Digicel has had a problem in Antigua and has kept it secret.

The problem with Digicel in Antigua that most people don't know about has to do with phones that receive and send data. Because it's so easy to miss this problem, most people won't even believe it if you tell them. In fact, many people working for Digicel have no idea about the problem either, but it's costing some of us money and causing many problems for others. Of course Digicel says that they service allows the user to send and receive date while receiving phone calls and texts, but this isn't working properly. The problem is that calls are not coming through occasionally when you are sending or receiving data. Our company has several phones in using data on our corporate plan where we have quite a few phones. It doesn't happen all the time, but we have had to buy a LIME phone which receives forwarded calls from our digicel number printed on the brochure. We sit in full signal with our digi phone and get calls on our secret LIME number every single day.
We had been complaining about the problem for over a year with Digicel always telling us that we must be in a bad signal area. All of our Adventure Antigua brochures have our digicel number on it and don't have our lime number. Our employees, our customers and I have to call our office/brochure number many times during the day and we all have gotten voice mail thousands of times. Our phone is manned 24/7 and we know that without it being answered we don't get customers and our boats sit in port. Answering the phone is paramount to getting good business and we make sure that we are in an area that has good signal. Yet for over two years we have been noticed the problem with voice mail all of a sudden coming in without a single ring. We have also been told by everyone who calls the number that it just after it not being answered it just goes to voice mail. Time and time again we called Digicel reps to be told that we don't know what we are talking about. Finally after a year of our Lime phone taking forwarded calls each day, I spoke to a Digicel technician who we can call "Mitch". He listened to the same story i had been telling the corporate account reps for ages and said "yes, we recently found out about this problem. We know that some of the calls coming into phones that are sending or receiving data don't come through. We have done some research and found out that we need some new equipment to solve this problem". I called the Digicel office in Antigua straight away demanding another phone and sim card for my phone so that i wouldn't have to buy another Lime phone. They asked me to put it in writing to them. I did and never got a reply. Ten days later I sent it again, but didn't get a reply. Recently I spoke to our corporate representative and asked him to find out about the problem and to find out why I haven't had a reply to my letters. I am still waiting to hear from him. Anyone using data and receiving plenty of calls.... you are missing many of them. Anyone ever tell u they called you and you had no missed call, or have you ever received a voicemail without the phone ringing when you are sitting in an area that has a strong signal? It's time for digicel to come clean and to not only do something about it but to compensate many of us for lost business.
I would go as far as to say that if Digicel know about this problem and has kept it secret, then this is fraud according to my definition of it. What do you think? Below is the first email that I sent to their office here in Antigua as requested.

---------- Forwarded message ----------


From: eli fuller
Date: Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 4:19 PM

Subject: problem with incoming calls that are also receiving/sending data

To: mailto:&%5E$%5E#&@digicelgroup.com

Cc: Adventure Antigua,

Dear Althea, For what seems like six months i have been complaining to Digicel representatives about a problem that i had noticed with your service. When in a position with full signal I often a) receive voice mail alerts and/or b) am told by people (including my staff and customers) that they had called me without getting a reply.
This wouldn't normally be a problem IF I heard the phone ring or noticed a missed call. The problem is that this usually happens without my phone ringing and registering a missed call.
As i mentioned, i complained about this time and time again. In fact, it happened so much on our main company phone 268 726 6355, that I nearly fired my own sister who answers that call. I accused her of not telling the truth because I would be calling her counting the calls, only to get her voice mail. She'd ring me back saying that the phone never rang. This is our main company phone that is advertised in all of our promotional materials. Our business depends on this phone receiving calls so much that I told her to go and buy a phone from Lime. We now have our 726 6355 number forwarded to the lime number, so that we don't miss calls from our customers. Despite this phone number not being on any of our promotional materials YET, we get calls on that number forwarded from our digicel number every day. This is totally unacceptable but what makes matters worse, is that for months and months I have been telling digicel reps that I am experiencing this problem on my phones and they always tell me that essentially i am imagining it. You can imagine how frustrating it is to know a problem exists and to be told that there isn't one.
Today I finally spoke with someone in your company who knew something about the problem. I was told by this person that they recently realized that they had problems occasionally where people who were using data were not receiving calls that rang through on the other end as if they were not being answered. THIS IS THE PROBLEM I HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING FOR WHAT SEEMS LIKE A YEAR!
I know I have lost business because of this as tour reps tell me that they have just called the next tour company time and time again when they were unable to get a reply from our number.
At the very least I want you to give me simple phones and sim cards for three of my company phones that I know are experiencing this problem. We will then forward all calls to these (non data) phones so that we can receive our calls when the other phones are experiencing problems. I also would like a credit for the amount i spend every month with Lime which as it happens is a tiny charge. We only use the phone to receive calls that don't come through on our 726 6355 number and have been doing this for nearly a year.
As I mentioned on the phone, this problem which is being kept quiet by Digicel has cost my company money and wasted quite a bit of my time and patience.
Please let me know what you are going to do about it, and also please tell me when you think it will be repaired.

Thanks, eli
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