no penalty or to hang on in there while Meteor and HTC try to resolve this issue. No option of a handset replacement (although another customer service agent has offered to replace my Hero with another Hero!).
That’s a real shame about your experience. I know about 4 people using the Hero who swear by it but they’re all on different networks. I still maintain that the HTC Hero is streets ahead of the iPhone apart from the App market. It’s. So customisable, it truly feels like ‘my’ phone. Iphones always look the same and feel like you are just leasing it from Apple.
Anywho….did you find your iphone in the end?
Hi Peter, thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment.
As it stands I still have the Hero, my particular issue (dropped signal) with Meteor has disappeared in recent weeks and I am prepared to hang on a little while longer.
I still find certain aspects of the phone sluggish, but that may be a combination of the older software and a poor data connection speed.
App market will improve as Android market share continues to grow, but I don’t feel that I’m missing out on any critical functionality on it.
They just never learn! Always try and test anything new. To me the iphone is simply the best thing to have ever been invented in the 21st Century.
Wow, that’s so odd to me because I’ve had the exact opposite experience. I love my Hero *and* I’m on Meteor – never had a dropped signal problem I’ve noticed, never had poor customer service as I’ve never needed any, and never had a SIM issue. It is sluggish to boot, I’ll give you that – I get really excellent battery life through so that’s an every other day event for me.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this – bring it to the Web Awards and we’ll update your firmware if you like.
Jesus you think they’d test something like that first! A whole lot of people are about to fall out of favour with Meteor.