What is there left to say about Telefonica. I´ve been here over 20 years and have had problems with them since the first moment I put a line in back in 1987. It was Ok when they had offices you could actually go to visit to complain but since they got rid of them all, it´s been a licence to completely ignore the complaints procedures here in Spain. If you look at figures from both the Consumer Offices, they are the single biggest Company people complain about. Customers services ops are really not interested in any complaint you wish to make and I´ve been forced on more than one occasion to visit the local consumer office to lodge an official complaint and it does work eventually. Telefonica, in nearly all cases, does resolve these matters but it´s time we have to waste. My last gripe with them concerned the change they´ve made to billing dates. As usual, no information forwarded to the consumer and when you call to ask them for an explanation, they quite happily tell you that with millions of customers, how can they possibly inform them all. My reply was that if they can send advertising bumph to one and all, why can´t they do the same with things that would actually interest us to know.

Can´t see things changing in the near future although I´m an eternal optimist...on one other point, I haven´t tried anyone else as I find service with other providers to be not much better and hey, in any case, the line´s with Telefonica anyway so, in the end, I´ll still not be able to get rid of them.

Will it not end up like all the major operators though? As soon as some competition gets in the way they start loosing customers?

I´d like to be able to say, yes, I´m sure it will but I´ve tried other operators and they´re really no better. In Spain, in all service industry, until they realise that the customer is primary, they´ll never get it right and particularly among expats who are used to, in most cases, first class customer service. The difficulty other companies have is that Telefonica still provide the lines and until that changes, I don´t think anything else will for the foreseeable future. I´d like to think that there will come a time when they have to do something but I´ve been waiting for it to happen and it hasn´t yet.

I couldn’t agree more but at the same time 20 years ago we were in the same position in the uk with one company supplying all the lines as soon as another took over then 20% of customers left BT. Now they boast that those people go back to them but at the same time there is 40% more people able to supply the line but not the service.

Do you not think that long term (15 years) it will iron itself out to be the same?

I think it’s important to remember that even though Telefonica supplies the line, it’s still the customer service and billing that is the main problem. If you can get the same product from another supplier like Wanadoo or ONO or whoever but with better customer service and a billing department without the mission to boost profit margins and revenues then inevitably the customer experience should be better.

Have Orange not just purchased Jazztel? I thought that Jazztel were one of the only other companies that had their own infrastructure? Just a thought but if they have would this not pave the way for a slightly better service all around?

I´ll like to believe that eventually things will change. Orange have just come into the market so it will be interesting to see how well they do....you are right that it is billing and service that seems to be the problem. These special offers they put on to attract clients are also very misleading as they advertise what seems a great package but when you look at the small print, after the first three months, it´s not much different from any of the others. Only time will tell.....

Telefonica are without doubt the worst corporate company I have ever had to deal with, I have put up with 3 years of telefonica staff telling me a different story everytime I contact them, they have been telling me for 3 years that I need (one week its 7 poles the next week its 5 poles the next week.... you get my drift!) to have a land line fitted.

A year ago they fitted a radio phone and I do not think that I have ever had a conversation using the phone since without being cut off because the signal was too weak.
Today they have fitted a land line (guess what....not 1 new pole) this is the 6th day in a row that they were going to fit the landline at 11am ( today was the 1st day that they actually turned up).....at 3pm, so 6 days off of work and 3 years 2 months later I finally have a land line, I won´t go into the Telefonica internet access that I have been paying for for 13 months that has never worked.....thats another story, I suppose that this is all part of the charm of living in Spain.
My patience has improved no end as now I do not expect.....

Oh happy days!!...and I mean it, if this is all I have to put up with after the uk then thank gawd!

Telefonica is one of the most profitabe companies in Europe and one of the worst. I never dealt with a WORSE telephone provider (fixed and mobile) in any of the four other countries I lived in.

They will not activate roaming on my mobile line because they say I am a “new customer”.  Get a pre-paid card instead!! 
In other words, they quite bluntly told me they do not trust I will pay them; they explained to me they are afraid I will run off without paying my bills; only way to go is to give them an aval bancario OR a certificate of how much money I have in my bank account!!!!  The first option is crazy, the second is absolutely ludicrous. Each of my monthly bills for the last two months had three digits in it; they are automatically domiciled on my account by the way!!!!! I asked their useless customer service what difference it would make if I called foreign countries for hours from here or if I call Spain from foreign countries when I am on a business trip, with roaming, when it comes to my credit reliability… They didn’t quite understand what I meant.  I do not understand if I am more likely to pay for traffic generated from here than from another country!!

Once I called to understand my phone bill (did you ever read “If you have any doubt on this invoice, call ....”:  a French lady with a terrible English accent actually lost patience at my asking her how much I had spent that month (no way to figure it out!!). She told me they do not know that, and that I should check on the internet… I told her, what if I do not have an internet connection, since Telefonica has not cabled the whole block of where I live????

Yes, listen to that.  My obra nueva (9 months since it was finished) is still NOT cabled by Telefonica (and therefore 50 families do NOT have any fixed telephone, with Telefonica or anyone else). Now, I am NOT talking about a small town in the middle of nowhere, I am talking about a fairly central area of the third biggest city of Catalunya! Apparently Telefonica has some interest NOT to cable the block until some other construction is finished.. Isn’t there any law against this? Is there any way to force them to provide a fixed line to us?? I am quite happy to begin a class action against this horrible de-facto monopoly if someone can provide some information on such cases.

All I want is that Telefonica cables the building, then I will ask Tele2 to give me a telephone line!!

Well, having posted that we were to have a phone in January we eventually got our radio phone installed at the end of June. Six years to get a phone!

Since then I have found various ways to keep my bills down. I use companies that give me free calls, some only short but useful, and a main company to get low cost calls to UK and anywhere else in the world. I also get a UK phone in number with that so friends and family can call me.

So far telefonica have only had €1.43 out of me for calls.

Anybody wanting to save money on their calls can try http://www.direct-telecom.es if you quote my ref number 12971, you get €10 worth of credit on your account when you open an account.  Many friends and neighbours got their phones at about the same time as me and I recommended direct telecom to many of them and they are as delighted as I am at how much they can use the phone for so little compared to telefonica.

Don´t talk to me about ADSL, as well as it taking 3 years to get my landline at my house, I was approached by Telefonica, they asked me if I would like ADSL fitted at my Hotel ( I also own a hotel on the Sierra Espuña) They sent me the modem 2 and a half years ago and set up the direct debit to take the money from my account, the ADSL never worked and I informed them so, they promised to send an engineer (2 and a half years ago), I have tried on numerous occasions to cancel the contract as an engineer never arrived, they have sent me forms to cancel the contract but still continue to take the money from my account, my adsl payment is paid with my telephone bill so I cannot stop the payment at the bank.
An engineer arrived at the hotel last week and after fiddling with the computer for half an hour informed us that we were too far from the exchange and cannot have ADSL at our hotel, Telefonica STILL have not cancelled my contract and refuse to give me my money back, (1200 Euros´s) because they say it is my fault as I should have cancelled the contract earlier....the mind boggles!!

It is now a matter of principle and I have instructed my Lawyer to attempt to get the money back, I don´t care if it costs me 1200 Euro´s!!