I “recall” last winter when I had to take time
off for surgery: I was told I could very well lose my memory.
On the contrary, my memory seems improved, but I believe many
large companies who deal with older citizens count on them
losing their memories. Many businesses don’t want you
to remember things like when you used to make a phone call
to them a person would answer. And, when you called, you were
not asked what language you wished to use. Not only were you
not asked for
a language choice, you generally could understand the person
who answered the phone. The reason for this was a person had
a full-time job answering the phone and perhaps doing other
office work. If you called often, they may have even recognized
your voice.
I’m very disappointed with the phone companies. My cell
phone company claims they serve 97 percent of people in the
U.S. I think 90 percent of us are unable to understand our
bills. The company tries to help by changing them, to make
them easier to read, which makes matters worse. Most of the
90 percent of us don’t like to admit we can’t
comprehend the billings, so the company routinely collects
extra amounts.
Case in point: I received a bill with a $7.50 charge for one
information call listed on it. The $7.50 charge broke down
as: $4.99 for directory assistance, $1.55 for a carrier assistance
fee, .60 cents for a federal universal service fund fee, .17
cents for a state communications tax fee and .19 cents for
a local community tax fee.
I called to inquire, and eventually got a person who explained
the charge was from another company and advised I call them.
When I eventually reached a person at that company, they told
me in order to use their service, I must have dialed 10-15-15-800
and the fee then was added to my phone bill.
When I explained to the person neither my wife nor I had ever
heard of such a service, nor had we dialed those numbers, the
person immediately responded, saying they would send a refund
check in the mail because the billing already had been submitted
by my cell phone company to my auto-pay bill service.
I wonder how many people with auto pay convenience get extra
charges placed on their bills.
When I mentioned the event to my daughter, who is CFO of a
major Federal Credit Union, and said I thought older people
were more likely to use auto pay and therefore get taken advantage
of, she objected, saying that was not the case. She explained
many people of all ages enjoy the advantage of not having to
cut checks and some lenders actually require payments be made
via auto withdrawal.
As I see it, we all need to carefully monitor our billings,
as complex as they may be because for whatever reason, extra
charges may appear on them. Another recent encounter with my
GIANT cell phone company occurred when they bought my old cell
phone company. I was in Florida when I had trouble with my
one-year-old phone, so I called the service number listed.
After talking to four different people for more than two hours,
who each did adjustments to the phone, I was told the phone
was defective and I would have to visit a corporate store to
receive another phone.
I made the 60 mile round trip, spent a couple hours in the
store and took home the new phone. I had explained I needed
the phone because I was making a trip out of state in two days.
The phone worked less than a week. Now I was in Phoenix, but
the phone company was there for me. I called a corporate store,
having learned they are the only ones who can actually do anything
for you. They said bring the phone in and they would check
it out. A young man worked on it about five minutes, then announced
the less than two-week-old phone was defective and he gave
me a new one. I guess this proved it was not my lack of tech
ability regarding use of the phone.
The
new phone did not work well either and had a game in it that
I had in my old phone
that
was an
update,
of which
I did
not want. We later learned the phone should
have been charged a full 12 hours before
use, which
the corporate
tech failed
to tell us. When we returned to Florida,
we traveled back to the corporate store where
we had received
the prior
defective phone. We asked how long we could
expect the battery to hold
a charge and were told 2 to 15 days. We explained
we could not get ours to hold for a day.
We still did
not learn
about the 12 hour rule, but were assured
we could get a new battery
because the phone — obviously — was
still in warranty.
The problem: They were out of them but could order one and
we could, of course, make the 60 mile drive to get it. When
we inquired about the game that had been switched, the tech
said he could take care of that for us and an hour later we
were on our way with an almost-defective phone because we never
knew when it might lose power. At this point, the folks in
the billing department, who were just as accommodating as the
techs, owed us $ 150. We are now back in Michigan and will
need to visit another corporate store to pick up our battery,
which will no doubt need to be ordered.
I have learned a lot about phone service recently, such as
when you are in a large resort hotel and call down to the desk,
you will be talking to someone in India. To resolve an issue,
you must present yourself in person and, of course, wait in
the very long line.
It is very difficult to reach anyone directly by phone,
most of them are answered by machines and you must
perform all of
the prompts correctly or you are ditched.
As if that is not a big enough pain in the butt, calls
you receive often are
placed by a machine that instructs
you to wait for important information.
If you are lucky enough to be paying
by the minute, this maneuver gets
expensive.
I’m sure phone companies are not
the only ones we all have to watch out
for: Big
business
is just
BIG and
very
uncaring and the little people get trampled.