Customer service, I hate you!
Moving is hard enough without stupid customer service personnel to screw things up. So we made the mistake of wanting a land line, you know, so we'd be listed in the phone book and my job wouldn't have to call Virginia to reach me. I used AT&T online because they were running a special, in which the $50 installation fee would be waived for using the online system. Nevermind that installation is a 2 minute job--I want to be a telephone repair guy and get paid $25/min.
Anywho, so I ask for them to turn my service on on the 28th, which is the date we planned to be moved here for good, with just a few things, like cleaning the oven and having the carpets shampooed, to be done back in Bloomington. I get an email that's like, "we're sorry, your requested date is unavailable--your service will be turned on on the 16th." "The 16th?" I say, "we won't even be finished packing by then!" So I call customer service and explain that we aren't moving 'til the 28th and thus cannot have a phone on the 16th. And he tells me that the appointment was never changed to the 16th.
I get a call on the 15th reminding me of the appointment on the 16th, so I subject myself to customer service again, and get it fixed. The 28th rolls around and I have no dial tone by 4pm. So I call. The lady tells me that they'll have it on by 9. Well, I won't be around at 9 to check it, but she says to call installation/repair directly if it isn't working Tuesday and gives me the number. Well, I'm in B'ton all day Tuesday, but I have no dial tone Wednesday, so I go ahead and call the number. It's a computer voice. After 45. frickin'. minutes. of:
"I think you said that you would like to pay your bill, is this correct?"
"No!"
"Please state the reason for your call a different way, for example, I have a question about my bill."
"I would like to report trouble with my service."
"I think you said you would like to add a service, is that correct?"
I finally get through to, you guessed it, another computerized man, who "performs a test" on my line and discovers that it is, in fact, not operational. A trouble ticket is generated by ComputerizedMan and then he sees fit to inform me that if the technician comes out and it is discovered that the problem is due to interior wiring, rather than issues with AT&T equiptment, there will be a $51 charge for the visit. I can, he says, troubleshoot myself, by going to my basement (I don't have one) and finding the gray box, plugging my phone directly into it, and seeing if there is a dial tone. If there is, I should call them back and cancel the trouble ticket, because it's a wiring/jack issue. "Okay," I think, "no biggie." He informs me that the repairman will arrive between now (Wednesday, noonish) and Saturday at 9pm. So, I have either 16 minutes or 72 hours in which to cancel my order?!
So I call the apartment office and the secretary goes postal about how it's not their responsibility or mine to do AT&T's job for them, and how this "always happens" when people are having trouble with their service and she can't help me--the maintenance guys might know where the grey box was, but they don't have the keys or something like that.
I figure I'll take the chance that it's AT&T's issue, so I wait. Saturday rolls around, still no dial tone. And a note in my mailbox from AT&T letting me know that my phone has been turned on and I'll be charged $20ish a month with taxes, and a one-time installation charge of $50 on my upcoming bill. Also, no customer service personnel to answer my calls, and ComputerizedMan just keeps telling me that my "issue has been resolved, thank you for choosing AT&T, goodbye." So, this morning, I call again. Jessica listens to me like a trooper, ignores my concern about the $50 installation fee, and gets me on the phone with repair, repair tells me that they tested the line this time and got a dial tone, so it's probably wiring or jacks, which they have to transfer me to billing to take care of. So I get transferred to billing, and they are like, "there are no notations on your account," so I have to go through my whole story again, and Danesha gets me on the line with Janice in repair. And we do this all over again. Twice. Then Mary from repair is like, "you have a dial tone--so it is likely to be a problem with your wiring, but may be something on our end." And she tries to get me to agree to have a tech sent out to check. Again, at a $51 rate if it is the wiring.
"Well, if the technician was out here on Saturday, wouldn't he have noticed if it was something on your end?" I ask.
"Yes, probably."
"And if he comes, and it is a problem with the building, is he just going to tell me that and leave, or will he fix it?"
"Oh, no--he'll fix it. The $51 visit fee covers the troubleshooting, and then, if you wanted us to fix it, you'd be billed for repair service."
That seems reasonable, I think. Until she informs me that it would be billed at $25 per quarter hour! "No thanks, I'd rather just cancel my service." So she transfers me again. And someone tries to get me to upgrade to fiberoptic TV service. And I'm not amused.
