Vote NO to Cable & Wireless Columbus Merger
The Fair Training Commission (FTC) is advising on its website that on the 24 November, 2014 an application was received from Cable & Wireless Communications Plc and Columbus International Inc seeking permission to merge the local subsidiaries (C&W and LIME) in Barbados in accordance with Section 20 (7) of the Fair Competition Act.
Pursuant to its remit the FTC has invited “all service providers, businesses, representatives of consumer groups, non-governmental organisations, residential consumers and all other parties with an interest in this matter, to submit their comments on the merits or demerits of the proposed merge”.
The FTC has attracted strong criticism from the general public because it is perceived as an entity that is pro utilities in its rulings. The public has an opportunity to participate in an online survey under the cloak of anonymity – see survey as well as to share concerns about the proposed merger of LIME and C&W in Barbados.
Barbados Underground is firmly of the view a merger of the two entities will bring monopoly into play, again. Further, it makes a mockery of the decision to deregulate the local market which has allowed Digicel and other players to introduce competition to the local market. We therefore vote NO to the proposed merger.
Barbados Underground 
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Does the people working at FTC live on another island? What am I missing?
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No one in Barbados has the balls to do the right thing. We will be treated to a spectacle and then the (un)Fair Trading Commission will make a ruling in favour of the merger. A few Bajans will cry out and then settle down until the next opportunity to complain without more. I hope that I am wrong but that is the Bajan way.
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30 Pieces of Silver!!!
I just completed one of the surveys at the FTC site
It took 10 minutes and would have taken much longer if I had paused to fill in the remarks/comments.
Their survey, while it purports to seek to gather information fro the average Joe, was designed by a nitwit who is clueless about surfer design and, in presenting 50 questions, incurs client fatigue half way in the process.
De ole man completed it because of plain determination but, if I did not know better, I would be inclined to believe that this purposes design has been incorporated so that the FTCS, as part of its findings got the future accord of sale of FLOW to LIME, can truthfully say, “there was no evidence to suggest that the public was against the sale” or something similar
When members of FTC management and staff have been given free phones/discounted (deeply) by LIME and bundled packages for family and extended family members what more can Bajans expect but this foreclosure of Judas-like nature notably first commandeered by BLP Minister Ronald Toppin
“Once more into the breach dear friends… We will embark on this exercise and crafty body politic of inclusion that has a predetermined outcome
The plays the thing….
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Confounded IPad, predictive text and American spelling – survey design*, purposed design**, “the play’s the thing**
Still trying to get my pick at the Nation and doan want these grammatical/spelling mistakes to spoil me getting pick by Vivianne Gittens
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Many of the leading lights in the media, private public sectors and CABINET receive ‘gifts’ from the telecommunications companies. Does it mean decisions are influenced? Hell yes!
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I am very opposed to this merger.I am opposed to Lime.With so many satellites it should be a cinch to buy services from Rogers or the heavily regulated US service providers.We do not need Lime nor Cable and Wireless Communications to continue to shaft Bajans thanks to the Herods of the cabinet.
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@ Gabriel
We do not need Lime nor Cable and Wireless Communications
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Brilliant deduction.
…and THEY know that even better than we do, and will seek to juck out as many eyes as they can while the jucking is good.
No one really needs to have a land line if we all have cell phones anyway…
No one should be paying for LIME TV when free internet TV abounds
Cell calls can be made via skype, viber, facetime etc without the need to pay per minute
…all that is needed really is the internet service, and that can be shared MUCH more economically if we were minded to do so….
These people are only muguffees because we sit back and allow them to be…..
…and of course because they bribe those who should be looking after our interests – to betray us….
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If de ole man cud of made a presentation to the FTC as a concerned citizen I would have done so in very simplistic terms.
My first point to those Judases would be on Doubledipping.
No Baffy, not that sex thing that you think it to be but the pernicious practice that LIME meted out to us Bajans, prior to so called deregulation- the practice of making a cell phone caller pay for the outgoing call AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE CALL, PAY TOO!!!!
I would get a former disgruntled employee from their financial department to provide evidence of the financial rape LIME perpetuated on Bulbados for years when the were the sole telecommunications provider and cast Doubledipping in the context of that organization’s inability to exercise any restraint when they have had our nation at a disadvantage in the past.
I would highlight how they, while having to adhere to strict fair trading practices in Englant and Europe, continued to rape the colonies.
With financials and emotive speeches, that would mean not having anyone related to the Minister of Edukatshon Ronald Jones of “the chilrun are is learning”, come close to that submission
The second thing that I would do is to get the waste foopism??? practitioners at the Faculty of Social Science, where Dr Justin Robinson and his pretenders originate, to get some student conduct a real survey of the number of Bajans who, after 7 fvcking years, are still waiting for a landline in Bulbados.
Then I would show the FTC how, in the space of one year, how flow has run fibre optic cables all over Bulbados versus the lies that Lime has advanced for years per their inability to do same
Very few of you might know this but I would ask you to confirm this for yourself by a phone call to the FTC. Call them and ask them what is the approved charge of a land line or any other service that lime is approved to offer.
They do not have any idea of what their charges are allowed to offer. Let me explain how that pans out.
