Monday, August 27, 2007

The Phone Company

They’ve done it again: AT&T sent me another bill for service I no longer have. The third rep since April began this farce by reading from the script in stilted English, continually calling me by my first name to establish rapport and trust, and assuring me that the problem is (again) solved to my satisfaction.

When Rupert repeatedly asked me “Have I solved your problem,” I could not answer either yes or no, but “we’ll see.” He pounded at me to give him a yes, but I told him half a dozen times that I thought it was solved in April, in June, and again in July, yet I received another AT&T bill in August.

Therefore, regardless of what the script demands of foreign employees pretending to be Americans, I don’t know if the problem is solved.

What I do know is that I do have Verizon service as I (again) called them and reminded them to annotate my records that I do NOT have AT&T, I have repeatedly canceled AT&T since last April, and do NOT let anyone from AT&T change my phone service without my acknowledgement.

Will that work? Who knows.

I also asked Verizon when my phone bill was going to be the promised $69.99 a month that it was supposed to be since last April. It has been as high as $130 and as low as $99, but it has not been $69.99, plus the laundry list of tack-ons that I am sure are both unnecessary and borderline illegal. They are waiting for a discount to be applied ... .

I was happy when the phone company was a monopoly because either everyone received good service at a fair rate or everyone was screwed. Since all these phone companies have established themselves, it is a monthly crap shoot whether you’ll get service, the quality/consistency of that service, and the price for it.

God forbid there should be a problem because there are no solutions, just foreigners reading prompted scripts. If you get them off-script, it messes them up and they start over at the top regardless of how far down the page you are when they lose track.

Endless hours of entertainment if you have nothing else to do, I suppose, but it's just another common business practice that annoys me.

1 comment:

John said...

This is absurd. Next time, the moment you call and get the first guy, ask to speak to a manager. If he asks why, tell him that no one at his level has helped the last three times you've called and you refuse to deal with this level. You insist on a manager. He may grumble a bit, but stick to your guns and he'll do it. Once you reach the manager, tell him how many times you've called, that this is totally unacceptable behavior, and you want to know what they will do for you in return for this extreme amount of trouble his company has caused you. Make it all about the disservice of the company. You might even tell him that you'd like to end the letter to the Better Business Bureau with something positive and are giving him one final chance to accomplish that. I have a feeling you will get it done and done right.

In case you are wondering, these are all tactics I have used successfully in the past.