My recent dealings with China Telecom when I moved to my 3rd apartment in China...
In getting my service for the new apartment I'm told that I have to cancel the existing service before ordering the new service. No problem I guess. So I go to the office where I ordered the account. "Oh no, you can't do that here. This office is for opening a new account. If you want to close an account you have to go to this other office clear on the other side of the district." Well I don't really want to close the account, I just want the service started at the new address.
At the other office to close the account after taking the number and waiting nearly two hours, the clerk asks me why I don't just transfer the service the account rather than close the account. Sigh. Ok, get that all worked out. Time to get the service turned on at the new place. The guy never shows up of course to hook me up. I call and ask about it and am told maybe he'll come tomorrow, but who knows. I should ask HIM when he wants to come.
All right, the next day and the guy shows up. Contacts his office or whatever then tells me it can't be done. He can't hook me up. What? Why the hell not? I'm told I'm blacklisted. WTF? Customer service on the phone tells me I can't have a new account because I'm blacklisted due to non-payment. Makes no sense... I just closed an account at your office and nobody said a thing to me. Oh! Non payment at the address from two years ago. Well then why did you give me an account at my most recent address if I didn't pay the previous account? Tough, I'm blacklisted. I get my rental agent to deal with it, and he does, earning his fee.
Finally I get hooked up and everything seems fine. I pay in full for a one year contract. Until one month later....
Suddenly I have no internet. I call customer service and I'm told my service is shut off due to non-payment. WTF!!! I paid for a full year, up front, you owe me eleven more months!
I am then told that the fee for a one-year contract has increased and I owe them the difference. What?!! I have a contract!! "I'm sorry Sir but unless you pay will not have any service" But I DID PAY, I have a contract! "But the cost for your service has increased. You owe. Unless you pay... blah blah blah. No sense trying to talk sense or reasoning or logic. I try to reason that if you buy a product, and a month later the store comes over and takes back the product you bought and paid for saying that you didn't pay for it because the price went up, is that fair?" "No of course not. Until you pay what you owe you will not have service."