Say that LIME is allowed to charge $ 22.35/month for your land line, if you get a bill for $22.37/month and want an independent verification of the authorized charges THE FTC DOES NOT KNOW AND ALL OF BULBADOS ARE PAYING ANOTHER CHARGE THAT THEY CANT MONITOR(and yes I am saying another purposely)
Man, there are a number of things that I wud love present to the FTC BUT unfortunately, de ole man does goes to church at *** and if I goes in front of the Unfair Trading Commission (thanks be to Mr Caswell for that correct nomenclature ) I will get read out of the church for sure, and worst still, exile to the dog house by the madam
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Damian Hinkson December 30, 2014 at 7:02 AM #
Does the people working at FTC live on another island? What am I missing?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Yes they all do live in Barbados, but are very well aware of which side of their bread is buttered,and who butters it . Like the top executive who,resigned her position at FTC to take up a lucrative job with the Barbados Light and Power Company.
Talk about running with the hares?
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If LIME, Digicel or any telecommunications supplier in Barbados know they have had an outage, what is wrong with applying a wholesale credit to customers without said customers having to submit claims?
Is the Hazzard who sits on the FTC the person being sued in his capacity as a principal in the engineering company which supplied services to the Arch Hall, Brittons Hill tragedy?
On Tuesday, 30 December 2014, Barbados Underground wrote:
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Certainly something is missing from this debate because the logic doesn’t flow from point A : …a merger of the two entities will bring monopoly into play…”
to point B:” We do not need Lime nor Cable and Wireless Communications.. and “No one really needs to have a land line if we all have cell phones anyway”.
Both of these points can’t be true.
The merger would be the only player with the physical fibre-optics cable I presume but in a county the size of a pin how many viable options can they really be.
I am definitely missing something folks. So what’s really the point here?
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@Pieces: “… the pernicious practice that LIME meted out to us Bajans, prior to so called deregulation- the practice of making a cell phone caller pay for the outgoing call AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE CALL, PAY TOO!!!!”
All true sir, but you feel that we bajans got screwed on a less jagged stick than folks all over the world by big telcom.
Not that it makes the bajan position any less painful but didn’t AT&T (Bell Corp) do the same in US for generations and well into the 1980s.
The markets all over are now very open and will never go back to those dark days.
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@DeeWord
The merger creates a monopoly for data.
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do you all believe anyone can stop this? really? I would love to hear how.
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I went through the survey questionnaire and at the end, could not tell myself why the survey is being administer nor its objective if any. It does not explain why FTC is conducting it, what the merger entails not the possible outcomes of such merger.
Two years ago, two students turned up at my door in the Village conducting a survey for a course at UWI. I put a few questions to them and found out that what they had planned was to conduct a random sampling. However, the poor kids were doing a ‘stratified’ random sampling and did not know the difference. Maybe those two designed this survey.
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@ Dee Work
That is precisely the point “the markets all over are wide open and (we) will never go back to those dark days” is a concept which is lost on LIME rather Cable and Wireless in London as they continue to perpetrate crimes against the Caribbean and Asia which are considered the gems in their crown jewels insofar as being the poorest regions in the world that are responsible for 35% and 15% of their worldwide revenues.
However whereas there are functioning Regulatory Bodies and Securities Commissions in their mother cuntries that have teeth and function, we in Bulbados are besieged by our special breed of indolent Judases – parasites who just pull a salary in Green Hill.
Why do you think that men like Frank King resigned when he saw the filth that was being presented under Ronald Toppin et al
There is a place under the sun for Bubonic Plague and Ebola after all if only to wipe out those of us who suck the life out of “the renown fatted calf”.
There is something weirdly oxymoronic about that last incongruous concept
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@ Pat
Enquiring minds that go to the site and take the surver ( a collosal waste of 10 to 15 minutes) would walk away as I have with the impression that the FTC, in conjunction withLIME, has concocted this tool to entrap the general public by (i) soliciting your “confidential” answers to what is a poorly designed LIME marketing Survey and (ii) use IP addresses of the respondents to see which of the general public, having clicked on a link to this FTC site, are in fact BU readers.
The grandson told me something about how general users on the LIME internet have (ADSL) modems that are leased IP addresses it is possible for LIME to know who one is.
But that is the ole man Robert Ludlum and Le Carre acting up and the insulin wearing off
@ David (not BU)
I would start an impotent campaign with one uh dem international agencies like de United Nations International Telecommunications Union in Geneva Switzerland speaking to the imminent breach of Fair Trading Prectices in Bulbados and have similarly impotent NGOs like BANGO (I would have suggested the CPDC Caribbean Policy Development Centre but that is where Chris Sinckliar used to work BEFO’ he get he pick at the Ministry of Fine Ants, and where he will be going back after 2018) I would get them to start highlighting this issue and while you and I know that the FTC done sell we down de stream to Cable and Wireless, at least we send up a puff of smoke, before the ambush.
De Grandson says that if the common man and woman in Bulbados dat got internet was to effect a “Free Wireless Revolution” and open their internet, we could create a “bubble” through which (AT LEAST FOR THE TIME BEING) everybody cud mek a phone call free to everybody else dat got a smartphone and Skype Viber etc.
