100 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
100 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
From: kitenet!plex-1!kite@sharkey.cc.umich.edu
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Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
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Subject: The Wrath of Dave
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Organization: TELECOM Digest
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I called the phone company the other day because for ONCE I
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took the time to go over my phone bill (line by line) to track down
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where the heck my LARGE Kite-Net (ex. M-Net) bills were coming from.
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It all started when I noticed that since I opened up Kite-Net as a
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UUCP connection to the world (which requires a LOT of outgoing calls)
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my phone bill sky rocketed.
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I looked the bill over and noticed that I have been charged
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6.2 cents per call for 1770+ calls ($109.00) and of course said
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"%^%#&^&*^*&". So I jumped on the phone to check on my account,
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"Well" the lady said nicely, "It looks like you have five lines flat
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rate and one measured line" (a measured line is one that get 50 FREE
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calls per/month and is charged 6.2 cents after) to which I replied
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"This isn't right I should have five measured lines and 1 flat rate,
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that's what I ordered". She of course put me on hold while checking
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this out (for 15-20 minutes) and returned with a pleseant "No, you
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have five flatrate and one measured".
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I asked when this went into effect and she again put me on
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hold and came back with the information of March of last year (which
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is when I called to have things changed so M-Net could use one of my
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Kite-Net lines for the Merit dialout). I explained to her that they
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have had my order turned around 180 degrees from what I wanted for
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over 1.5 years. I asked to talk to her supervisor and I explained that
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they had screwed up royal and she went right into the ole "Company ass
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kisser speech" that I must have ordered it this way because their
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operators are instructed to attempt to talk users out of this feature
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for this very reason. I took this opening to lay "The Wrath of Dave"
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upon her poor excuse for a company by explaining that I have my "First
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Class" Radio Telephone ticket, been a "Ham Radio Operator" since I was
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9 and worked with telephones for YEARS and had to have their engineers
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come out three different times to point out where they had gone
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wrong in my order and on top of that I had to explain to their
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-operators- what the hell a "Trunk was"!
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After about 1/2 an hour of bantering "coulda been this way ..."
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she agreed that I was not a little ole lady off the street and knew
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what I was talking about so "PERHAPS" someone on their end could have
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misunderstood what I was ordering. Once we had agreed that the fault
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COULD have been on their end I asked for some kind of reduction in in
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billing since the ONLY line they were charging me 6.2 cents per call
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on was my DIALOUT!
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I guess she was tired of me by this time so she once again put
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me on hold to check something else out ... (waiting) ... (waiting) ...
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She then came back and said "Theres nothing they could do since I
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didn't find the problem for such a long time and I did indeed use the
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service, and further more ... she made it clear that the service I am
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receving SHOULD be business rates, so don't push it!" Boy was I
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steamed at this!
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I asked for her supervisor (and she had to call me back) and
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was even MORE pleasent and made it very clear that she did care about
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my problem, I was for an instant happy to hear this, well she had been
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"FILLED IN" on my problem and checked all the records and was ready to
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talk. Her first point to be made was that if I had caught this 30 - 60
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- 90 days even 1/2 a year into the problem we could have worked
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something out but "A YEAR A A HALF" there just nothing they can do.
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So, I say ... "What I'm hearing is that if there is a problem it is
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first of all up to the customer to track down and we have a certain
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amount of time to do this in"? to which she replied "NO, What I'm
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saying is ... that if there is a problem it is up to the customer to
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find and they must find it in a certain amout of time". Hmmmmmmm,
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glad she cleared that up for me!
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"OK, we're getting nowhere here I'll just pay the damn thing
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and you fix it today, I'll be calling YOU directly each day for ONE
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month to make sure that this had been done and NOT changed with out my
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consent durning that time" to which "Miss Thing" came back with yet
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ONE more analogy to my problem.
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"Mr. Parks ... if you started using lots more electricity in
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your home do you think Detroit Edison would notify you?" I said "Yes
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and they DID, thank you very much, but thats not the point, I KNOW
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when I'm using more electricity because *I* plugged the extra stuff
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in ... they can't punch in the wrong numbers into the computer to
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MAKE me use more like you can".
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Hmmmmm she thought, BAD analogy ... "When I asked to talk to
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the supervisor I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere, I just wanted to
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tell you people that *IF* (I say *IF*) there was another game in town
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I'd take my business there right now, since there isn't ... good day!
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(SLAM)!
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...sharkey!m-net!kite Altos 68020 UNIX Sys-III (313) 994-6333
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...sharkey!kitenet!kite Altos 68000 UNIX Sys-III (313) 663-6207
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...sharkey!kitenet!plex-1!kite Plexus P/35 68000 UNIX SysV.2 USENET
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You can mail Dave Parks at these addresses, or phone (313) 663-6873 --
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--- Fred-Uf 1.8(L)[BETA]
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* Origin: Megabyte BBS, UUCP, Fidonet, IMEx, total messaging (1:340/201.0)
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