Maybe you should not have called - you would still be getting away with it

[Getoutofmylobby]

I can;t believe the gall of the free internet lady in the third story. You got busted, you have to pay, congratulations on the free stuff, move along.

[evilhomer]

I can't believe the first guy... dictionary.com assclown, look up discount, use your brain to piece it together.

What a bunch of morons. I could buy an argument against retroactive billing, but once a mistake is caught, the party's over. What kind of dumbass would think otherwise.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Damn, these people should count them lucky your company doesn't try to bill them retroactively for the time they had the service and weren't paying for it.

And then the bills get sent to collections b/c they won't pay up and would rather pass the time yelling at the poor collections employees who call.

Morons . . . all of them.

[Becks]

SC: Nobody told me my phone bill would go higher, just that I would not have that discount any more! (Am I missing something here?)

You, as are the rest of us, are missing brain cells from trying to figure out her logic.

[Killer Bees]

Okay, now my brain hurts

How do these people hold down jobs/buy groceries/breath unaided?

[greensinestro]

My family has been there with "Free extended cable." We were smart enough to STFU and not call them about it.

See? That's the smart way to live. If you are not paying for it and are receiving the rest of the channels, then shut up about it and keep living your life.

[Emrld]

One thing that baffels me with utility billing . . . they will keep your services on . . .till you rack up in the thousands of dollars of billing range and then cut you off . . .of course by then the deadbeats (in this case I do mean deadbeats not people actually having challanges) are long gone never to be found again. Hello that is a big part of why rates are so high . . .we have to make up for the "stolen" usage so that the powers that be keep their wallets nice and fat.

Sorry but toughen up - three months no pay and off it goes. Their are agencies in the world that will help people who are having a rough go of it get back on their feet and not do without the basics. If you want to be a deadbeat - then fine be a deadbeat - but go somewhere else to do it . . .I am not your Mother - I refuse to support you.

[greensinestro]

I can;t believe the gall of the free internet lady in the third story. You got busted, you have to pay, congratulations on the free stuff, move along.

Oh, believe it. When I was at Adelphia, now Comcast, they did a sweep of the systems and found in Palm Beach county alone, some 80,000 people who were getting free internet service, and had been for years. This was all because the computer systems at the time of television only did not have a way to block out cable access. In other words, if you had a cable connection, all you had to do was hook it to your computer and you got free internet. Now, when an order goes in, they have what is coined a "wall garden" to block out internet signals and only permit TV. And yes, the slew of calls that came in were tremendous, never mind these were the same people getting it for free while others had to pay.

[Rapscallion]

Oddly enough, if this happened in the UK there may be grounds for people to claim that since they've been receiving it for so long for free, they should continue to do so. I'm working from hazy memory here, but that's what I seem to remember.

It's a bit like the right of access thing.

Rapscallion

[greensinestro]

Oddly enough, if this happened in the UK there may be grounds for people to claim that since they've been receiving it for so long for free, they should continue to do so. I'm working from hazy memory here, but that's what I seem to remember.

It's a bit like the right of access thing.

Rapscallion

Good point, but as I like to say, this is not the UK. I wonder if other countries out there would prorate and backdate services where these people did not pay, but now have to for all the money that company lost. I agree, the company needs to admit wrong and just start the billing and move on. But, when an SC, one that knows they are getting something for free that they should be paying for, has the gall to bitch and complain that they should continue to get away with it......well, this would be like that guy who murdered two cops in 1957, then was finally brought to justice in 2002, yet he felt at first that he should be scot free from punishment because he had gotten away with it for so long.

[Boozy]

there may be grounds for people to claim that since they've been receiving it for so long for free, they should continue to do so.

I could see that...sort of a squatters rights thing.
If there was such a law, a motivated lawyer could just abuse the hell out of it.

[Andara Bledin]

The "right of access" thing is usually referred to as an easement.

My work had to fight our back neighbors over the easement that the train people used to have from us for the tracks that are no longer in use behind us.

They paved over the area all nice and pretty, then moved their fence. We had none of it, got our lawyers involved, got a proper survey of the land and the copies of the title to the property. They fought it, but in the end we got a nicely paved section of back lot that used to have train tracks and dirt.

The worst part is that they were renting that area out to their neighbors, so they were making money while tresspassing.

I don't think that works for entitlement such as that. For land, and for quality of life, but not for services.

^-.-^

[greensinestro]

As an update to this thread, I have a good one for everyone: Today, I received an e-mail from a customer requesting we change the password on his internet access. No big deal. However, I pulled up this man's account, and found he had shut off for not paying his telephone bill, which included the internet. This all happened three months ago with a bill of over $200. What did I do? I shut his internet off completely! I can't wait to follow up on his account.

[greensinestro]

Had another one of those who should not have called in. I received this e-mail from a customer who was upset that he could not log in to his website to make changes. Now, this guy has not called us in over two years when he originally canceled his webhosting service with us. I pulled up the account, and lo and behold! We were still hosting his website.......for free! Obviously someone had taken the account and put "disconnected" on it, yet failed to remove the site from our servers. Of course, I suspended the site and had my lead take over from there. Needless to say, the guy was pissed as hell about it. He had been caught, and had he not lost his password to begin with, we would never have known we were being a charity ward to his business!