I say fuh de time being causing he say dat de next ting that dem gine do, after blocking these applications’ ports, is that them gine decrease de monthly GBs dat people allowed tuh use pun dem home internet
You gots tuh forgive de ole man causing dese is tings spiritual en I kin hardly get de Ipad turn on boasie….
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Piece
Just a minor correction; Ronald Toppin resigned before Frank King. Toppin could not take the crap and resigned in silence.
Sent from my iPad
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@Davit (not BU)
Here is what the FTC has posted to their homepage, second bullet on the right. BU did not write it!
http://www.ftc.gov.bb/
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Not no but Hell NO,, more , crime , more crooks, cant not be trusted , One World crime, One TV station, One radio,One newspaper ,One hospital , one Cow , One Ham both crooks.
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David, so the FTC stops this merger which in Barbados. Flow + LIME can also say ok, we shutting down the Barbados operation. what then? and please don’t give me the BS answer about that would never happen.
The problem is not LIME or Flow or the even the FTC. the problem is that we as bajans are to f-ing stupid. We hold the power to make ALL they companies and even the government listen to us but again we to f-ing stupid.
Years ago in England a company added a $0.05 to their product. HOUSEWIVES spot buying the product and force the company to take off the addition. When have we as a people EVER taken a stand on anything?
but we know how we love to look for other people to do our dirty work. bunch of jokers we are.
my solution? Get a consumer rights body. Not the joke that is the one run by Gibbs-Taitt but one who will hold companies feet to the fire. I’m positive we can find who would gladly work for a body like that but again for that body to be effective, bajans would have to support that body…. and i would now be repeating myself to explain why that would never happen.
@John Hanson
you ever stop to think the fact that for you everybody is a crook, is the main reason along with the fact that we are dealing with bajans is a reason you get no support? your comments are now sickening and makes you look very stupid but then again you are a bajan and stupid is what we are. not to worry, i’m one to.
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@David (not BU)
Think big, if the FTC stops the merger Columbus would have to sell because the two would not be able to compete against self.
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I am a Barbadian and I support this merger.
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We need legislation to require companies in excess of a specified size that operate in critical sectors to become publicly traded companies.
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I am thinking David. We need to wake up as a people and stop looking for others to do our dirty work.
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The ten largest shareholdings in LIME are below. Note the investments of your NIS, your mutual funds and your pension funds. I understand what you gain from LIME’s success. Tell me what you will gain from its failure.
BARBADOS SHAREHOLDINGS
As at 31st March, 2014, the top 10 shareholders were as follows:
Shareholder No. of Shares Percentage
Cable & Wireless (West Indies) Limited 115,006,055 81%
Sagicor (Equity) Fund 5,365,238 3.78%
National Insurance N 1 Fund 1,618,047 1.14%
National Insurance Board 1 ,500,000 1.06%
First Caribbean International Bank A/C #C1191 1,438,211 1.01%
B S & T (Pensions) Limited 942,802 0.66%
Sagicor Global Balanced Fund 822,744 0.58%
CBB Staff Pension (Employer Portfolio) 462,409 0.33%
Royal Fidelity (B’dos) Investment Fund Limited 330,000 0.23%
Pan-American International Insurance Corporation 316,400 0.22%
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Your Nis is invested in lime
Who or what owns the remaining 10%?
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@ David December 30, 2014 at 2:00 PM …”The merger creates a monopoly for data.”————
David (or anyone ), so what significant disadvantages does this merger presage? Please set out the reasons.
Will the pricing structures to market not be regulated by the FTC?
I understand why you may see this as a concern but I cannot determine how the Bdos public will be harmed so drastically.
There will be an onus for greater vigilance and more recourse to this same FTC certainly. And that is what they are there to do.
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As LIME is publicly traded on the Barbados Stock Exchange, the remaining 10% is widely held, in small amounts, by all types of investors, including individuals, companies, mutual funds, pension funds, etc.
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@DeeWord
You need to appreciate there is little to no confidence at the ability of the FTC to manage C&W/Columbus. Read the letter by Digicel CEO to get started.
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Looking at the shareholding its now a little clearer why OSA overruled the minister and the chairman.Its also clear why CWC will survive to rule the realm another day.Is sirallan still on board?
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@Your NIS is invested in LIME and I support this merger
Let us understand you clearly. Because institutional investors and others are heavily vested in C&W/LIME stock we need to manipulate the market to maintain the status quo?
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The NIS owns 2%…..
steupsss
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I am not sure what you mean by manipulate the market. I am saying that Barbadians are heavily invested in LIME (individually and via their NIS fund, mutual funds and pension funds) and they should support their own wellbeing and work with LIME for improvements where necessary. Why should Barbadians support LIME’s competition at their own expense?
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Click to access 2014%20Barbados%20Annual%20Report.pdf
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Ok David, that letter from O’Brien is informative.
Seems to me that the FTC must go with the divestiture requirement if they approve the merger.
There is more than enough precedent (from my layman recollection) to support that and more importantly to protect the integrity of the market and public.
But O’Brien speaks of a region wide issue for many aspects and indeed local concerns.
There is a lot of legal grist here. A lot to study actually.
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@Your NIS is invested in LIME …
You may be absolutely correct that generally bajans should support a company where some of their pension funds are invested but that alone will not resonate if that company is shafting them with higher than acceptable prices.
