Customer Service

OK I promise to rave about this once. I hate calling any company whether it be utility, credit cards and my personal favorite medical insurance. I hate the automated phone menus that are confusing, take forever and usually do not give you the specific choice you need. And I definitely hate the new voice menus where you have to say your choice instead of pressing. It makes me feel like an idiot especially in public on a cell. Then you explain the problem to whoever you get, they transfer you because it is not their "department" and then you have to tell your story all over again.

This evening Steven and I had some difficulty with Alltel/Cingular(whoever they are now). We were on the phone with them for an hour and a half. We have a joint cell phone account and are past due by one month. We sort forgot because they did not send me a bill. Anyway we got one of those nasty letters saying they were going to shut the phones off and it would be $25 for each phone reconnection. Not to mention the past due amount they had us owe was really high. So Steven called and was polite for about 45 minutes and then was a bit agitated. They had charged us double for our second line and also charged us for text messaging and emode which I cancelled in Nov. Those charges were removed and we were happy. We were given a one week extension to pay and that was fabulous. Mind you it took us three departments to get that settled. Then we were transferred to billing and it was all downhill from there.

Billing argued that we owed the past due plus the next payment due now. The extension was fine but that did not guarantee our phones would not be shut off. So of course Steve argued this because the nice man we had just talked to said something different. Arguing became yelling and Steven was pulling at his hair. We moved on to the Resolutions dept and things got worse. Leanne was very rude. Suprisingly rude, not only for customer service for for a professional in general. She yelled, threatened to hang up and went into two minute silent pauses with us going "hello, hello?". We were agitated but polite and not yelling. We just wanted our questions answered. No more "that's just our policy" with no explanation. We asked to speak to someone else. We were told it would be up to 30 minuted before someone was available. That added to our irritation. Steve asked her to stop yelling and she told him to turn down his phone. Anyway we waited literally 30 minutes on hold, timed by our phone I might add, until I spoke with the final representative.

By this time Steve was on the floor pulling at his hair. The man was polite and so was I. He told me that they had no control over phones getting shut off. It was run solely on a computer system that they could not access. When the computer noticed a red flag it shut off phones. And it is different for everyone with no basis. Sometimes they are shut off after 15 days past due and on up to 90 days. He told me that the extension doesn't mean anything because they cannot prevent the phones from being shut off. Is that not insane? Why offer an extension in the first place? Then he also told what the nice and apparently stupid man told me about payment. The past due was due now BUT the current bill was due on 2/20/05. Leanne and the man before her were wrong.

PLEASE OH PLEASE STOP THE INSANITY! I am a reasonable women. I know those people probably don't love their jobs. But to explain our situation to 6 different people, be on hold for a half hour, being told different amounts for what we actually owed, not to mention the particularly unpleasant Leanne, the double charges and the services that I cancelled two months ago...and let's not forget the magical computer that no one has access to...CAN YOU BLAME PEOPLE FOR FREAKING OUT? How about the fact that there is no basis for when the computer will shut off someone's phone? Anywhere from 15-90 days? What?

These are the reasons why perfectly good, normal people take guns to schoolyards. I think of the movie Falling Down with Michael Douglas. I can completely relate. They waste our time and take hours off our life with the circles they take us in. Sometimes it feels like a conspiracy to keep us focused on ridiculous nonsense so we won't really see what is going on in the world. I blame George Bush and all his frat boy friends.

I will admit that I once screamed at my medical insurance company. I told them they were murderers and that they would burn in hell for their sins. I was really pissed because they did not cover a medication I needed. I have definitely made improvements.