Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The French can be swindlers...

My first week in Lyon was about getting settled in. Mindy and I went to the Part Dieu shopping center almost every day that first week. It is the largest mall in France I think? It is huge! However, by then end of that week I began to hate it. Our apartment was not equipped with internet and we cannot live without internet (we are so American) so we went to Part Dieu because it has like 4 different internet companies in the mall alone. We went to each company - Bouygues (still don't know how to pronounce that one), Orange, Darty, etc. but Bouygues told us it was take 14 days, Orange told us it would take 7-10 days, and Darty told us 2 days - which wasn't bad at all, but we decided to try one more place, Infinity, which sells SFR products. We explain our situation and this woman tells us it will take 7 days, so we start to leave and she tells us to wait. We could get this 3g key that creates a wifi hot spot so both of us could use it. It sounded perfect! Only 30 euro a month - good deal! AND it is unlimited internet. We made triple sure with everything she said, so we decide to sign up for it.

Boy did she get us good.

When you sign up for internet/tv plans, it is much like a cellphone plan - you have to sign up for 2 years, which stinks big time. We are going to be here for 7-8 months but they don't have plans like that. But, we needed internet. So we got the key and returned home excited to use it.

We had to download all this software and low and behold, it does not create a wifi hotspot like the woman said. We call the store and they tell us to do a few things. We hang up, do the things they say, and still nothing. We call again, they tell us to come in the next day. So we go to Part Dieu once again, they tell us to do a few things, and send us on our way. We come home, boom. Still no "instant wifi-hotspot" This became a cycle - us calling them, us going to visit them, them "working on it" and then sending us home. We also began to notice that our internet was slowing down immensly - like it would take minutes to load a page, while at the beginning it was super fast. This went on for a week, the calling and visiting! Hence why I started to hate Part Dieu.

At this point we are so annoyed that I go to Darty Box and sign up for an ACTUAL wifi box. Another 2 year contract.

Finally on the 8th day we go in with guns blazing. They proceed to tell us that we need to call SFR and talk to them and we can't return the key because there is a 4 day return policy. Great. So we call SFR - 7 times we spoke to them because our phones kept running out of minutes or we somehow get disconnected - and they tell us no, we can't make a wifi spot and since there are no hotspots around us that it is too bad. Also, when we asked why the internet was slowing they told us that we have a capped limit of so many gigabytes and after that the internet slows down exponentially. So, yet another thing that the workers at Infinity lied to us about. We are stuck with the 3g key. So we are currently paying for 2 internet plans despite the fact we only use one. Unfortunately you just can't call and complain like you can in the U.S. They just don't care. Oyy. You live and you learn - just the hard way I guess. The good thing is (at least, goodness I hope) since we leave in 8 months we can show them our visa and copy of our work contract that shows we are leaving the country and we can end our contracts. Let us hope it is that easy come May...

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