Not saying LIME is doing that but that’s the general concern/sentiment here.
One can ‘argue’ facetiously that the bajans are paying their own pensions if LIME is shafting them with exorbitant profits from high prices.
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Why should Barbadians support Lime’s competition at their own expense?
Because Lime is taking Barbadians for a ride with poor customer service and conning the unwary into buying unnecessary services if your ultimate product is not otherwise available.I am bitterly opposed to Lime in our country resorting to monopoly status with this merger.Lime is currently selling fibre optic services but not installing them and in order to have lime tv ,you have to buy an expensive cell phone……what they euphemistically refer to as an upgrade and lock you into that upgrade for 2 years even though there is no fibre optic in your area.When you complain they deny access to their website,you lose access although you are paying for Internet services and an increased mobile cost package which you do not need.To hear the watermouthed Stetson Babb and his nammy palmy questions and the lime crappy outdated responses,you want to puke!To hell with lime.
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@Your NIS is invested in LIME and I support this
The average Bajan will react to how they believe they are being carried for a ride by LIME. The fact that several entities including the NIS in invested in LIME stock will not feature.
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Gentlemen, every decision comes back to the present value of a diverse set of probable future events. I fail to see any sequence of probable future events where, given the current circumstances, support for LIME’s competition will present the greatest present value for Barbadians. Barbadians should support their own wellbeing rather than allow themselves to be manipulated for the benefit of a few people. Because of LIME’s history in Barbados, LIME’s shortcomings are publicized more than those of its competitors, but the competitors are no better.
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@ John Hanson 1781-1782- I SERVE 1788- 1792 BARBADOES. December 30, 2014 at 4:47 PM #
Not no but Hell NO,, more , crime , more crooks, cant not be trusted , One World crime, One TV station, One radio,One newspaper ,One hospital , one Cow , One Ham both crooks.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Alex Mitchell calls everyone a crook takes one to know one.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/03/21/police-man-barricades-self-son-in-l-i-home/
WESTBURY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) — Police have arrested a man they said broke into his girlfriend’s Long Island home and barricaded himself inside with their 13-year-old son for nearly seven hours before surrendering.
Police charged Alex Mitchell, of Barbados, with burglary, unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child. He’s to be arraigned on Monday.
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David that Letter from Digicel’s CEO is a joke right?
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Why-the-Digicel-Claro-deal-is-bad-for-Jamaicans_10938673
Digicel has been running around the Caribbean buying up all kinds of TV stations. They are just bitter that they miss the bus on the Flow deal.
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Whether they miss the bus is not the point. What is the point is that the FTC carries out its mandate under the law to protect consumers from unfair competition.So far they have achieved a big fail.
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Our NIS appears to be invested in Four Seasons, Almond, GEMS, loans to statutory organizations and to cover government current liabilities.
The NIS having just 2% invested in C&W is a national disgrace.
How the hell does an educated set of people allow all of their national assets to be owned by foreigners while using their OWN savings to do shiite?
Imagine Government selling shares in BL&P to white people and then using the funds to play shiite games…..
Imagine individual Bajans holding massive cash savings in foreign-owned Banks ( including funds in Credit Unions) while outsiders have been coming here and buying up their home…..
What brass bowls…
Cable and Wireless and Flow should indeed get together and squeeze what little balls we have left…
It is no wonder that Sandy Lane brings in outsiders to do serious jobs…. would you hire a brass bowl jackass (who can’t even maintain ownership his inherited home) to do serious work in your company?
steupsss …. and then to have the gall to be expecting the new owners and rulers to exercise special consideration??!!..
… Beggars CANNOT be choosers.
Our forefathers, who DID NOT have degrees and who had access to little money, did a FAR better job of being guardians of the Bajan heritage…..shiite man, THEY owned Bartel, BNB, 65% of BL&P, Hilton, etc…
…then we spend BILLIONS of dollars educating these set of jackasses, and they have managed to sell off every shiite… and given away and eaten out the damn money…
Where Barrow and Crawford TOLD white people “what was what”, we now have Stuart and Sinckler on their knees looking for charity…. and Lawson up in Canada laughing at we ass…
Work permits shiite!!
…wunna lucky that the damn people don’t make US apply for work permits to get employment in THEIR damn companies….
…bunch of brass bowls…..We are getting exactly what we deserve.
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@Your NIS is invested in LIME and I support this merger
take your comments at December 30, 2014 at 9:26pm future. Free Motion/TeleBarbados/Karibcable/Flow in how many years? LIME has rebranded over the years but still the same company.
I’m not going to go out on a limb for LIME because lord knows they could do some shit when they ready but I believe the key is to hold them accountable because guess what? LIME/FLOW deal does not happen because the FTC says no. what are we doing to stop BL&P and BWA?
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@David (not Bu)
What are you smoking? It must be the low grade stuff. Hold LIME (C&W) accountable? You got to be joking.
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“So far they have achieved a big fail.” so you believe the FTC will start now?
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We can only do what as citizens we have a right to do and that is to advocate and agitate.
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I suspect that much of the opposition to LI ME is emotional, fuelled by C&W’s history in Barbados. LIME’s best option, to realize shareholder value, may be to find an international communications company to acquire LIME in Barbados, allowing Barbadians and the new entrant a fresh start.
