As most of you know, we’re completely moved now. Everything went pretty smoothly (thanks for all the help!) for the most part. We still have a garage half-full of things to sell, but that’s mostly it. We’ve had the final inspectation at the old house (typical lazy real-estate agent took a glance around and decided all was ok) – the new tenant was moving in that afternoon! A bit cheeky in my opinion since we actually paid rent up to the end of the day afterwards (so they get a day of double rent) but I just don’t have time to squable for $59.
The biggest hiccup came after we completed the move. Rachel already had an ADSL connection with ihug, as did we. The plan was to stop her account (there’s no point having two) and transfer mine (so I pay for it, it’s a much better account, and keeping the email address I got in 1997). Simple, in theory. All went fine for a week or so – I reconfigured the router to use my login details, the connection was fast (twice as fast locally as at Whitehills – the suburbs have some advantages). Then Rachel’s account was closed, and everything died.
Apparently Telecom switch off the ADSL tunnelling (not the ADSL itself – I’m not clear on the details) when an account is closed. As far as I can tell, this is so that they can charge $100 again when it is reopened. They were not meant to do this, because we need that for my account, but it happened anyway.
It will take $100 and five working days for this to be fixed – so I’m on dialup until maybe this Friday. This is not good. Particularly for work, but also for everything else. I am very unimpressed with both ihug and Telecom. Once it is sorted out, I’ll give them a chance to at least drop the $100 charge (for their error, in my opinion), and if they won’t then I think that’s the end of my (10 year!) relationship with ihug.
I already pay $10/month more than I could anywhere else (because I can’t have my toll calling with ihug), and put up with terrible technical support and unreliable connections. Losing my 10-year-old email address is annoying, but there are limits.
So if you use ta-meyer@ihug.co.nz, t-meyer@ihug.co.nz, tameyer@ihug.co.nz, or libby@ihug.co.nz, the time has come to switch. tony.meyer@gmail.com is the simplest replacement (olyvia dot meyer at gmail dot com for Olyvia), or you can use tony@badtomatoes.org, olyvia@badtomatoes.org, or samuel@badtomatoes.org. It all ends up in the same place, moreorless.
BadTomatoes 
Heh, good luck – when we shifted Telecom was supposed to switch ADSL over the day before we shifted… in the end we went without broadband for a month after we shifted cos they kept reconnecting it back up at the old house instead here at the new place. Not only that, but Orcon refused to credit me for the dialup account I used during that time, even though it was because of them that the mix up happened. If my ADSL connection wasn’t free I would’ve changed providers too 🙂
Turns out that ihug couldn’t even manage to fix the problem. I was contacted a few days later to be told that my relocation was “rejected”. I asked why and the CSR couldn’t tell me. He checked that the Telecom account number was correct (it was) and told me that he would contact the “provisioning team” and they would sort it out. He asked me to call back the next day to follow up – I asked them to call me instead, and apparently they can’t do that (appalling customer service).
The next day I called back and I got the exact same spiel (the same checking of the account number and everything). I finally managed to get out of the CSR that the relocation was “rejected” again, but (of course) he couldn’t tell me why. What he could do was contact the “provisioning team”, and I could call back the next day to follow up.
I think even a non-programmer can see the endless loop here.
So it’s goodbye ihug. Hopefully my new ISP will setup the new connection relatively promptly…