This guy was so slick.......until he spoke to me!

[greensinestro]

Just so everyone out there knows this, the FCC is now into protecting dead beat customers, and have a personal grudge toward all of the utility companies out there. With that said, here is what happened on a call I took earlier.

This guy called in telling me he could not get his internet to connect properly, stating his username and password were incorrect. I pulled up his telephone account, and saw it was suspended, but somehow, the internet was still working. So, I did my share of troubleshooting, had him correct his username, then advised him of his service being suspended for non payment, plus that meant the internet was subject to this as well. The moment this was said, he became defensive and said, "I'm supposed to have the internet on my other phone number, which is......" and he rattled it off to me. I pulled up the number, and found this was paid in full, was in the same house, and in his name as well!

He demanded I put his internet on the telephone he paid for in full, which I would not do, telling him that because it is on his unpaid phone line, it was being suspended until paid up. (In this profession, we cannot add services, remove services, or even disconnect a phone service if it is suspended for non payment).

A few minutes later, another rep spoke to him and this time, he was complaining about his internet not working. This rep told him he was suspended and nothing could be done until he paid the bill in full, so he was connected with our collections department, who had him pay his bill in order to restore the internet and phone line.

Later on, I was advised if his other telephone number was on a separate account, we could not turn off the paid for line! The FCC has this in place, that the phone company cannot turn off other phone lines if you owe money on any others! However, it does state that we can turn off services on the line you owe on.

At the end of the call, this guy told me I needed to get more sleep and get my attitude checked. In return, I suspended his internet service, and he was suddenly able to pay his bill in full. I guess I needed more sleep so I would not be the smart person that caught something like this.

[PuckishOne]

I totally get why you couldn't transfer the internet service to the paid-for phone number (and agree that this is good), but why would you want to turn off the paid-for line just because the same customer had a (different) account that was past due? He did, after all, pay for that one line.

[Broomjockey]

I think what it is, is you're not supposed to be able to have two lines in the same name on different accounts at the same address, as it promotes not paying one of the lines. Somehow, this guy got around that, and didn't want to pay his past due balance on his old line.

[greensinestro]

I totally get why you couldn't transfer the internet service to the paid-for phone number (and agree that this is good), but why would you want to turn off the paid-for line just because the same customer had a (different) account that was past due? He did, after all, pay for that one line.

Years ago, the major phone companies all had a way to combat this problem. Let's say that I have a phone at my address where I have not paid it in two months, and it goes to $200 of unpaid service. I also have a second line in my home but have paid this line in full every month. When that happened, Bellsouth would shut off any phone line in your name, whether or not that particular line was paid, if you owed money on another line, and it did not matter if it was at the same address or not.

This type of thing used to happen with parents when their child moved out of the house. The child was unable to afford the deposit, or the connection fee, so the parents would take care of it, as long as it was in their name. Well, later on, the child would not pay the bill, and yet Mom and Dad were paying theirs. If that happened, Mom and Dad would suffer the consequences because Little Queenie did not pay her phone bill, causing Mom and Dad's at home to be shut off as well.

Today, years later, the FCC for some reason allows this. The loophole in this is if it is a phone line that needs to be shut off for non payment, the services attached to that line also go with it, which was the internet on this gentleman's line. He got caught by someone smart, like myself, and suddenly saw he was about to lose his luxury and wanted it transferred over before it was too late.

I hope that answers your question.

I think what it is, is you're not supposed to be able to have two lines in the same name on different accounts at the same address, as it promotes not paying one of the lines. Somehow, this guy got around that, and didn't want to pay his past due balance on his old line.

Exactly the point I was trying to make here.

[PuckishOne]

I hope that answers your question.

It does - thank you. It makes much better sense to me now, and good on you for catching him before he was able to pull off his little trick.

[bainsidhe]

I totally get why you couldn't transfer the internet service to the paid-for phone number (and agree that this is good), but why would you want to turn off the paid-for line just because the same customer had a (different) account that was past due? He did, after all, pay for that one line.

I don't work with any phone company, but I'd like to point out the beauty of leverage. If you knew everything was getting cut off, you'd try to bring balances up to date. Otherwise, payment can be put off and off and off....

I work in CS in a small manufacturing company. When we are trying to get payment for old invoices, it is amazing how quickly we're paid when we won't ship our customer's orders. This usually means they have their own SC yelling, because we haven't shipped yet.

Please note, this usually isn't a matter of our customer saying they "won't" pay. They just like to pay when they feel like it, many months down the line. We have vendors, too, and they certainly don't let us get away with that crap.