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http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20050823/sports/sports1.html
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@ Your NIS is invested in LIME and I support this merger December 30, 2014 at 10:02 PM
“LIME’s best option, to realize shareholder value, may be to find an international communications company to acquire LIME in Barbados, allowing Barbadians and the new entrant a fresh start.”
You are just taking the mickey, right?
Which “international communications company” would be prepared in today’s ICT environment to acquire LIME in Barbados as a stand-alone profit centre? It’s either the entire East Caribbean (including T&T) or nothing at all doing for the North Americans.
Cuba ICT market is going to be soon up for grabs. Why waste money on a market that would soon see serious contraction in its consumer spend as access to forex dwindles year by year?
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Karibcable waltzed into Barbados just before the last election and before you could say Jack Robinson it was snapped up by FLOW. Does anyone think this was normal?
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” David December 30, 2014 at 9:42 PM #
@David (not Bu)
What are you smoking? It must be the low grade stuff. Hold LIME (C&W) accountable? You got to be joking.”
and there is our problem. We got the keys but have not a clue which door to open. sad really.
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David, would you object if Columbus had proposed to acquire C&W for cash (i.e. no future C&W participation)?
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To remind you the crux is whether we believe having one supplier with the monopoly on data is good for the market. Unfair protection and consumer laws 101 say no.
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What is stopping Digicel from competing?
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Is it a perfect market?
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but wait a minute. what about BL&P, BWA and Massy? are they not monopolies to?
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If Flow was competing in the area of your concern and found it advantageous to merge with C&W and Digicel is not, is unwilling or is unable to compete in the same area, have you considered the possibility that the market may not be able to carry more than one participant and, if so, a properly regulated single participant may be the answer? Barbados is a small market and I suspect that, with communications technology constantly advancing, requiring significant investment to be current, it may not be able to properly support duplicate investments in the underlying technology?
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@Your NIS is invested in LIME and I support this
Who should determine what the market can bear?
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@Deeds
Politics and aspiring to be of the political class is a nasty business. The stuff Teflon is made of.
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NPC has posted a notice in todays press. BU understands this problem of low natural gas delivery should have been detected months ago by the parties involved. The minister responsible needs to make a statement and stop bullshitting Barbadians.
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David
The comment by”Dirty People like Politicians” on December 30th at 9:27 pm should be taken down. Some of us have chosen to reveal our identities; that is our choice but people like John Hanson have chosen otherwise and I feel their wishes should be respected. I have worked out the real names behind many of the pseudonyms being used on BU and I have spoken to them privately but would never think to set in motion something like this that is capable of destroying BU.
By the way, I am still trying to figure out who the Bushman could be.
>
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@Caswell Franklyn December 31, 2014 at 11:25 AM…The comment by”Dirty People like Politicians” on December 30th at 9:27 pm should be taken down”——–
That is a very perceptive and valid call re that post but what David also needs to recognize re the John Hanson pseudonym is that his/her remarks were bordering on a disconnect with reality and some of them could have been pulled before.
When do posts stop being reasonable and fair and go into the realm of abuse and flagrant, name-calling, stupid slanderous piffle.
This John Hanson person has long past that point.
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@DeeWord
And without pulling the comments what has happened?
On Wednesday, 31 December 2014, Barbados Underground wrote:
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@ Caswell
By the way, I am still trying to figure out who the Bushman could be.
+++++++++++++++++++
Why?
The bushman could be any idiot with a big whacker….
LOL
…just start BUP and look to see who is watching your back…..
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@ Mr. Caswell Franklyn.
I did not see the comment by Dirty People Like… but judging from your comment (and said posting’s absence) I judge that it was of sufficient concern to be removed.
There is a seeming “progression” of the affairs of men that I now refer to as “the natural descent into purgatory” where all men, left to their own wiles will, over the years, move further yes deeper into abject sin.
You remember the times (when we were once young) we used to sneak into a young ting’s house and tek a little bit? Only Miss Headley the village newspaper used to see you sneaking in/out that girl window.
Fast forward to today Mr. Franklyn and there are actually online Swappers Clubs where that has now become a billion industry and, IN SOME CIRCLES, if you are not a “swinger/swapper”, you are deemed “old fashioned and a prude”.
The dynamic that runs BU for the majority of us posting here can easily be related to these shifting values as it relates to self, family, community and nation/patriotism
BU posters, irrespective of whether one is a Buckra Johnnie, coolie, 1st cousin removed from Bin Laden Syrian or nigga, love this cvntry called Bulbados.
We come and submit some vitriol, diatribes, croneyistic commentary, nepotistic littany, plain madness and some lies because, in many cases (warped and disturbed as we are) we love the little rock that 90% of us will never get a piece of, yet continuously strive for.
Very few of us when we get into circles with our drinking buddies and say “I would like to kill Lashes, Lowe, Lynch or Stinkliar,” really wants to take a knife and cut his jugular vein or femoral artery for tiefing money AND diverting resources that are for the people.
Most of us come here, (even 2 of the AC firm) with a genuine hope that our comments and cusswords, our misplaced hopes and prayers can make a difference in our cvntry’s steadily losing battle.
