At last!  An outlet for the pent up Telefonica-induced steam.  It is good to know that I am not the only one.  We have lived in Spain since August 2003 and took over the existing phone line, but had no internet provider and Tarifa Plana seemed a good deal at 22 euros for 24 hour access and free local calls.  Everything was absolutely fine until November 2005 when for some reason we were being charged for phone access to the Internet and with three teenagers in the house, the bills were suddenly astronomical.  I contacted Telefonica and they refunded the money.  The next bill that came in was also wrong so I phoned them again and again they refunded the money.
The next bill was also uncharacteristically high, but this time, we were being charged for Duo Internet (the Telefonica ADSL package) on the phone bill.  All through this period, we have been paying Tarifa Plana 24 charges which are billed separately.  I phoned Telephonica again and this time I was told that we had not had Tarifa Plana until February this year!  I explained that we had been registered with Tarifa Plana for the previous two years, but the operator was adamant that although I might have been registered with Tarifa Plana it was not through Telefonica.  This developed into a “Yes, I have” “No, you have not” type of heated argument which ended in my telling the operator that I could give her the original bill reference from Octobder 2003 and her cutting me off.  A subsequent call to another operator resulted in a refund of the Duo Internet
Since then we have again been charged for Tarifa Plana _and_ Duo Internet and again I rang Telefonica this time to be told that a phone call from this house in February had requested ADSL and that was why we were being charged for ADSL Duo Internet.  I told them that no such phone call had been made and that we do not have ADSL, only to be told that it is on the computer that we have asked for it and therefore it must be true!  When I asked for a refund on the Duo Internet charge I was told that this was not possible.  I pointed out that refunds had been given in the past only to be told that this was not possible on this occasion as we had asked for Duo Internet and therefore it was our own fault that this charge had been made and therefore was not refundable.  Coincidentally, in February a Telefonica representative phoned our number to ask whether we wanted ADSL to be connected as it was now available in our area, but we asked for additional information about costs to be sent to us so that we could make a comparison with other providers but heard nothing more.  It could be that during this promotion, sales callers signed us up without our consent in order to get commission and it would not be beyond Telefonica’s inefficiency to operate a system which allows this anomaly.
This whole process is becoming quite surreal and it seems we are caught in a strange loop where we are paying for a service we have not asked for and have no equipment with which to receive it.  We cannot discontinue the Tarifa Plana 24 payments because we need the internet provider, so it seems that the only solution is to have ADSL connected.  It will be interesting to see what happens when I request it because we will be shown as an existing customer so it is probably going to lead to more confusion.  Whatever the outcome, the chances are that Telefonica will deny all responsibility and put the blame firmly on us.
Perhaps other people have had this problem - if so how have they solved it?
Regards
Jacky Summers

Hey Jacky,
Yeah, at last a place for all us foolish enough to cross paths with Telefonica! Jeez it sounds like you’ve had a hell of a time with them. So you’re saying that they actually signed you up for these ADSL plans and you didn’t even have the equipment for it? It sounds like that one chica you talked to purposely put you on a plan that would cause you to have to pay extra and call in again. Whatever though, it’s kind of like whoever said not to piss off your waiter too badly, he might just spit in your soup. Same deal I’d say. Not fun. I love their selectively chosen call documentation though!

I have a secret to admit though. I just ordered Telefonica. Indeed, for the sake of all of our readers I’ve gone ahead and ordered it. Perhaps I should be documenting this experience on the forums here, what do you think?

Ciao!

Oh yes, do keep us posted.  Judging by the attitude I get from operators when I give them my phone number, I suspect my soup has been spat in many times!!Anyway, ust when I thought I might stand some chance of sorting this mess out by going over to ADSL, a letter arrived today announcing the merger of Terra, the suppliers of Tarifa Plana 24, and Telefonica (although Tarifa Plana charges have always come on separate Telefonica invoices, so I don’t see how this can be called a merger).  It says that during the coming weeks, there may be some distruption to the services due to the integration of the two systems, so I suspect we are in for what the Chinese call ‘interesting times’ and several medicinal brandies may be required during this period.  I am planning to go onto ADSL as I am already paying for it, so I can’t wait to see how the merger and the installation of ADSL goes.  It will only be a question of who spontaniously combusts first - me or Telefonica.  Hope you have more success than I have had to date!

Good Luck
Jacky

We have wanadoo, which is not so great but no billing fiascos yet. I have heard that when the lines go down for internet Telefonica customers actually get their service back more quickly since all other providers have to rent the lines from Telefonica anyway. Is that possible? Is it legal? In any case, a friend of mine swears that their service always gets turned back on after malfunctions more quickly than ours does…

Hey, I needed this support group a couple of years ago when I was having at least weekly sreaming fits againts Telefonica agents on the phone.  They are amazing, they try to charge you extra for everthing thing possible, and make sure you never go without paying your bill, or its another 15 euros to reconnect.  But if they have some problems with service and you can?t use the line, would they ever reimburse you anything - of course not.  And speaking of reimbursments, the couple of times I finally got them to admit they owed me money that started another nightmare, they would say they sent a cheque, but I never recieved it and had to repeatedly call to ask with them always promising to resend it….Only once did I actually get a reimbursement cheque, for 16 euros, and the bank charged me 8 euros to process it.  I recommend to never pay anything extra even if they say you will be later reimbursed, its not going to happen.

Being so pissed off with Telefonica, I switched to Jazztel for my ADSL and local calls, and as someone else mentioned it was supposed to be all inclusive for 29,99 and invariably my two phone bills still would add up to close to 100 euros (as someone else mentioned) and Jazztel in my experience was no better than Telefonica, so I essentially just switched my rages to someone else.  Jazztel is much less organized so in the end you can get anyway without paying everything (when they piss you off, or overcharge you) and they?ll never catch up to you.  Cancelling the services with both Jazztel and Telefonica (when I moved) was also a real hassle. 

Finally, I don?t have to worry about either as telephone and internet are now included in my rental apartment, and my landlord deals with them.  Which essentially means that now I just get pissed off with my landlord, since when he forgets to pay the phone bills, our service is cut off for a few days….

you can never win….

I’m in Barcelona a week today and am renting an apartment from a fellow from Uruguay who has been living in Barcelona for six years. I’m actually in his apartment as he has returned to Uruguay for two months. Part of our agreement was that I would have ADSL during my stay. Well, so much for that. Apparently his service was cut off as “not paid” a month ago and despite his ongoing efforts there has been no happy ending, and no ADSL for me. As an aside, I am here after spending a year in Buenos Aires and I amazed at the slipshod service and general confusion here about so many things. BsAs may not be perfect, but so far it beats Barcelona !