I just love telephone companies

Thread Starter

praondevou

Joined Jul 9, 2011
2,942
I'm sure this happened to a lot of people.

Here a little anecdote from Canada:

I got my last cell phone bill. They were charging $10 too much for internet access.
I wrote them and they explained that part of it was a charge for the next month.
Not satisfied I called them up and they told me that the billing was correct and that I was charged for the last month according to the informations on their website and the plan I'd chosen.

Still not satisfied I called them up again talking to a different operator and in 2 minutes she changed my bill, saying that she was very sorry for the mistake they made. HAHAHA

Happend to me more than once. There are a few operators each of them telling you something different and then there is THE operator who solves your problem. :D
 

Markd77

Joined Sep 7, 2009
2,806
I had a beauty a while ago, my line rental was around £12, but the phone company had set up my direct debit at £20 and I didn't make many calls so I ended up in credit.
After a while (without me asking) they sent me a refund of the credit and changed my direct debit to £2 a month, which is less than the line rental.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
My cable bill went up 50$ a couple of months ago. I called them up and asked WTF and they said that I had signed up under a promo deal, which was now expired. the rest of the conversation went as follows:
me: "do you think you your service is worth 140$ per month?"
girl A: "....do I, personally think so?"
Me: "yes, you, personally"
girl A:" well sir, I don't..."
me: "I sure don't. I didn't think it was worth 90$ per month. I was about to cancel my service and go to dish, before you guys jacked up my payment."
Girl A: "sir, let me transfer you to our 'members discount center'":
me: "ok, sounds good"
Girl B: "hello sir, bla bla bla"
Me: "my bill just skyrocketed and I'm ready to cancel and go to dish"
Girl B: ...looks at my plan & what I was paying... "well sir, what if I could give you the same plan you already had, plus movie channels for 85$?"
Me: "how long until my bill jumps up 50%? 6 months like last time?"
Girl B: "no sir, there's no contract and no expiration"
Me: "ok, sign me up. thank you!"

Now, let me go off on another tangent rant here briefly:
PLANS/PACKAGES: What an utterly stupid idea!
Why on earth do I need to pay for the "2nd level" of cable "package" just to get the channels that I want? I only watch the discovery channel, science channel, nat geo, disney, tru tv, and movie channel occasionally. I never even look at what the other 300 channels play. why can I not pay only for the channels I watch? Even if they charged something outrageous like 10$/channel I would still save. I got rid of mine & my wifes smartphones & got cheap prepaid phones, but I still can't get away from "plans". I can pay 30$/mo for 1500min & 1500 text msgs, or I can pay 20$/mo for only 400min no text messages. What I NEED is 500min no text messages, but I still have to pay for 1500/1500. Wouldn't it be outrageous if the power company did this? make you pay a flat monthly fee no matter how much juice you use, and then penalize the life out of you when you forget the light on in the attic?
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
I had the T-Mobile Pay as you go, 1000 min for a year for $100. I will never sign a contract. Even so T-Mobile managed to zing me for long distance and out of state (the out of state is cheaper).

I now use Net10. After accumulating a bunch of minutes I now pay $30 for 2 months. Not as good a plan but no zingers.
 
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maxpower097

Joined Feb 20, 2009
816
I learned a long time ago with services just keep talking till its monetarily beneficial for them to give you what you want. I spend 3 hours on the phone one time and saved $105 off a bill.
 

Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
It seems clear that telecommunications companies have a policy of presenting a confusing range of tariffs, and of being less than frank in their dealings with their customers. The principle seems to be "confuse the suckers, and try to give them the worst deal we can - as long as we can fool them that they are not actually being ripped off".

There has recently been some regulation proposed (maybe rather belatedly and not very rigorous) to combat such things as selling unattainable line rates ("up to 10Mb/s" = on a good day you might get 2Mb/s), and using the word "unlimited" for services with explicit download caps, disguised as "fair usage policies".

While this sort of thing of course goes on in many other areas of business, including utilities like electricity and gas supply, for some reason it seems to be more prevalent with this sector. Is that really true, I wonder, and if so, why? Does the complexity of their products relative to most people's understanding of them play a part, or is it more a case of cowboys being more common in a rapidly growing sector, as in the double-glazing boom of some years ago?
 

jimkeith

Joined Oct 26, 2011
540
I, myself, have been ripped off by the telephone company many times and have had little success in obtaining adjustments--understanding an itemized bill, is akin to understanding the tax code...

Also, the electric utility bills are now approaching this level of complexity.
 

R!f@@

Joined Apr 2, 2009
9,918
I got call asking to pay an amount of 8000.00 for a service I personally disconnected by filing a complaint 6 months ago.

It was for the line charge, my previous ISP.

I really gave the operator WTF. After that they never call.
 
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