But like all things, that natural progression i spoke to earlier manifests itself in this fashion.
The overarching objective behind the BU for improving our cvntry is not part of the rationale of these new bucks and whereas, if you were walking near me and stumped my foot, you will say sorry, this new set will come to burn down your house “cause you dissed me Mr. Franklyn”
As you said “our alter egos are known to both sets of clowns” but we still post here under the false veil of anonymity, prayerfully hoping that reason will attend these brutish beasts and that some change will come to benefit “these fields and hills that are supposed to be our own.”
Let us pray Caswell where there comes a point in the history of Bulbados where (i) public dissent on social media is curtailed by despots and inept leaders on the one hand and (ii) the natural progression of descent to the abyss that we are seeing around us, overtakes us.
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…where there NEVER comes a point … (correction)
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@David December 31, 2014 at 12:32 PM ..And without pulling the comments what has happened? —————–
Oh, absolutely nothing sir.
The point of course is that after a while his/her remarks really make a mockery of the attempt at reasonable debate on the site.
There is nothing wrong with divergent views, even comments or commenters that may be termed J-A’s but the same nonsensical rant and calling all sorts of people names. That gets tiresome after a while.
As I look back on your blog he/she has been on this track for years and by his/her own admission (if true) has spoken to almost every lawyer in Barbados.
So your blog is his/her psy-couch clearly. Take that with all it brings.
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@ DeeWord
As I look back on your blog he/she has been on this track for years and by his/her own admission (if true) has spoken to almost every lawyer in Barbados.
So your blog is his/her psy-couch clearly. Take that with all it brings.
I support your above comments 100%
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@ Dee Word and Anthony
John Hanson aka Plantation Deeds is absolutely dedicated to Violet Beckles’ matter to the exclusion of all else.
His continuance with the matter shows undoubted resilience in the face of all the odds AND to his credit BU has given him every latitude in airing this matter.
Much like Compulsive Eating Disorder, or the Pathological Lying Disorder of Minister Stinkliar our Minister of Fine Ants, Hanson will introduce the topic anytime anywhere.
So as it relates to this matter of Cable and Wireless’ merger you can expect his submission to read that the land where the 60,000 poles that LIME has planted mostly belongs to Violet Beckles. There is always that link
Once or twice he does introduce some coherent subject matter but, as happens with one of the “AC firm”, once you start reading it and it is Mrs AC, you just stop because she is only going to say one thing “ALL HAIL FUMBLE STUART & HIS BAND OF IDJITS”
Technically speaking, if we were to examine our own submissions, all of them fall into the same compulsive behaviour to “mouth off” on BU. If you compress the comments of the anti ineptitude crews of the BLP and/or the DLP, you will find that BU is replete with rants.
Some of us learn to control our particular point and repeated contentions or those subjects which rankle us to the “n th” degree
The real challenge that we have to tackle going forward is not so much remarking on the idiocy that abounds in high places but moreso how, IN SPITE OF ALL OF THE INFELICITIES, how are we going to ensure that these BLP & DLP NITWITS, (Bush Tea calls them Brass Bowls) don’t destroy our country around us
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@ pieceuhderockyeahright
Technically speaking, if we were to examine our own submissions, all of them fall into the same compulsive behaviour to “mouth off” on BU. If you compress the comments of the anti ineptitude crews of the BLP and/or the DLP, you will find that BU is replete with rants.
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I beg to different on the above comment.
I have never ranted on any blog and since I have never voted do not follow any political party’s false or real ideology/promises.
Why he may have his reasons for his rants they have gone past the point of being obnoxious.
If he had a case then the courts whether locally or abroad are there to deal with such matters.
It took me almost 6 years to deal with a financial matter concerning a very large amount of money, I changed lawyers 3 times and finally got the matter in the high court where UPON ALL EVIDENCE a judge ruled in my favour.
That is the way things are done; definitely not what I have seen on this blog with the constant name calling.
This BU or any other blog will not solve the problem if there is one real or perceived.
The two ladies unfortunately are dead and therefore stand in no way to benefit.
I looked back at another story on this BU blog in 2013 and it was put forward that 20,000 lots @ $500 per year were promised to people in last year’s election.
This was not put forward by either DLP or BLP, where would this land come from or to whom would have benefited financially?
I state the two ladies have passed and if there is an injustice the law court is the place to deal with it.
However FOR YEARS slinging at Chelteham, other lawyers, COW, Mia, Owen, judges or anyone for that matter will bring no further light at the end of the tunnel.
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BU Article: INDEPENDENTS IN THE 2013 GENERAL ELECTION
PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926-2013 AND SEE MASSIVE FRAUD ,LAND TAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS February 18, 2013 at 12:23 AM #
we will rent 20,000 open lots at 500 a year, can now build houses with the true land owners permission,
We need your votes to get things going
https://barbadosunderground.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/independents-in-the-2013-general-election/
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@ Anthony
Maybe if I had said “rant” instead of rant the context in which I suggested the word would have slipped by softly.
Not everyone is like you to have persevered 6 years with 3 lawyers through our Court Registrar and then to a High Court.
Some of us are weak men and women who lack that resilience and the intestinal gonads to keep their head to the grinding stone.
