Management takes no responsibility - what a copout

Editor;

These golfers who have been writing letters in response to Jerry Langer (Mailbag: Locker Room Thief) can harp all over him for losing his expensive watch at Khao Kheow if they want to. That’s up to them and their conscience … but if you read between the lines, he does have at least a point to consider. If people, anywhere, feel they can steal with impunity, things are only going to get worse.

I have no way of knowing what response the management gave the guy, but if it were me and my business, I’d want to be able to assure all guests that even though we have big signs posted, you are still safe from thieves on our property. Putting up signs like that is basically a copout, basically saying, if you leave something in your locker, we have so little faith in the people we employ that chances are it will get stolen, so better not leave anything valuable in there.

Again, I don’t know what their response was, but if it were me, I would have at least responded with something like, “We’ve launched an investigation into this event. We’ve questioned the people who were working that day and at that time. We assure you that in no way do we want our customers to think that we feel it is ok for our employees to steal anything out of the lockers in our clubhouse. If indeed the watch was stolen, we will do our best to bring the culprit to justice. If, on the other hand, the watch was lost on out on the golf course, we will send people out to look for it and be sure to let you know immediately should any of our caddies or any other golfer turns it into the lost and found. - The Management.”
Paul Millard

Still another unsatisfied True Visions customer

Dear Editor,

I was very interested to read Billy Sheal’s comments about his experiences with True Move. Is there any farang in this country who is happy with their service? I haven’t found any.

The staff are generally discourteous and will more often than not ignore farangs at the front of the queue in favour of a Thai stood behind. Considering that the service is favoured more by farangs than Thais it astounds me that the staff that they employ generally have very little or no command of the English (or any foreign) language.

We too had a similar situation to that experienced by Mr Sheal. When we moved here, just over 4 years ago, we purchased our own True Move decoder and dish and subscribed to the Gold package. Although the quality of choice of programmes being transmitted left a lot to be desired we found the service to be generally adequate for our needs. I would hesitate to improve on this analogy as the quality of the picture was not to the standard that I was used to in England, but there we were spoilt with Sky, of course.

We paid our subscription monthly - generally getting frustrated at the Thais being allowed to jump the queue at Tesco Lotus - until one day last year when they calmly turned to us and announced that our decoder and dish were now obsolete and we needed to buy new ones. We returned to the shop where we bought them, but they could do nothing. Neither could the True Move shop opposite Big C extra on Pattaya Klang so, after weeks of frustration, we eventually succumbed to buying a new decoder and dish.

So, the engineers arrived with the new equipment and immediately advised us that it was a waste of time fitting the new dish, as our existing one was identical. A good investment, that, I thought - the new dish is still left on the ground at the side of our house where they dumped it!

Then they connected the new decoder and the picture was very poor, in fact totally unwatchable on most channels. I asked why, if our dish was OK, we couldn’t simply continue to use our original decoder, as that had always produced a reasonable picture and, despite the engineer’s insistence that it was not possible, I did eventually persuade him to reconnect it. Then, as if by magic, he produced a card to insert into our old decoder to receive all the channels. Perfect! - well not actually perfect, but certainly acceptable. But it was not possible for us to do that. It would appear that that was far too obvious a solution to the problem. The only solution, he said, was to upgrade to an HD box, which he assured me would improve the picture on all the channels.

So, the next day we had the HD box installed. We received very good pictures on the 3 HD channels - Truesport 1, HBO and, inexplicably, ‘Coffee Master’, which was just cameras sited in a coffee shop! - a bit like Lin Ping panda channel! So we had 2 watchable channels and there was no improvement to the others. As True Move were incapable of sorting out the problem we ceased paying our subscription - after all, the TV remained switched off as we only had blurred pictures to watch. We were subsequently cut off and received letters threatening to sue us for payment. My letters to the Customer Services Dept and the managing director in Bangkok didn’t even receive the courtesy of a reply and we have remained at a status quo for almost a year now.

I too am looking for a suitable TV service Mr Sheal, so if you find one will you please pass on the information to me.
Phil Barker

No water!

Editor;

I have lived in this particular area since 2006, in Nongprue in a village called Fah Mi Add Kan, just off Siam Country Club Road. Since moving here what is disturbing is how often the water seems to be cut off, not just for hours but for days. The only time it doesn’t seem to be cut off is during Songkran.

I can understand if there is a breakage in a pipe which in this area seems to happen often, but then there are times it is just shut off for no apparent reason. Through the years I have added two reserve tanks, 2500 liters each, with a pump which allows me and my family to have some mental comfort when the water is turned off. At times we don’t even know it is turn off until we hear from the other Thai neighbors that they don’t have water.

This weekend (Queen’s Birthday) takes the cake! The water was turned off again without any real notice, just rumors. The water was turned off since Wednesday and by Friday I had noticed that the tanks were empty. I had to search and buy water from a supplier and when the truck arrived the neighbors came out and I could see they were at a breaking point even for Thais. Since I’m a little better off than my neighbors I told the water truck driver after filling up my house tanks to provide my neighbors also with some water.

The next day, again I had the tanks filled since the rumors throughout the area was no one knew exactly when it will be turned on again. Do to so many complaints someone decided to call the Fire Department to come to the neighborhood to provide free water to everyone. I would like to thank the individual at the water department who made this great decision, but whoever is running this department for this area should be tarred and feathered! This has gone on much too long and something has to be done since the person seems to have a total disregard for people suffering year after year, having the water turned off for no apparent reason. Fix the problem or give the damn job to someone who can!

Jeff Chumuchi

Fox news

Editor;

Re Ray’s mailbag letter about Fox news. Any TV news network that constantly has to tell you how it is giving you fair and balanced coverage is rather like a country with the word democratic in it. Normally the country is far from democratic and Fox news is certainly not fair or balanced. It’s extremely right wing in its views, and when it does occasionally have any good news to impart about Obama it manages to sneer its way through even that. Yet I find myself addicted to watching it because it makes me so mad. Sad to say many Americans actually think they are getting true unbiased news from Fox news, maybe that’s one of the reasons the country is in such a mess!
D Barrett

Management takes no responsibility - what a copout

Still another unsatisfied True Visions customer

No water!

Fox news