Each week, the Guardian An­gel col­umn high­lights com­plaints sent in by you, the con­sumer, and pro­vides so­lu­tions or di­rects you to the ap­pro­pri­ate re­source.

Prob­lem: Guardian Me­dia Ltd staff mem­ber Ray­mond Grant said be­fore June last year he had In­ter­net, Blink En­ter­tain­ment and a land­line with TSTT, cost­ing rough­ly $300 a month.Mr Grant said, "How­ev­er, in June 2013, I signed up for my In­ter­net speed to in­crease to 2MB (megabytes)." He said at this time his bill in­creased to about $490 a month."In De­cem­ber 2013, I got a call from TSTT of­fer­ing me a pack­age that would re­duce my pay­ments to $458 month­ly."

The pack­age in­creased Mr Grant's In­ter­net speed to 5MB, and all TSTT land­line to land­line calls were free, with his Blink En­ter­tain­ment pack­age re­main­ing the same.Mr Grant said, "In March I was be­ing billed for and still re­ceiv­ing 2MB In­ter­net speed, which I queried and was rec­ti­fied. I am yet to re­ceive a cred­it for the in­cor­rect billing as I was pay­ing for 5MB."He said when he re­ceived his bill for April, it had in­creased to $538.50, an in­crease of $80.50.

He said he con­tact­ed TSTT and was told the ex­cess was for land­line rental and the month­ly rental of two Blink En­ter­tain­ment ca­ble box­es.Mr Grant asks, "But how could this be when I was as­sured the to­tal month­ly pack­age was $458 and I was be­ing billed this amount for three months?"I want the cred­it for be­ing billed the in­cor­rect In­ter­net speed and my pack­age re­stored to $458 per month as agreed."

So­lu­tion: The Billing De­part­ment and Cus­tomer Care Cen­tre at TSTT were con­tact­ed about Mr Grant's com­plaint.Mr Grant was re­ceiv­ing ca­ble ser­vices, In­ter­net, ca­ble box­es (one free and two ad­di­tion­al) and land­line rental, all of which was in­clud­ed in his bill.

Ac­cord­ing to TSTT, the new pack­age didn't start un­til March 27, which was when Mr Grant's In­ter­net speed was in­creased to 5MB and he was billed. He was not pay­ing for 5MB be­fore then and in fact re­ceived a pro­rat­ed re­bate for the 2MB speed he paid for March 27-31.TSTT bills a month in ad­vance, so Mr Grant's bill for April would have in­clud­ed the re­bate for the 2MB pack­age, plus a pro­rat­ed bill for March 27-31 for the new pack­age, as well as his bill for April.

The land­line rental and the two ad­di­tion­al box­es, which would ac­count for the $80.50, were not in­clud­ed in the pack­age and Mr Grant was billed sep­a­rate­ly for them.There­fore, Mr Grant is not due for an ad­di­tion­al re­bate, as he was re­ceiv­ing the cor­rect In­ter­net speed at the time and his billing is cor­rect.

Prob­lem: Ron Hill says there is a drain be­tween Bam­boo Dri­ve and Lemon Dri­ve in Champs Fleurs that has not been cleaned for about five months.Mr Hill said apart from the smell, which is so bad it could make any­one sick, it is a breed­ing ground for mos­qui­toes."Can you please do some­thing about this be­cause this drain is lo­cat­ed be­hind some homes but in the rainy sea­son the drain wa­ters flow like a riv­er through (some­one's) yard in or­der to get out."

So­lu­tion: Mr Hill's com­plaint was for­ward­ed to the pub­lic health of­fi­cials at the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health (CMOH) for St George Cen­tral on 21 Third Street, Barataria.The Barataria of­fice is one of many CMOHs through­out T&T where cit­i­zens can lodge com­plaints about pub­lic health and oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty is­sues.For a full list­ing of the var­i­ous of­fices and their lo­ca­tions, go to www.health.gov.tt/sitepages/de­fault.as­px?id=175

Even as you're en­cour­aged to take the ap­pro­pri­ate routes for ad­dress­ing your com­plaints, the Guardian An­gel is here to as­sist you. You can send the Guardian An­gel an e-mail about your prob­lem and what steps you took to deal with the mat­ter.The Guardian An­gel looks for­ward to hear­ing from you and bring­ing some re­lief to your prob­lems.

E-mail her at an­gel@guardian.co.tt

Please in­clude your name, ad­dress and tele­phone num­ber as we'll need them to fol­low up with you.