Okay. Deeeeep breath, here.
I recently moved house. In the midst of all the chaos and the noise, which, my roommate bizarrely thought, would REDUCE his stress levels, I phoned up my stalwart ISP to have my broadband service moved to the new area, five miles down the road. The keepers of my E-mail address and blessed providers of online services lo these past eight years asked my new address. I told them. They said, "We don't provide services in that area."
Bummer.
There's something you have to know when it comes to choosing an ISP in this area. You will not find a single one that knows what it's doing. Not one. None. You get crappy customer service at one, figure, "All right, I'll go to the competition," only to get worse customer service there.
I phoned Provider 2. Provider 2 happens to be my phone company, as well, so I figured it should be easy to get broadband service through them as soon as possible. Speed, I felt, was of the essence, and they assured me that the phones in the new place would work as of the day of the move, March 9th.
However, Provider 2 is rather infamous in these states for buying out all the local phone companies, using its monopoly power to crank up the bills, providing rubbish customer service, and all but destroying the communications infrastructure of rural areas. After completely demolishing the confidence of the consumer public, they declared bankruptcy. And then there were the lawsuits...
Still, that was in the hoary past of...let's see...2008. Maybe they've completed the upgrades, restored customer confidence, settled the lawsuits, and emerged from bankruptcy. So I called them up.
--
"We can't put in an order for a new service until the previous order has been completed. Since your order won't be completed until the 9th, you can't order any new services until then. Call us on the 9th and we'll put you in the queue. You should have service by the 16th at the earliest."
The 16th? It's the third now. Are you saying I have to wait almost two weeks for high-speed internet at the new place?
"We can't start a new order until the previous order is completed."
Fine. I'll call you.
--
On the 9th, I called Provider 2.
Hi, I'm calling to have high-speed internet installed in my new apartment.
"All right, Mr. Who, we can get you all set up. The installer should be there on March 22."
Wait a minute, the 22nd? Are you kidding? I've only been offline for three days and I'm experiencing withdrawal. You expect me to last two more weeks?
"That's the earliest we can get an installer out to your home."
Okay, fine. See you on the 22nd. And that's the combination phone and broadband package, right?
"Unfortunately, we can't offer you that deal because you'll be ordering separately. If you'd ordered both services together, we could offer the discount rate, but because you ordered separately, our billing department counts them as separate services."
Wait a minute. You're selling these two services for fifty dollars each, but sixty dollars for the pair. And I can't get the pair and have to pay forty dollars extra per month because I didn't order them both on the same day?
"We're terribly sorry, sir, there's nothing we can do."
...Fine. I'll see you on the 22nd.
--
After I hung up, I got to thinking. There are other fish in the sea. Maybe one of them could deliver broadband sooner than two weeks. And bundle the services. So I called Provider 3.
Provider 3 was the first broadband provider in the area. It had started broadband because it was desperate to recoup the losses it had incurred when it bought our local cable provider and decided to indulge in a little price-gouging. It is solely responsible for the overwhelming response to the spread of DirecTV in our area. Having lost a third of its customer base by providing crappy cable service, it decided to get into the crappy broadband service, and rushed cable internet into service before it had perfected the technology, or trained its techs. Their service brigade ruined dozens of computers and took dozens of claims before they got the bugs out.
I stopped using Provider 3 in 2003 when they proved incapable of providing a stable signal to my house. They replaced the entire apartment building's cable system without ever tracking down the fault. Still, new apartment. So i called them, and they were amenable to delivering service on the 19th. Their phone service was cheaper, too, so I could tell Provider 2 to go fly a kite. I told them, yes, I wanted to keep my current phone number. The 18th wasn't a huge improvement over the 22nd, but it was something. Trying to surf the web on an iPhone is the broadband equivalent of scraping the resin.
--
Three days after calling Provider 3, they called back in a tizzy, weeping with apology, stating that because of an error in creating my account, they had to do the whole process over again, and now they wouldn't be able to arrive until the 26th. Of course, if I was willing to give up my phone number, they wouldn't have to re-do the account.
