From: kitenet!plex-1!kite@sharkey.cc.umich.edu
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: The Wrath of Dave
Organization: TELECOM Digest


	I called the phone company the other day because for ONCE I
took the time to go over my phone bill (line by line) to track down
where the heck my LARGE Kite-Net (ex. M-Net) bills were coming from.
It all started when I noticed that since I opened up Kite-Net as a
UUCP connection to the world (which requires a LOT of outgoing calls)
my phone bill sky rocketed.

	I looked the bill over and noticed that I have been charged
6.2 cents per call for 1770+ calls ($109.00) and of course said
"%^%#&^&*^*&".  So I jumped on the phone to check on my account,
"Well" the lady said nicely, "It looks like you have five lines flat
rate and one measured line" (a measured line is one that get 50 FREE
calls per/month and is charged 6.2 cents after) to which I replied
"This isn't right I should have five measured lines and 1 flat rate,
that's what I ordered". She of course put me on hold while checking
this out (for 15-20 minutes) and returned with a pleseant "No, you
have five flatrate and one measured".

	I asked when this went into effect and she again put me on
hold and came back with the information of March of last year (which
is when I called to have things changed so M-Net could use one of my
Kite-Net lines for the Merit dialout). I explained to her that they
have had my order turned around 180 degrees from what I wanted for
over 1.5 years. I asked to talk to her supervisor and I explained that
they had screwed up royal and she went right into the ole "Company ass
kisser speech" that I must have ordered it this way because their
operators are instructed to attempt to talk users out of this feature
for this very reason. I took this opening to lay "The Wrath of Dave"
upon her poor excuse for a company by explaining that I have my "First
Class" Radio Telephone ticket, been a "Ham Radio Operator" since I was
9 and worked with telephones for YEARS and had to have their engineers
come out three different times to point out where they had gone
wrong in my order and on top of that I had to explain to their
-operators- what the hell a "Trunk was"!

	After about 1/2 an hour of bantering "coulda been this way ..."
she agreed that I was not a little ole lady off the street and knew
what I was talking about so "PERHAPS" someone on their end could have
misunderstood what I was ordering.  Once we had agreed that the fault
COULD have been on their end I asked for some kind of reduction in in
billing since the ONLY line they were charging me 6.2 cents per call
on was my DIALOUT!

	I guess she was tired of me by this time so she once again put
me on hold to check something else out ... (waiting) ... (waiting) ...
She then came back and said "Theres nothing they could do since I
didn't find the problem for such a long time and I did indeed use the
service, and further more ... she made it clear that the service I am
receving SHOULD be business rates, so don't push it!" Boy was I
steamed at this!

	I asked for her supervisor (and she had to call me back) and
was even MORE pleasent and made it very clear that she did care about
my problem, I was for an instant happy to hear this, well she had been
"FILLED IN" on my problem and checked all the records and was ready to
talk. Her first point to be made was that if I had caught this 30 - 60
- 90 days even 1/2 a year into the problem we could have worked
something out but "A YEAR A A HALF" there just nothing they can do.
So, I say ... "What I'm hearing is that if there is a problem it is
first of all up to the customer to track down and we have a certain
amount of time to do this in"? to which she replied "NO, What I'm
saying is ... that if there is a problem it is up to the customer to
find and they must find it in a certain amout of time".  Hmmmmmmm,
glad she cleared that up for me!

	"OK, we're getting nowhere here I'll just pay the damn thing
and you fix it today, I'll be calling YOU directly each day for ONE
month to make sure that this had been done and NOT changed with out my
consent durning that time" to which "Miss Thing" came back with yet
ONE more analogy to my problem.

	"Mr. Parks ... if you started using lots more electricity in
your home do you think Detroit Edison would notify you?" I said "Yes
and they DID, thank you very much, but thats not the point, I KNOW
when I'm using more electricity because *I* plugged the extra stuff
in ... they can't punch in the wrong numbers into the computer to
MAKE me use more like you can".

	Hmmmmm she thought, BAD analogy ... "When I asked to talk to
the supervisor I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere, I just wanted to
tell you people that *IF* (I say *IF*) there was another game in town
I'd take my business there right now, since there isn't ... good day!
(SLAM)!


 ...sharkey!m-net!kite             Altos 68020 UNIX Sys-III (313) 994-6333
 ...sharkey!kitenet!kite           Altos 68000 UNIX Sys-III (313) 663-6207
 ...sharkey!kitenet!plex-1!kite    Plexus P/35 68000 UNIX SysV.2   USENET
You can mail Dave Parks at these addresses, or phone (313) 663-6873 --

--- Fred-Uf 1.8(L)[BETA]
 * Origin: Megabyte BBS, UUCP, Fidonet, IMEx, total messaging (1:340/201.0)