Donna Gee - Spain's Grumpy Old Gran

After waiting several years for Telefonica to venture into the comparatively new urbanisation in which I live, their eventual arrival was more than overdue.

Now I wish they’d never bothered because my subsequent dealings with the Spanish national telephone service developed into one long, frustrating nightmare. That’s why I got rid of them – and reverted to a local provider here in the southern Costa Blanca.

As a result, I am at least 20 euros a month better off and can contact an English-speaking technician at their offices within seconds. On the downside, I can’t call the emergency services except from my UK-contract mobile – and have learnt to my cost that calling premium rate numbers in Britain is ridiculously expensive.

 From the start, Telefonica made me feel I wasn’t really wanted. I’m not talking about the engineer who installed my line and internet wireless equipment. He was remarkably quick and efficient…even if I did pay through the nose to be connected.

 The problems seemed to mount when I called their English-language helpline number, 1004. My first problem was in obtaining a bill. They either couldn’t or wouldn’t mail me one, depending on whether I wanted it sending to my Spanish or UK address. The best they could offer was online billing. Only I simply could not get my user name or password to work, even when they gave me new ones.

 Consequently, my only way of knowing how much I was being charged was to check my bank statement each month.

 The 1004 people also insisted that I provided my NIE number as well as my name and phone number every time I called them. That’s equivalent to BT asking for my passport number. Surely the fact I was the subscriber calling from my own private number – which they could clearly see using their own office technology - should have sufficed.

 In my eyes, they were just being plain bloody-minded.

 Even more frustrating was that when I rang to request temporary suspension of my ADSL each time I went to England (which reduces internet charges by 75 per cent or more), the 1004 operator insisted this could only be done by their business department.

 ‘‘But this is not a business line, it’s a private house,’’ I repeatedly told them. ‘‘Well, we have it down as a business number,’’ they insisted. ‘’You’ll have to ask them if you want it changing to a private one.’’

The punchline is that staff in the business department didn’t (or more accurately wouldn’t) speak English – and the English-speaking operators on 1004 refused to do the job in your behalf.

 During my 18 months as a Telefonica customer, I made several unsuccessful attempts to have the line switched to a private one, using my far-from-perfect Spanish – and when my umpteenth effort once again elicited the obligatory request for my NIE number, I snapped.

 I called 1004 and said I no longer wished to do business with them and would be instructing my bank to cancel my Direct Debit. The operator showed not the slightest inclination to persuade me to rethink. The clear message was, ‘‘If that’s what you want, please yourself. We don’t care.’’

 So I wrote off the extra amount I had been charged for the suspended service Telefonica didn’t suspend and told my bank to refuse any future demands for money from them.

 I’m well rid, I thought – and for six months or more I heard nothing. Then, out of the blue, I received a demand from a collection agency recently saying I owed Telefonica 55 euros and that  if I didn’t pay, the amount would be increased and I would face legal action.

 I would not even have known about the demand had the Correos not finally started delivering mail, a luxury my part of the urbanisation was not blessed with for some years after it was built.

 I toyed with the idea of ignoring the demand because I knew that in reality I owed Telefonica nothing while they owed ME at least 100 euros. But I quickly realised I was fighting a war I couldn’t win…so I swallowed my anger and wrote off another 55 euros.

This all happened some time ago,, so I cannot speak for Telefonica's current practices. What I would say is that if YOU are planning to become a subscriber, do so with caution. Better still, ask a few people who have done business with them how they got on.

 Most expats reckon life in Spain is generally much better than in the rapidly deteriorating UK, yet could you imagine British Telecom treating anyone with such an abysmal ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude?

 Still, at the end of the day, whether you get your telephone service from Telefonica is your call...

Isn’t choice a wonderful thing? And never is it more welcome than when some company or other crosses you and you tell them to stick it up their you-know-what.

I’m still quietly congratulating myself at the fact I have deprived a couple of airlines of thousands of pounds over the years. Voting with my purse was the only way I could protest meaningfully after being ripped off by their devious practices. So I refused to fly with them again until I felt I had deprived them of suficient revenue to balance  the books.

 One airline went too far when they charged me a £40 ‘administration fee’ in addition to their standard £30 charge to change the name of my travelling companion on a Manchester-Alicante flight. Since the original ticket had cost exactly £70, it amounted to paying for the ticket again just to alter the name of the person travelling.

And I kicked the other company into space when they refused to pay me for an article I had been specifically commissioned to write for their in-flight magazine. Why wasn’t I paid? Because they sacked the editor who commissioned it before she could publish my feature article, which I had spent a considerable time preparing. I never did find out if I was legally entitled to the agreed fee - but I've never used that airline from that day to this.

Between them, those two episodes cost me less than £200 – a tiny fraction of what those two companies subsequently lost in fares and goodwill from Granny Grump and her family. Having said that, I’ve now wiped the slate clean, partly because the flight options from Alicante and Murcia to the UK are becoming fewer and fewer every year.

Maybe I took things too far with my boycott but isn’t having the option of going elsewhere just great when there’s a viable alternative?

The big problem arises when you have only one choice – namely take it or leave it. Which is precisely where I found myself when HC Energia, the only electricity supplier then operating on my urbanisation, cut off my supply without any warning.

It’s not the sort of thing that happens in the UK. At least not without plenty of notification and some serious defaulting with one’s payments.

My ‘crime’ was that there wasn’t quite enough in my account to fund one of HC Energia’s direct debit demands. As I had no overdraft facility, my Spanish bank rejected it. Nobody told me, of course – or I would have coughed up the few euros involved at the drop of a switch.

Instead, the electricity company cut off my supply, Tommy Cooper style. Just like that.

I was in England at the time so I wasn’t left in the dark. At least, not literally. The first I knew of the problem was when my keyholder phoned to say there was a notice glued to my front door in big red letters saying the electricity had been cut off.

Several days, several large banknotes and several mini heart attacks later, I managed to have the supply reconnected. I was also, as you can imagine, furious and immediately decided I wanted no more to do with a company that clearly had no concern for the welfare of its customers. 

The problem was that HC Energia (since renamed EDP) was the only company supplying our urbanisation. So it was a case of ‘don’t waste your Energia trying to switch cos there ain’t no-one else’.

I had no alternative to bite my tongue and stick with the devil I knew. And thankfully this particular demon has never given me any more hell.

That’s presumably because since I was cut off, I have always made sure there are funds in my account to meet every direct debit.

The fact that since last year I have had the option of switching to another supplier like Iberdrola may also be playing its part. But I doubt it….because I gather the devil I don’t know is also a dab hand at cutting people off at the slightest excuse.

Talk about a power struggle!