Can you hear which finger I'm extending now? Good!

[xequalsfun]

I recently got a $220 cell phone bill from T-Mobile.

Comments

[vaticanplum]

I'm actually in the midst of a back-and-forth with Verizon right now. I believe they owe me money, because for a year and a half they were, unbeknownst to me, still charging me Illinois taxes even though I had moved to Ohio (and they were quite aware of this, seeing as I had told them and they had been sending my bills to Ohio the entire time). It wasn't until I noticed this, told them, and got my first Ohio bill that I found that Illinois taxes are about $5 more a month. Multiply that by 16 months, and it's enough money for me to want it back.

The customer service rep who helped me was exceedingly nice and promised she'd do all the math, check with her supervisor, and get back to me. That was well before Christmas and the promised call back was supposed to be the first week of January. I just haven't had time to call them back myself yet, but I plan to next week. And when I do, I'll let you know if they are decent enough to give me my money back (which they WILL do, I certainly intend to raise hell if they don't, but in any case I'll let you know how difficult they make it).

Apart from that I'm generally happy with Verizon. You have be proactive to get what you want from them (see above re: elusive call back), but if you are I've found that you generally can get it.

On a side note, have you ever heard the internets favorite taped phone call of the man arguing with Verizon about fractions? It's priceless.

[stalwartkumquat]

i feel exactly the same way about Verizon. your situation sounds especially thorny, since it involves some relatively intricate weirdness; i hope that works out in $80 fashion.

putting aside that blog post I did forever ago about getting a new mobile phone, i've had two noteworthy Experiences o' Crappiness with Verizon over the past year, one related to my home phone, and one related to getting DSL installed. both ordeals lasted for months, mostly because, like you, i didn't have the time to call them back and really work through the problem. both were related to billing issues (namely, them charging me for services i wasn't receiving, resulting in me refusing to pay the bill, resulting in them cutting off my service), and both were eventually resolved in very acceptable ways once i put the time and effort into speaking with their service reps, who were usually pretty patient -- though i also admit that i tend to go out of my way to be really chipper on these calls, since i feel belligerence tends to breed belligerence in these situations.

but what's up my butt about all this is, isn't it kind of a bitch that we're the ones who have to put in the legwork because they screw something up in the first place? why don't they call when they say they will? why don't they give us the benefit of the doubt? why is *lack* of trust the default position of these companies, when the vast majority of people are, in fact, not trying to dick them over?

[eustacia42]

Agreed.

[xequalsfun]

That's a pretty bold claim to end with. I'm sure the customer service people get plenty of calls from people who are trying to dick them over, and I'd be hesitant to say who was in the majority. Just because people who work at customer service are often stupid jerks doesn't mean that the people they talk to aren't often more stupider jerks.

[xequalsfun]

I have no problem harassing customer service people to get what I need. I'm kind of impressed that you believed them when they said they would call you back, but I think that's because no reps have ever offered to do that for me (unless it was a call-you-right-back thing, like for an insurance quote or something).

I bet a cell phone company that promised and delivered non-dickish business practices could do really well...assuming the cellular industry isn't extremely cutthroat, which may be what drives these companies to be so draconian.