CSC CHRONICALS 3
So here’s today — Monday — chapter in the Customer Service Chronicles.
Pretty quiet day today. Mostly because I never left the house, hardly checked e-mail, and didn’t open my wallet or call anyone. Still, I had a Advanta bank call me incessantly this morning because my payment was a few days late. This is after I had written them several weeks ago reminding them that my wife was temporarily disabled for several months, and I was the only one here to take care of her and my three-year-old toddler. And if you’ve ever been through that type of situation, you know that you really don’t have time to sit down and pay every bill, every day, on time. Well, it turns out banks are great at sending mail, but shitty at reading them. Because even when I’m about to her three days late, they still call around the clock. They’re worse than collections agencies. Then again, what’s the difference? Between them and Chase, they call about 3-4 times per day when the pain is only two or three days late. Hell, for that new since I’d rather just pay the late fee and paid him three weeks late. Nonetheless, I always pay them, albeit for the past two months not on time for these reasons of disability. But they always get paid in the end. And most of the time, when I have the means, I pay off the entire balance and zero it out. (As I did with Target after they raised my APR pretty unfairly one time.)
Anyway, this morning I decided to answer the phone and remind the CSR — a gruff sounding young woman — that I did send a letter of disability to their office, and that the phone calls are really getting pretty annoying. Especially since I only owe less than $25 for a minimum payment. And for that, my phone has been ringing, both on business and home phone lines, at 8 AM in the morning, 10 AM in the morning, 8 PM at night, Sunday mornings at 9 AM, all through the weekend. Without remorse. When I complained, she was semi-sympathetic even though I was a bit short. Well, she also let me on to something new… if I write a letter to Advanta stating that I don’t want these calls, and signed that letter, they will remove my phone numbers from the contact list and get in touch with me via e-mail or snail mail rather than phone. From the way she communicated it to me I imagine this is a rule that goes for all creditors. So it’s time to draft a form letter like I did with the disability letter from several months ago. Maybe that will quiet down my phones — and give me time to pay bills instead of running back and forth to the cordless handset.
AT&T
don’t know if I ever tell you about this one. This is a thrilling matter. My wife’s cell phone, which is listed under my Enterprise account with AT&T for our iPhone’s, continuously gets these crank calls these calls come through as “Blocked,” or” Unknown” — but once in while they’ve come from a number in New Jersey that we could barely track to some industrial company in Hackensack. About 80% of the time, no one is on the other end. However, my wife has had occasion to answer and hear some guy saying “Hello” very faintly or letting out a grunt as if he was mentally disturbed or just plain stupid. After that, there would just be some heavy static or a hangup. These goals came pretty consistently, first several days strung together out of time, then maybe all for a few weeks, then back again for a week or two, but incessantly. They would come at night, sometimes 3-4 times per minute (yes, per MINUTE.) In the morning. In a box, with a fox. Then they started calling at night, from 2 AM earlier.
My wife tried everything. This started almost at the same time as her Facebook account was hacked (problem solved.) but not after, luckily. She called AT&T. She called the New Jersey Sheriff. New Jersey police. Hackensack police. Westchester County police. White Plains Police Department. Every department gave her the runaround except the WP PD, which had a car to our house and officer for our door within 10 minutes. He took some information, but at the end of the day there was really nothing that could be done.
However, the only viable control we could have over it was through AT&T. We called them several times asking them to stop these blocked calls — and that particular New Jersey phone number — from coming into her phone. This is where one of those “We can put a man on the moon…” comments comes in. With all the technology and digital manipulation available to a telecommunications company, they apparently don’t have the ability to block a particular call from coming into your phone… that is blocked. In fact, they don’t even want to try. Sure, they can block all “blocked” calls from coming to your phone, but then you wouldn’t hear from professional contacts and colleagues or people whom you know and allowed to call you who just happened to have call blocking. So, even though somewhere in the digital universe, roaming from cell tower to cell tower there is a phone number behind this number that shows up “blocked,” AT&T has no way to find that. Anywhere.
Unless, of course, you pay them the handsome sum of $4.99 per month.
Yes, they want to charge you monthly for blocking a criminal act being imposed upon your phone. To our knowledge, they’re the only mobile telecommunications provider with a policy to do so.
And even if you agree to this extortion, the problem still isn’t solved. They will still block ALL calls marked Blocked, thus creating an impassable barrier to your professional contacts and friends and family that do not show their numbers.
Of course, I called to complain.
I spoke to a CSR woman with a southern accent who seemed quite kind and eager to help. But at the same time pretty small work. I explained the situation and that I would not pay $4.99 per month to stop a harassing, criminal act being imposed on my wife’s phone without her permission. For the third time speaking with AT&T, the only solutions offered were for my wife to change her phone number (not an option, as she uses it for professional purposes), or pay for the blocking service. After a lot of haggling, and speaking to a supervisor, and demanding that I get at least three months of this service for free, I spent probably 10 minutes on the phone trying to get them to split the difference between an offered one-month free of the service, and three months free. Well the big hell for this situation is that they realize that there is something wrong with that policy — people having to pay to have harassing calls blocked. At the end, I let them give me the one-month free of the service, but demanded — by snail mail also — that I was not going to pay for the service after one month.
Of course, I haven’t even looked at my AT&T bills for the past two months, but I’m having them deduct those charges. Then comes a letter from the attorney.
By the way, my letter to them is here.
DISCOVER
the egg on offer in the mail from Optimum. $69.95 for two years for Internet, cable, and phone. Funny, I currently pay about $175 per month for the same service. Wonder if they’ll give me that price when I call them. After all, I’m the president of the co-op board for my building. I do the entrance interviews for new residents — who, upon learning that our building is wired for both Fio’s and Optimum almost always as what service they should get. Of course, I make the proper recommendation. But, it would be an optimum’s best interest to be nice to me… let’s see…
So this piece of junk mail comes in the mail today from Discover. They’re offering a loan up to $25,000 at 7.99% interest APR. You can use it for anything — but it’s clear from the advertisement, which is clear and simple, that they intend you to use it for debt consolidation. Interesting — although I looked at the fine print, and if you’re late on a payment not only do they charge with $39 late payment fee, but they’ll raise your rate to 28.99% APR (their “default” rate.) No thanks.
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