In what was probably not the smartest thing I ever did, I agreed to give up the phone number I'd had for seventeen years in exchange for getting broadband delivered a week early. To say I was cross was putting it mildly, but Provider 2 had called in the interim and told me that for no particular reason they were pushing their delivery date to the 25th, and I didn't really want to deal with them, either.
--
So these two communications behemoths were actively competing with each other to see who could provide the crappiest customer service. On the 18th, I set my alarm to wake me up early enough to meet the installer and finally get my broadband on.
Two and a half hours into the five hour window, I got a call from Provider 3. Anyone want to guess how it went?
"Hi, there's been an error creating your account, and we need to push your appointment back to the 29th, unless you're willing to change your..."
Wait wait wait. I just had this exact same conversation three days ago.
"I'm sorry?"
I had this exact conversation three days ago with someone who sounded just like you. There's been an error processing my account and it'll take a few extra days to process it unless I surrender my phone number, right? And I have to do that verification thing again?
"Well, uh..." (rustle rustle) "Yes...we do have you down for delivery on the 24th, but this would push that to the 29th unless..."
Um NO. Today. You have me down for delivery TODAY. Your installer is supposed to be by between noon and five. Which it is.
"We...don't have you down for..."
At this point, my roommate, who had been awakened by the ringing phone and had heard my half of the conversation, started yelling. I'm not of Victorian sensibilities, but I won't repeat his imprecations, save that they were probably picked up by the cheap telephone receiver.
The turnaround was alarming.
(rustle rustle) "Oh, look, ha ha we do have your original order right here sir yes! For the 18th! With a new phone number! At our bundle package rate!" She said something rapid-fire about the account being "duplicated" or something.
I managed to calm my roommate - good thing I still had some of the big elephant tranquilizers - and provided a brief explanation of what I'd been through so far with their "service." She told me that an installer should be on the way and that they'd call me about a half hour before they arrived. She backpedaled so fast I could have harnessed her for electricity.
Twenty no-kidding minutes later, a white van screeched up to the curb outside the house and the installer knocked on the door.
Now, as he was installing (and he seemed to be dealing with various technical hiccups of his own along the way, including a journey into the depths of the basement and multiple calls back to home base), I got to thinking. I'd been lectured repeatedly by several different ISP's concerning state and federal law regarding telephone installation. There was no such thing as a one-day turnaround.
On the other hand, I knew where Provider 3's dispatch office was located, since I used to pay my cable bill there. How far was the drive? ...About twenty minutes.
Had they gauged the negative reaction of a severely tried client, grabbed a tech off his duly appointed rounds, shoved the equipment in his arms, and sent him straight off to do an emergency install? It was bizarrely likely.
Even after the installer left, probably to write his own Customers Suck essay ("and there was this one guy standing up in his kitchen with his shirt off and his gut hanging out, eating Fruity Pebbles and glaring at me the whole time"), I had some technical issues with the speed of the service. Annoying. I'm trying to figure out if the problem is my router (likely) or the provider.
--
And the saga isn't over yet. When I called Provider 2, having declared Provider 3 the "winner," I was asked why I was calling. I said, "I'd like to cancel my phone service and an install for broadband I have pending."
The representative on the other end of the phone said, "Certainly, sir, I'll transfer you immediately." I was transferred to a message saying, "All our offices are closed. Please call back during normal office hours."
I looked at the clock. 3:30.
I looked at the "normal office hours" on the bill in front of me. 8:00-6:00.
I looked at the clock. Still 3:30.
To date, I haven't discovered what constitutes "normal office hours" for Provider 2, since I have yet to catch them open. It's like when a client wants to cancel, they draw the drapes and kill the lights and pretend no one's home. I have a creepy feeling that a grinning installer is going to show up on the 22nd and be dismally surprised.
