Incompetence
In mid-August I had lengthy discussions with the local garbage company who was threatening to stop my service because I was behind in payments. In reality, as opposed to their reality dump, I wasn’t behind and I had the cancelled check as proof. But it took them three days to get this resolved. They did finally figure out that my check had been deposited in a general corporate account (gives a new meaning to slush fund) and not credited to my account. They were very apologetic and promised to remove the late fee, to not cancel my curb-side collection, and to continue taking my money.
They bill quarterly, so yesterday I got my first “post-incident” bill. Not only are our rates continuing to climb-for continued poor service-but there’s still a $5 late fee on my account. Now, I acknowledge that $5 isn’t all that much in the greater scheme of life, but it’s the principle of the whole thing! Excuse me: 1. Payment wasn’t late; 2. The whole mix up was their fault-and they admitted it; 3. They told me ten weeks ago the late fee had been removed from my account! So, you better believe I followed up on this!
I left a message this morning with the woman that “helped” me last time. She called back promptly saying-and here’s what kills me: “Thank you for calling me about that. I hadn’t gotten through my follow up yet. But I have now applied a $5 credit to your account.”
“I hadn’t gotten through my follow up yet.” Hello? Now I’m the first to admit that I can procrastinate at Oscar-award-winning levels-but never when somebody else’s money is involved (at least, not that I remember!) and certainly not a customer’s money! I’m sure this was accidental oversight on her part, right? So first they make the mistake of mis-depositing my check, then threaten me, then waste my time trying to resolve the issue, then lie to me about the credit being applied, and now they want me to believe that credit really, really has been applied!
Hum, do you think they’ll believe me that the check is in the mail? Oh, AND so this won’t happen again they want me to send my payments to a different address than what’s on the bill! Hum, the check might be in the mail, but where is it going? They claim this will get my payment to the local office instead of HQ that messed up the other check. Hum.
Thinking about a bridge in Brooklyn…
They bill quarterly, so yesterday I got my first “post-incident” bill. Not only are our rates continuing to climb-for continued poor service-but there’s still a $5 late fee on my account. Now, I acknowledge that $5 isn’t all that much in the greater scheme of life, but it’s the principle of the whole thing! Excuse me: 1. Payment wasn’t late; 2. The whole mix up was their fault-and they admitted it; 3. They told me ten weeks ago the late fee had been removed from my account! So, you better believe I followed up on this!
I left a message this morning with the woman that “helped” me last time. She called back promptly saying-and here’s what kills me: “Thank you for calling me about that. I hadn’t gotten through my follow up yet. But I have now applied a $5 credit to your account.”
“I hadn’t gotten through my follow up yet.” Hello? Now I’m the first to admit that I can procrastinate at Oscar-award-winning levels-but never when somebody else’s money is involved (at least, not that I remember!) and certainly not a customer’s money! I’m sure this was accidental oversight on her part, right? So first they make the mistake of mis-depositing my check, then threaten me, then waste my time trying to resolve the issue, then lie to me about the credit being applied, and now they want me to believe that credit really, really has been applied!
Hum, do you think they’ll believe me that the check is in the mail? Oh, AND so this won’t happen again they want me to send my payments to a different address than what’s on the bill! Hum, the check might be in the mail, but where is it going? They claim this will get my payment to the local office instead of HQ that messed up the other check. Hum.
Thinking about a bridge in Brooklyn…