They may have become sick or old or died along the way and because of the trickery effected by the solicitors and barristers who held the title deeds etc for the real estate, the estate has no record of what is left for them and they are left to such salt.
Some of them only have the recourse of this public forum to (i) vent their spleen and (ii) hopefully make others aware of what lies out there when you trust dishonest lawyers (indeed a repetition to be sure)
Not every one is like Al Barack to paint himself white, having exhausted all options at that time, and then chain the entrance to his building, remember that we are from Bulbados where the stock of slaves were not Ashanti or Zulu but more docile tribes
Let me single out one of the persons in your list Owen Seymour to make the point of “rant” whose definition is in part stated as “To express at length a complaint or negative opinion: “He could rant on the subject of physician-assisted illness” (Paul Theroux).
If then I should elaborate about that intransitive verb then we logically arrive at a place where, due to the incessant “repeated expressions and vociferations” on the former Prime Minister, such would mean that others here are guilty of “ranting”
But on the other hand it may be that when some of us type/write our submissions here, because of the brand of the cuntputer that some of us use or because of some state akin to the “Piscatory Ring” some of us are exempt from “ranting”
Finally I, while I would sit and reason with any person of any calling , and would be civil to any one irrespective of one’s station, am not against using a few cusswords to address a belligerent employee/employer.
Am I to assume that by your statement “definitely not what I have seen on this blog with the constant name calling…” that you, contrary to the Subversive Psychological Warfare Tactics of more advanced military institutions across this globe, would seek through some superior prescience to suggest that “the constant name calling” is not a strategy too?
Why even Tzun Tzu speaks of employing such strategy “when confronting an enemy too powerful to engage directly??”
Social media, used wisely, utilizes principles enshrined in the Art of War, the pen is mightier than the sword, just “pointed words” or is it that as a parallel of your “high court” you would advocate a more direct method comprising 7.62 millimetre projectiles???
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http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20141231/business/business2.html
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@ Anthony
Man give Plantations Deed some slack.
Not everyone uses the direct approach of the court system – few have the patience and cash to manage the needed lawyers…
If you think that DEED’S tactics are useless you may be younger than the wisdom of your contributions seem to suggest.
You ever heard that ….”one – one blow does kill old cow….?”
A friend once had a dispute that should technically have been resolved by engaging the services of the law, lawyers, police, courts etc….however…
…after careful consideration (and a few big rocks on the roof of the protagonist), the matter was amicably resolved 🙂
Deeds just pelting nuff stones pun some roofs…
LOL … hopefully you are not one of his targets ….
……(like Bushie’s good BU friend “?????” LOL hahaha
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Bushy what brass bowl you talking? Deeds need to come off of it. He has a claim but every blasted person for him is involved. He is watering down his case. You can’t pelt out the baby with the bath water and that is what he is doing, which does nothing to help the case he has. bottom line is he needs to stop labeling everyone with his BS brush.
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why does he hide behind whatever name he or she wants to called by and make these claims in public?
the truth is a defense for liable. So come out in public and make the claims and let them come after you. The truth as Deeds believe will set him free and finally expose the corruption he is claiming. Not so?
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@ David (not BU)
Agree with your comments.
Use his real identity if he has nothing to hide and deal with the facts not the silly name calling using an alias on any blog.
@ Bushie
No one with high intelligence behaves in this abnormal manner and have things resolved in their favour.
Al Barack use the LEGAL system getting judgement from the High Court, which gives him legal standing for what he has done and proved rightfully what he is owed.
The court is where this matter needs to be if THERE IS A CASE.
Also instead of painting everyone in negative light ‘deeds/john hanson’ need to put their own glass house in order.
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@ The David gang 🙂
Fellows, to each his own.
Bushie would have tried the court, walked up and down Bay Street…naked if need be, pelted some rocks on the roof of Government Headquarters, and done so using the slave name that has been assigned to the Bushman…..
David (BU) would likely have taken a more rational approach and David(not BU) an even more traditional one……
…but wunna know what…? 90% of Bajans would not have done one shiite…
WHICH IS WHY THESE LAWYERS FELT BOLD TO EXECUTE THESE STRANGE ACTIONS WITH THIS WOMAN’S LAND.
…therefore, when a Bajan – ANY BAJAN – decides to try SOMETHING, …and to persist with it through thick and thin, then Bushie finds it difficult NOT to be sympathetic….
At the very least, DEEDS has been sensitizing Bajans of the DANGERS that can be faced in trusting lawyers with our valuables…..
As to the names that he has been dropping, ….are these not all articulate, highly trained, learned and esteemed persons in this community?
Cat got their mouths…?
How the hell come we have not heard a word of OUTRAGE and denial coming from any of them (or from their PR people) about these allegations? …not to the rants and obvious vexatious remarks that DEEDS drop (much like Bushie’s Brass bowlery) – BUT from allegations of Land deeds HANDED OVER TO LAWYERS and then disappearing ….only to resurface with modifications or with the properties ‘sold’ to others? ….or questions about the ownership of Kensington and other specific properties….
Did Caswell not personally look into this and come away convinced that some shiite was amiss?
Well letmuhtellya….if this all involved Bushie’s family’s property, there would be hell to pay ….and not just from posting on BU either….