Love, Who?
I recently moved house. In the midst of all the chaos and the noise, which, my roommate bizarrely thought, would REDUCE his stress levels, I phoned up my stalwart ISP to have my broadband service moved to the new area, five miles down the road. The keepers of my E-mail address and blessed providers of online services lo these past eight years asked my new address. I told them. They said, "We don't provide services in that area."
Bummer.
There's something you have to know when it comes to choosing an ISP in this area. You will not find a single one that knows what it's doing. Not one. None. You get crappy customer service at one, figure, "All right, I'll go to the competition," only to get worse customer service there.
I phoned Provider 2. Provider 2 happens to be my phone company, as well, so I figured it should be easy to get broadband service through them as soon as possible. Speed, I felt, was of the essence, and they assured me that the phones in the new place would work as of the day of the move, March 9th.
However, Provider 2 is rather infamous in these states for buying out all the local phone companies, using its monopoly power to crank up the bills, providing rubbish customer service, and all but destroying the communications infrastructure of rural areas. After completely demolishing the confidence of the consumer public, they declared bankruptcy. And then there were the lawsuits...
Still, that was in the hoary past of...let's see...2008. Maybe they've completed the upgrades, restored customer confidence, settled the lawsuits, and emerged from bankruptcy. So I called them up.
--
"We can't put in an order for a new service until the previous order has been completed. Since your order won't be completed until the 9th, you can't order any new services until then. Call us on the 9th and we'll put you in the queue. You should have service by the 16th at the earliest."
The 16th? It's the third now. Are you saying I have to wait almost two weeks for high-speed internet at the new place?
"We can't start a new order until the previous order is completed."
Fine. I'll call you.
--
On the 9th, I called Provider 2.
Hi, I'm calling to have high-speed internet installed in my new apartment.
"All right, Mr. Who, we can get you all set up. The installer should be there on March 22."
Wait a minute, the 22nd? Are you kidding? I've only been offline for three days and I'm experiencing withdrawal. You expect me to last two more weeks?
"That's the earliest we can get an installer out to your home."
Okay, fine. See you on the 22nd. And that's the combination phone and broadband package, right?
"Unfortunately, we can't offer you that deal because you'll be ordering separately. If you'd ordered both services together, we could offer the discount rate, but because you ordered separately, our billing department counts them as separate services."
Wait a minute. You're selling these two services for fifty dollars each, but sixty dollars for the pair. And I can't get the pair and have to pay forty dollars extra per month because I didn't order them both on the same day?
"We're terribly sorry, sir, there's nothing we can do."
...Fine. I'll see you on the 22nd.
--
After I hung up, I got to thinking. There are other fish in the sea. Maybe one of them could deliver broadband sooner than two weeks. And bundle the services. So I called Provider 3.
Provider 3 was the first broadband provider in the area. It had started broadband because it was desperate to recoup the losses it had incurred when it bought our local cable provider and decided to indulge in a little price-gouging. It is solely responsible for the overwhelming response to the spread of DirecTV in our area. Having lost a third of its customer base by providing crappy cable service, it decided to get into the crappy broadband service, and rushed cable internet into service before it had perfected the technology, or trained its techs. Their service brigade ruined dozens of computers and took dozens of claims before they got the bugs out.
I stopped using Provider 3 in 2003 when they proved incapable of providing a stable signal to my house. They replaced the entire apartment building's cable system without ever tracking down the fault. Still, new apartment. So i called them, and they were amenable to delivering service on the 19th. Their phone service was cheaper, too, so I could tell Provider 2 to go fly a kite. I told them, yes, I wanted to keep my current phone number. The 18th wasn't a huge improvement over the 22nd, but it was something. Trying to surf the web on an iPhone is the broadband equivalent of scraping the resin.
--
Three days after calling Provider 3, they called back in a tizzy, weeping with apology, stating that because of an error in creating my account, they had to do the whole process over again, and now they wouldn't be able to arrive until the 26th. Of course, if I was willing to give up my phone number, they wouldn't have to re-do the account.
