Why I can't wait for my 1 year Maxis contract to be over

I am a fairly tolerant person on a typical day. Today my patience is challenged. As corporations grow bigger, the average consumer becomes smaller until its concerns and frustrations remain its own and consumers just have to swallow whatever rubbish is dished out at them.

I fell in love with the Apple iphone and that is the start of my problem with Maxis. I had been a Digi user and been reluctant to change out of Digi. Although Digi has some limitations with the quality of the service but Digi's customer service is superb and Digi has always been able to assist me in making full use of the telecommuication service. As an example, I remember standing outside my office building one day and looking at my Palm treo with its conference call feature I decided that while waiting for my husband to pick me up I might as well call my friend in LA and conference in another friend in Kuching and I managed to do that with Digi and that was way back in 2001, 2002?

I was excited that with the Apple iphone I can now make conference calls with my family members who live in other states. On this day, when my elder sister turns 50 I had hoped to use my Apple iphone to connect my family members just so we could all wish my sister a 'Happy Birthday'.

Now in 2009, I have the state of the art phone, the latest iphone, and I can't even connect members of the family within Malaysia. I was puzzled so I called Maxis Customer Service at 123 and was told that the conference call feature is a value added service and if I wish to activate the conference call I need to pay a deposit of RM1000. I was stunned that for Digi I did not have to activate anything but with Maxis it is not RM100 but a RM1000 deposit. I am puzzled that if there is no restriction on my international calls why should Maxis worry about how I make those calls.

I am really hoping that Maxis will be able to catch up with international telco providers like Digi. Is it because Maxis does not hire the right people? I am surprised that only the top brass people are listed on their website and they are not contactable. The switchboard is afraid to put me through to anybody other than David Keong, the floor manager of Customer Service at Sunway. Presia the switchboard operator tried her best but no one at HQ wants to take up the issue. No one from HQ felt able to call me back. It is clearly a policy issue and I do expect someone more senior than the floor manager of Customer Service to address this issue.

I just want to have an Apple iphone and I am saddened by the fact that with a more sophisticated phone I am now unable to use a feature which I was able to use freely although I had not seen the need to use it frequently. Should we be patronised by telcos who forget that they are a service provider and how can authorities allow such an arbitrary imposition of RM1000 deposit for conference calls when I expect only to be making at a conference call locally. If the telco is concerned about bills running too high, shouldn't a credit limit be imposed instead. Furthermore Maxis is the redistributor for Apple iphone and yet Maxis as the telco provider is barring conference calls.