Ever notice how phone companies are jerks?

haha!  I agree.  I know some people who are much more anal about bills and records than I am.  I usually just pay the bills and throw them away.  But they go line by line with every bill and save every receipt, etc.  They have told me that they catch pricing mistakes on their ATT bill all the time, and that the mistakes are ALWAYS in ATT's favor, not once has it been in their favor.  That means that ATT either purposely make mistakes in their favor as a money making scheme knowing that most people don't check, or that they have someone who goes through everything and finds all the pricing mistakes, but only fixes the ones that mean ATT losing money. 

 

I personally think the former is more likely, because it is all automated at this point, and I really don't see why there would be many mistakes to begin with. 

 

But whatever the reason, it is definitely evil. 

Qwest is a horrible company. Some years back, I moved into a new apartment in Salem, Oregon. While trying to get the line turned on, I ended up in an argument with the representative about where I was. No joke. She insisted that the apartment was in Eugene. I told her that I could look out the window and see the Capitol Building. Still, she thought I was in Eugene, and it went round and round as to where I was. I began wondering if I was being dragged into a practical joke. That took a couple of days to sort. Then they thought I was in a government building. I was across the street from some government buildings, but it turned into another argument. I eventually collared a supervisor on the phone and rattled off a few names on the PUC I knew, as well as a few people in the Legislature (I used to work there), and that, further, I am a lawyer and will make an example out of him. That seemed to register, and I finally got a phone line. I wasn't asking for special treatment or anything for free. All I wanted was a phone line where I could start paying them money. Man, do I hate Qwest. I filed a PUC complaint, anyway.

If a landline carrier pulls crap on you, file a formal, written complaint with your state's PUC. There should be a commission overseeing the utilities and they are the ones to go to. Also, contact your state representative and senator. They often pull strings on the PUC, so the PUC will listen if a senator comes around wanting to know why a constituent is being crapped on.

AT&T is horrible, too. I'm still under contract with them because I love my iPhone, but I'll dump them at the earliest opportunity. They've tried to slam me into a $20/month texting plan. I've been nothing less than explicit about not wanting a plan. I hate them.

Also, consider the joy of small claims. Yeah, you often end up signing arbitration agreements, etc., which can limit your right to sue, but do it anyway. It's a monstrous pain in the ass. The lawsuit automatically gets kicked to counsel who starts hitting them for $200 or more an hour. Even if counsel can get your case dismissed, it can cost the company a couple grand to do that. Further, it irritates the lawyers to deal with petty disputes. They'll usually go to supervisors and kick some butt to get rid of petty complaints.

Another time, I started overpaying a cable company 17 cents every month. Then I'd underpay by 17 cents. It was a real pain for the accounting department and the manager eventually called me to find out what needed to be done to get me to stop doing that.

I have a pretty short fuse with big companies. They pull every trick in the book to keep from being accountable for what they do. They shirk responsibility yet feel entitled to our money. I don't do business with them, if at all possible. And if they give me trouble, I get out the biggest stick I can find.

One thing I won't do, however, is tear apart the ordinary service reps. It's not their fault and they're probably getting screwed, too. Supervisors and managers are fair game, though.

And now AT&T is seeking to overturn our right to class action lawsuits. I'll stop at the political line here, but it isn't hard to figure out what I think. What AT&T deserves is for something like 200,000 customers to small claims them at the same time. That would be a pants-pooping experience for the officers. There's no way they could handle that kind of volume and would be forced to roll over.

Verizon does that too. They charge you things that you never did. That's why you always keep your receipt and then look at it to make sure it is accurate. It's always a pita when you find something and have to deal with getting your money back or getting things taken out of a bill.

I am posting this from my PUC computer (hey, it's lunchtime).  The evil telecommunication corporations also comes around the PUC and lobby the "decision makers".  And they use those same state representatives and Senators to do their dirty work too....and they often succeed too.

 

 

One day I came home and saw my uncle writting a check, at the wrong time of the month since he's normally fast when it came to bills as they arrived.  I also noticed that it said that we paid late and charged us late fees.  i asked him as to how long we've been getting these bills with late fees, and he said a few months.  So I ended up calling the cable company and to my surprise it was some type of "error" and we ended up not having to pay our cable for a few months because he paid twice for the last few months including late fees.  The weird thign is that this happened a couple of times already, and it even happened to our phone company.  We stated it as one of the reasons why we canceled our service and switched to cell phones.