In what was probably not the smartest thing I ever did, I agreed to give up the phone number I'd had for seventeen years in exchange for getting broadband delivered a week early. To say I was cross was putting it mildly, but Provider 2 had called in the interim and told me that for no particular reason they were pushing their delivery date to the 25th, and I didn't really want to deal with them, either.
--
So these two communications behemoths were actively competing with each other to see who could provide the crappiest customer service. On the 18th, I set my alarm to wake me up early enough to meet the installer and finally get my broadband on.
Two and a half hours into the five hour window, I got a call from Provider 3. Anyone want to guess how it went?
"Hi, there's been an error creating your account, and we need to push your appointment back to the 29th, unless you're willing to change your..."
Wait wait wait. I just had this exact same conversation three days ago.
"I'm sorry?"
I had this exact conversation three days ago with someone who sounded just like you. There's been an error processing my account and it'll take a few extra days to process it unless I surrender my phone number, right? And I have to do that verification thing again?
"Well, uh..." (rustle rustle) "Yes...we do have you down for delivery on the 24th, but this would push that to the 29th unless..."
Um NO. Today. You have me down for delivery TODAY. Your installer is supposed to be by between noon and five. Which it is.
"We...don't have you down for..."
At this point, my roommate, who had been awakened by the ringing phone and had heard my half of the conversation, started yelling. I'm not of Victorian sensibilities, but I won't repeat his imprecations, save that they were probably picked up by the cheap telephone receiver.
The turnaround was alarming.
(rustle rustle) "Oh, look, ha ha we do have your original order right here sir yes! For the 18th! With a new phone number! At our bundle package rate!" She said something rapid-fire about the account being "duplicated" or something.
I managed to calm my roommate - good thing I still had some of the big elephant tranquilizers - and provided a brief explanation of what I'd been through so far with their "service." She told me that an installer should be on the way and that they'd call me about a half hour before they arrived. She backpedaled so fast I could have harnessed her for electricity.
Twenty no-kidding minutes later, a white van screeched up to the curb outside the house and the installer knocked on the door.
Now, as he was installing (and he seemed to be dealing with various technical hiccups of his own along the way, including a journey into the depths of the basement and multiple calls back to home base), I got to thinking. I'd been lectured repeatedly by several different ISP's concerning state and federal law regarding telephone installation. There was no such thing as a one-day turnaround.
On the other hand, I knew where Provider 3's dispatch office was located, since I used to pay my cable bill there. How far was the drive? ...About twenty minutes.
Had they gauged the negative reaction of a severely tried client, grabbed a tech off his duly appointed rounds, shoved the equipment in his arms, and sent him straight off to do an emergency install? It was bizarrely likely.
Even after the installer left, probably to write his own Customers Suck essay ("and there was this one guy standing up in his kitchen with his shirt off and his gut hanging out, eating Fruity Pebbles and glaring at me the whole time"), I had some technical issues with the speed of the service. Annoying. I'm trying to figure out if the problem is my router (likely) or the provider.
--
And the saga isn't over yet. When I called Provider 2, having declared Provider 3 the "winner," I was asked why I was calling. I said, "I'd like to cancel my phone service and an install for broadband I have pending."
The representative on the other end of the phone said, "Certainly, sir, I'll transfer you immediately." I was transferred to a message saying, "All our offices are closed. Please call back during normal office hours."
I looked at the clock. 3:30.
I looked at the "normal office hours" on the bill in front of me. 8:00-6:00.
I looked at the clock. Still 3:30.
To date, I haven't discovered what constitutes "normal office hours" for Provider 2, since I have yet to catch them open. It's like when a client wants to cancel, they draw the drapes and kill the lights and pretend no one's home. I have a creepy feeling that a grinning installer is going to show up on the 22nd and be dismally surprised.
Love, Who?
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