Off to Celcom
23 July 2014 | Puteri Harbour Marina
partly cloudy and hot
I headed into Johor Bahru to talk to the folks at Celcom, one of the cell phone and internet providers here in Malaysia. We've had a couple of problems with our account and the stores that are in the suburbs can't handle the problems. One--change out email address. Sounds simple doesn't it. Well I guess not as both of the stores we visited told us we had to go to the main office to have it changed. OK, we can do that even though it's a long way off. Second, our internet dongle that lets us get on line was set up as a "post pay". Use it then pay. We had been on a "prepay " account. We liked it much better as we could control our charges so we wanted it changed back. Sorry, can't do that either--min store only. Third, there was a balance on the account that no one at the branch stores could explain--"go to the main store" was always the response.
Yesterday was the day. I'd mapped it out on my computer so I knew where to go. Headed up for the 0950 bus early and glad I did as he was there at 0935. Climbed on board and off we went. Now in Johor Bahru, there are two main bus stations. Larkin Sentral and JB Sentral. Larkin is north of the town and sort of close to the Celcom offices. JB Sentral in downtown. It's the main hub of the local buses. Larkin is for more long distance buses. The bus I was on went to Larkin Sentral first but I continued on to JB Sentral to catch one of the local buses. I'd gotten the address from one of the branch Celcom stores. I showed it to one of the attendants that directs passengers and he told me what bus to get on(112). As I passed the time waiting, I showed the address to another conductor and he verified that I needed the 112 bus. It showed up a while later and after telling the driver I needed to go to Jalan Tempas, off we went. Right back to Larkin Sentral. OK, it was on the way to the Celcom store so no problem. Once we left Larkin Sentral, we hit the side streets. I watched our passage on my computer to make sure we were going in the right direction. We were--sort of. In the end, we stopped far north of Jalan Tempas in the village of Tempas--not the street(Jalan). I was out in the middle of no where!! I was the last person on the bus. The driver said in Malay-English that we were in Kempas and it was time to get off. I showed him where I needed to be and he told me I was on the wrong bus. My solution was to try and find a cab back to Cemcom. It was clouding up and threatening to rain as I walked down the street to the bus/cab stop. Being out in the middle of no where, I had little hope of a cab but waited for a while as it was miles to Celcom. About ten minutes later along comes a cab. In I climb just as the rain starts. I gave him the address--no clue as to where it is. I showed him on my map--again, no clue. I told him the Celcom offices. Now that he knew and off we went getting there in pouring rain about 10 minutes later. In I went and got a number. Got called up to the counter a short time later and to a "trainee". Oh, this is going to be fun. It took a while(about an hour) but we finally got to the reason I had extra charges on my account. She had to go to a supervisor for a full accounting of our bill. In the end, I owed $55 ringitts(about $17US). She can't take my money so I had to go to the electronic money taker out side. As for the email address, I had to fill out a form to get it done. As to changing out our dongle to Prepay from Post pay, well that feature isn't available. You can change for Prepay to Post pay but no Post Pay to Prepay. Go figure.
I hopped in a cab(had them call one and made it to Larking Sentral with enough time for lunch before the bus came to take me back to the marina. It's now well after 1400 so it's been a long day with numerous buses and cab but at least I got it taken care of. Tracy--smart girl, stayed on board Zephyr while I was gone avoiding all the traveling.