It seems to Bushie that DEEDS has been JUSTIFIABLY pissed off… it is called righteous indignation…..
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@ Anthony
Al B may not be a good example to use.
Name another case that has been able to get through our court system so quickly… and actually get a judgment……
Either Al B is a big-up lawyer; has access to top boys like Amused and Ross; or perhaps Al B is just a name used by highly influential forces in legal places…..
But Bushie hardly think that DEEDS could expect similar results…… shiite man, if their land papers got lost what do you think would happen to the sworn statements?
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oh come of it Bushy.
The only way to beat and expose what Deeds claim is to make them come after you. you know how thin skin they are but I guess it plays well to come and play games here.
oh well, happy new year all.
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Give praise to the Lord or drink a toast . Greetings of the new Year to the all!
To David and your team. Much thanks. Your blog has been fun.
Continued Success in 2015.
And to all you others with so much time on your hands for all of these rants, raves and deep insights, I say CONTINUE ON APACE with more of the same in 2015.
One Love!
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I agree to vote NO to this merge the people of Barbados & the Caribbean will be the ones loosing, we need competition in these islands, and good service providers.
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Are the workers at LIME,especially Linemen and Technicians, still unionised, including those recently imported?
As it appears that when Technicians visit homes to carry out repairs,shortly after previous repairs were carried out, the technicians is asking the householder if the last technician who carried out the work was a Jamaican or a Bajan.
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@ Colonel Buggy
Have you also noticed that these technicians are working solo, climbing poles, using ladders, working in customer’s properties…?
Which union would allow such field teams to be one-man teams? from a safety point of view alone it must be questionable…. and also from an efficiency angle.
no wonder the service is so pissy.
Bushie had some issues recently and the only guaranteed response was that after long tiring and frustrating phone calls to what seems like Egypt, we kept being given 12 digit ‘service numbers’ to record. LOL obviously designed to keep us confused while the poor service continued….
It took a month, multiple complaints, and three different visits, to resolve a “bad connection on a pole” which broke down every time it rained.
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Bushie
You asked:
“Which union would allow such field teams to be one-man teams? from a safety point of view alone it must be questionableâ¦. and also from an efficiency angle.”
That happens when senior union leaders drop the ball. They were too busy playing with their free Blackberry devices to notice what was happening to the workers.
>
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@ Mr Franklyn
You are so right on this abdication of duty, but then again abdication would impute some type of previous involvement in representation on behalf of the workers and as you know Clarke and Trotty only interested in per diems and free blackberry plans for self and family
All of these services are subcontracted out to a company and the linesmen were hired by that company thereby by stepping any Union rules and of course the Safety Regulations department of the GoB sitting on their hands a la Unfair Trading Commission styling
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Bush Tea January 3, 2015 at 11:46 PM #
Have you also noticed that these technicians are working solo, climbing poles, using ladders, working in customer’s properties…?.
………………………………………………………………
I was going to get around to that, as I recently heard a householder, cautioning one of these imported technicians who was up a ladder, that the ladder was unstable. And he was not using a rope to tie the ladder to the pole to stop him from catspraddling all over the road. They could also do with some training in Customer Relations.
Equally as bad is the one-man operation of a hydraulic bucket truck. If the operator, becomes ill, or err in the handling of the controls, or the unit malfunctions, he is in duck’s guts. Or worse yet, if he contacts a live electricity line.
And where is Ms Suckoo’s Elf and Safety in all of this, even if the operators are contract personnel.
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What is the feedback to LIMES’s call centre based in Mexico or some Latin American country?
On Sunday, 4 January 2015, Barbados Underground wrote:
>
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Bush Tea January 3, 2015 at 11:46 PM #
Which union would allow such field teams to be one-man teams? from a safety point of view alone it must be questionable…. and also from an efficiency angle.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
The same union which allowed Canadians to come down here, when LIME was enjoying the sweets in Barbados unchallenged, and operated as one-man teams, alongside the Bajan two-man teams to prove to the management of LIME that the work can be carried out by One-Man teams. And the rest is history.
But do not be surprised when we see other utility and transport companies in Barbados following suit,to some extent.
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David January 4, 2015 at 12:26 PM #
What is the feedback to LIMES’s call centre based in Mexico or some Latin American country?
On Sunday, 4 January 2015, Barbados Underground wrote
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
I had a problem just before Christmas and the call centre somwhere in Mexico or Latin America, promised me that a technician would be calling next day. As promised, the Technician turned up next day,promised to fix the fault, went away , but did nothing. I was without the service over Christmas, and a few days into the new year, I again called the call center in Latin America, at around 9’oclock in the morning, and by 10.30 am, a Technician was knocking on my door.
From my experience, LIME international call center appears to be doing its job, more than I can say for the LIME territorial technicians.
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@ Colonel Buggy
I am glad you are getting good service from the lime/Costa Rica/Latin America
My experience and that of a few of my contemporaries is as follows
Call to residential or commercial customer support
After navigating through the press this button stuff and the non English speaking people who have no idea nor control to change any plans you get a promise that they will call you back.
Two weeks later we are mostly all of us still awaiting call backs and our problems remain unsolved.
So you must tell me what you are doing so that we can experience the level of customer service you have had with this Lazy Indifferent Motherf****g Entity (LIME)
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