I can't really think of a telecommunications company that hasn't at some point annoyed me. When you can get an entire industry to buy-in to the ridiculous concept of having 2 year contracts for a service, the consumer is sure to get ripped off. I guess they all have to buy-in because consumers are too stupid to realize that a lower price with a 2 year commitment isn't a better deal. If that's what the customers are signing up for, that's what everyone will be offering.
It extends to other services too. Like wireless internet access from T Mobile. I signed up for 30 days free before going on a trip once so I could use their service in the airport. Imagine my surprise when I got a bill for $30 dollars not long afterward. I called them and they said I had signed up for the one year contract at $30 per month. I said, no I didn't. They said, yes you did. I said, there were choices on the signup page and I specifically opted for a pay as you go plan that got me the free 30 minutes rather than the one that has the contract. They said, nuh uh. And I said, uh huh. And they said, nuh uh. And I said then cancel my service. And they said, you owe us $200 for cancellation--per the terms and conditions of this offer.
I said, you are evil. And they cackled mercilessly.
So, I disputed the charge to my credit card. So far, that has worked well. I've probably disputed 5 or 6 different charges over the last several years, and they have always been in my favor. The trick is, you have to keep the terms and conditions when you sign up for something so you can prove that you aren't just trying to cheat the company and they are, in fact, evil. So the T-Mobile story has a happy ending. I win, they lose.
The last telecom story for now is AT&T calling card. Basically, they annoy me for 2 reasons. 1) You buy minutes at a certain rate and then they use the minutes as currency in arbitrary ways. When I first signed up, it cost 15 minutes extra to make a call from a pay phone. At 3 cents a minute, that was cheaper than putting change in the phone and way more convenient since I have the calling card number memorized. But then after I bought a thousand minutes, they changed the pay phone surcharge to 50 minutes. No notice. No recourse. Just, suddenly, what you paid for becomes depreciated to a third its original value. And 2) their calling card will only work sporadically with our cordless phone at home.
Whatever happened to just paying for a service and both parties feeling like the business transaction benefited them?
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This reminds me of my own disgruntlement with AT&T as well as my mom's.
Used to be back in the old days in Arkansas, that SBC would handle the billing for your long distance provider on their bills. Then, AT&T thought they were losing money to SBC and stopped this practice. Which meant that my mom then had to write out 2 checks for her phone usage, one to SBC for all but her long distance and another to AT&T for her long distance. Then, she canceled her phones all together. No more bills. Then my dad signed up w/ SBC again. When he did, he chose NO LONG DISTANCE carrier. So, imagine my mom's surprise when she received a bill from AT&T. She called to dispute it and thought the matter resolved. Till the next bill came again. And both bills were for services NOT used at all. They had a block on long distance on their phone account. Thus not signing up for one of the Long Distance companies. Eventually, mom wrote them a rather nasty note requesting that they take an attached check for some piffling $3.76 and make sure they cancel her account and never bother to send her a piece of mail again. Thus far, it appears to be working. It's been over 7 yrs since she has had any contact w/ AT&T.
My own story goes along with it sort of. I did use my long distance and actually chose AT&T as they had the best rep at the time I signed up. Then they started the separate billing thing. Aggravated, I called to inquire about it and got the answer that SBC no longer wished to handle the billing for AT&T because SBC was losing money doing so. Fine. So, I began writing my two checks each month to pay my phone bills. Then, one month, AT&T switched my billing date w/out prior notice to me. Having set up my account previously to be able to pay on the 15th when my bill was received on the 12th of the month, I was now puzzled to start receiving the bill on the 25th with a demand of payment by the 1st. Since my rent came out on the 1st along with my daycare bills at the time, this wasn't doable. All attempts to convince AT&T to revert back to the former agreed upon statement billing cycle were null and void. So, I did what I had to do and waited to pay the bill till the 15th as I couldn't not pay the rent and daycare bills. The second month, I received a phone call from AT&T on the 5th of the month asking me when I was going to pay that bill. I explained my dilema and told them I paid when I could and we hung up. Month number three, I again received a call from them about the 5th of the month asking for my payment that had been due on the 1st. I told them I was aware I had a bill due and would pay it as I had been doing for 3 yrs on the 15th. Month number 4 rolls around and after the call on the 5th about my 4 days past due account, I asked them to stop calling me to see when I was going to be paying since I always paid BY PHONE on the 15th. Month 5 comes and they call me on the 24th month (a mere 4 days AFTER I had received my bill due on the 1st) and they inquired if I would be paying my bill on time that month as in by the 1st of the month. I politely told them no and to not ever call me again that I would be switching my long distance carrier to one who wasn't into harrassing their customers. I made the switch, sent in my final bill and thought I was done with them. Nope. They called every day or every other day asking me to switch back to them. They would call during the day while I was at work and then again when I returned home from work. I went thru their "DO NOT CALL" request about 7 months in a row almost every day and still kept receiving calls from them. Month # 8 of these persistant and annoying calls, I told them that if I received so much as one more call from them, I would go to the FCC and report them for harrassing telecommunications. Sure enough, they called me yet again. So, I did what I had to do. Since I had documented each time I had sent a letter or fax to AT&T asking them to not call me again, when I contacted the FCC via their internet website, they believed my story of AT&T's consumer harrassing and got the company to stop. It's been a very blissful 6 yrs now and I don't even receive so much as a junk mail mailer, an email, or a phone call from AT&T anymore. Sometimes, you have to get their attention REALLY HARD and being fined by the FCC did just that. :) So, I had a happy ending to my 9 months of pure annoyance.
That was a pretty amazing story. I love it when the good guys win though (if you think the pain was worth it after the ending!).
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