I hung up then, and called the apartment office to see if maybe, now that it is a building issue, they might fix it for, say, free? Or at least less than $100/hour. Well, while I'm leaving the message (the office opens at 10), I miss a call from Hoosier Disposal.
FLASHBACK: On Wednesday the 26th, Nathan and I became aware that we were generating more garbage in our move-out than our usual 2-3 kitchen bags, so I called the trash company. I pay for water and our neighbor pays for trash, and I wanted to make sure that everything would be okay. The woman tells me that we can leave 10 bags out. "Outside of our red bins, which have trash in them?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Cool," I think. So we put 10 bags outside our bins. I know, we're evil environment-killers--but the bulk of that garbage, to our credit, was stuff that we had stored in our basement and that had become moldy within like, 24 hours of being down there. With my mold allergy, I couldn't clean them to give them away or recycle them. Anywho, the garbage did not get picked up. They left a bunch of it, and we'd cleaned and locked up and I was only planning on going back to meet the carpet cleaners on Saturday. Well, Friday, my landlord flips out about the garbage at the curb, and goes to ream out my neighbor. She's a housebound elderly woman, and so when Nathan drops by Friday to load his Pennsic stuff so that there's literally nothing in the house, he goes to say goodbye to her and she's like, "WTF?" Well, not exactly, but you know. Anyway, he tells her what I told him that the trash people told me. She calls and she's told that there wasn't space in the truck and they take it next time, but will charge $54. My landlord wants it gone, and threatens to charge us $200 for the maintenance guys to load it and drive it a mile or two down the road to the rural dump site. If it weren't moldy, I could do it myself for like, $5 in gas and time--but Nathan's gone to Pennsic and if I put a bunch of moldy shit in my car, in that heat, with the windows up so it doesn't fly away, I'll probably drop dead while driving. So I tell my landlord to be patient, because I can't do anything until the trash company opens again. And I call the trash company and leave a message asking them to contact me to sort it out, because it's not fair that Pam be charged for our trash, especially since I did as I was told.
So, the message I get from Deb is really snippy, she reads the 10-bags rule from her little trash book (up to 10 bags, not 10 bags in addition) and is like, call me if you have questions. So I call because I really want to just pay the $54 for Pam so she doesn't have to like, not eat for a week because social security sucks, and have them come get the trash. I'm informed that there is no Deb (she just left me a frickin' message!). Then as I attempt to explain the situation calmly (that I'd been told 10 items outside the red bins, and that I'd done that, and regardless of where the miscommunication was, I'd like to make sure it would be taken care of ASAP and that my neighbor would not be charged), the lady cut me off and started to actually yell at me over the phone about the exact cubic footage of garbage that was left on our curb and how it was ridiculous that we would even for a moment think that it was okay. Well, after my 2 HOURS with AT&T, I was not exactly in the mood to be jerked around by customer service again.
"Oh, stop it." I said. "I'd like to apologize in advance if this seems a little bitchy to you, but I've just gotten off the phone with AT&T, after 2 hours with absolutely no resolution and I am really not in the mood. I understood what I was told to mean that we could place extra trash at the curb, and I repeated this back to the employee, who confirmed it and even told me to call back if we needed to make arrangements for the trash to be picked up on a different day so that we'd have time to clean more."
"The rules are very clear. There can be up to 10 bags of trash, total at your loc--"
"Look, the trash was not taken and now my frail, housebound neighbor on social security is panicking because you have threatened to charge her for the excess trash, and my landlord is on the verge of a coronary because it is ruining the curb appeal. It is not fair to her to be charged for something that is clearly due to miscommunication between us, and since you seem incapable of accepting the idea that your office staff are capable of miscommunication, the least you can do is stop speaking to me like I'm a mischevious 5-year-old. I would like to have the trash on our curb picked up as soon as possible, I understand there is a fee involved, and it is my responsibility, not my neighbors to pay it. So will you please shut up about the rules and tell me how I can pay on the account if my name isn't on it?"
"Oh, umm, you just want to pay the fees?" she asked sheepishly.
There is a special place in hell for customer service representatives like her. And for AT&T. If I wanted to be yelled over the phone, I'd do something stupid and call my mother to tell her about it. And if I wanted to talk to a computer, I'd turn on the little paperclip man in Word and start using the voice recognition software on my cell phone.
Okay, I'm through ranting.
Anywho, so I ask for them to turn my service on on the 28th, which is the date we planned to be moved here for good, with just a few things, like cleaning the oven and having the carpets shampooed, to be done back in Bloomington. I get an email that's like, "we're sorry, your requested date is unavailable--your service will be turned on on the 16th." "The 16th?" I say, "we won't even be finished packing by then!" So I call customer service and explain that we aren't moving 'til the 28th and thus cannot have a phone on the 16th. And he tells me that the appointment was never changed to the 16th.
I get a call on the 15th reminding me of the appointment on the 16th, so I subject myself to customer service again, and get it fixed. The 28th rolls around and I have no dial tone by 4pm. So I call. The lady tells me that they'll have it on by 9. Well, I won't be around at 9 to check it, but she says to call installation/repair directly if it isn't working Tuesday and gives me the number. Well, I'm in B'ton all day Tuesday, but I have no dial tone Wednesday, so I go ahead and call the number. It's a computer voice. After 45. frickin'. minutes. of:
"I think you said that you would like to pay your bill, is this correct?"
"No!"
"Please state the reason for your call a different way, for example, I have a question about my bill."
"I would like to report trouble with my service."
"I think you said you would like to add a service, is that correct?"
I finally get through to, you guessed it, another computerized man, who "performs a test" on my line and discovers that it is, in fact, not operational. A trouble ticket is generated by ComputerizedMan and then he sees fit to inform me that if the technician comes out and it is discovered that the problem is due to interior wiring, rather than issues with AT&T equiptment, there will be a $51 charge for the visit. I can, he says, troubleshoot myself, by going to my basement (I don't have one) and finding the gray box, plugging my phone directly into it, and seeing if there is a dial tone. If there is, I should call them back and cancel the trouble ticket, because it's a wiring/jack issue. "Okay," I think, "no biggie." He informs me that the repairman will arrive between now (Wednesday, noonish) and Saturday at 9pm. So, I have either 16 minutes or 72 hours in which to cancel my order?!
So I call the apartment office and the secretary goes postal about how it's not their responsibility or mine to do AT&T's job for them, and how this "always happens" when people are having trouble with their service and she can't help me--the maintenance guys might know where the grey box was, but they don't have the keys or something like that.
I figure I'll take the chance that it's AT&T's issue, so I wait. Saturday rolls around, still no dial tone. And a note in my mailbox from AT&T letting me know that my phone has been turned on and I'll be charged $20ish a month with taxes, and a one-time installation charge of $50 on my upcoming bill. Also, no customer service personnel to answer my calls, and ComputerizedMan just keeps telling me that my "issue has been resolved, thank you for choosing AT&T, goodbye." So, this morning, I call again. Jessica listens to me like a trooper, ignores my concern about the $50 installation fee, and gets me on the phone with repair, repair tells me that they tested the line this time and got a dial tone, so it's probably wiring or jacks, which they have to transfer me to billing to take care of. So I get transferred to billing, and they are like, "there are no notations on your account," so I have to go through my whole story again, and Danesha gets me on the line with Janice in repair. And we do this all over again. Twice. Then Mary from repair is like, "you have a dial tone--so it is likely to be a problem with your wiring, but may be something on our end." And she tries to get me to agree to have a tech sent out to check. Again, at a $51 rate if it is the wiring.
"Well, if the technician was out here on Saturday, wouldn't he have noticed if it was something on your end?" I ask.
"Yes, probably."
"And if he comes, and it is a problem with the building, is he just going to tell me that and leave, or will he fix it?"
"Oh, no--he'll fix it. The $51 visit fee covers the troubleshooting, and then, if you wanted us to fix it, you'd be billed for repair service."
That seems reasonable, I think. Until she informs me that it would be billed at $25 per quarter hour! "No thanks, I'd rather just cancel my service." So she transfers me again. And someone tries to get me to upgrade to fiberoptic TV service. And I'm not amused.
I hung up then, and called the apartment office to see if maybe, now that it is a building issue, they might fix it for, say, free? Or at least less than $100/hour. Well, while I'm leaving the message (the office opens at 10), I miss a call from Hoosier Disposal.
FLASHBACK: On Wednesday the 26th, Nathan and I became aware that we were generating more garbage in our move-out than our usual 2-3 kitchen bags, so I called the trash company. I pay for water and our neighbor pays for trash, and I wanted to make sure that everything would be okay. The woman tells me that we can leave 10 bags out. "Outside of our red bins, which have trash in them?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Cool," I think. So we put 10 bags outside our bins. I know, we're evil environment-killers--but the bulk of that garbage, to our credit, was stuff that we had stored in our basement and that had become moldy within like, 24 hours of being down there. With my mold allergy, I couldn't clean them to give them away or recycle them. Anywho, the garbage did not get picked up. They left a bunch of it, and we'd cleaned and locked up and I was only planning on going back to meet the carpet cleaners on Saturday. Well, Friday, my landlord flips out about the garbage at the curb, and goes to ream out my neighbor. She's a housebound elderly woman, and so when Nathan drops by Friday to load his Pennsic stuff so that there's literally nothing in the house, he goes to say goodbye to her and she's like, "WTF?" Well, not exactly, but you know. Anyway, he tells her what I told him that the trash people told me. She calls and she's told that there wasn't space in the truck and they take it next time, but will charge $54. My landlord wants it gone, and threatens to charge us $200 for the maintenance guys to load it and drive it a mile or two down the road to the rural dump site. If it weren't moldy, I could do it myself for like, $5 in gas and time--but Nathan's gone to Pennsic and if I put a bunch of moldy shit in my car, in that heat, with the windows up so it doesn't fly away, I'll probably drop dead while driving. So I tell my landlord to be patient, because I can't do anything until the trash company opens again. And I call the trash company and leave a message asking them to contact me to sort it out, because it's not fair that Pam be charged for our trash, especially since I did as I was told.
So, the message I get from Deb is really snippy, she reads the 10-bags rule from her little trash book (up to 10 bags, not 10 bags in addition) and is like, call me if you have questions. So I call because I really want to just pay the $54 for Pam so she doesn't have to like, not eat for a week because social security sucks, and have them come get the trash. I'm informed that there is no Deb (she just left me a frickin' message!). Then as I attempt to explain the situation calmly (that I'd been told 10 items outside the red bins, and that I'd done that, and regardless of where the miscommunication was, I'd like to make sure it would be taken care of ASAP and that my neighbor would not be charged), the lady cut me off and started to actually yell at me over the phone about the exact cubic footage of garbage that was left on our curb and how it was ridiculous that we would even for a moment think that it was okay. Well, after my 2 HOURS with AT&T, I was not exactly in the mood to be jerked around by customer service again.
"Oh, stop it." I said. "I'd like to apologize in advance if this seems a little bitchy to you, but I've just gotten off the phone with AT&T, after 2 hours with absolutely no resolution and I am really not in the mood. I understood what I was told to mean that we could place extra trash at the curb, and I repeated this back to the employee, who confirmed it and even told me to call back if we needed to make arrangements for the trash to be picked up on a different day so that we'd have time to clean more."
"The rules are very clear. There can be up to 10 bags of trash, total at your loc--"
"Look, the trash was not taken and now my frail, housebound neighbor on social security is panicking because you have threatened to charge her for the excess trash, and my landlord is on the verge of a coronary because it is ruining the curb appeal. It is not fair to her to be charged for something that is clearly due to miscommunication between us, and since you seem incapable of accepting the idea that your office staff are capable of miscommunication, the least you can do is stop speaking to me like I'm a mischevious 5-year-old. I would like to have the trash on our curb picked up as soon as possible, I understand there is a fee involved, and it is my responsibility, not my neighbors to pay it. So will you please shut up about the rules and tell me how I can pay on the account if my name isn't on it?"
"Oh, umm, you just want to pay the fees?" she asked sheepishly.
There is a special place in hell for customer service representatives like her. And for AT&T. If I wanted to be yelled over the phone, I'd do something stupid and call my mother to tell her about it. And if I wanted to talk to a computer, I'd turn on the little paperclip man in Word and start using the voice recognition software on my cell phone.
Okay, I'm through ranting.