AT&T - Wires Crossed

      September 25, 2007
      I was merrily going along trying to be good and using my lunch break to dash off the bills that I tend to carry around with me for days and days until I finally kick myself into gear and pay them.
      I carry checks around until they die of old age. (I once forgot to deposit a paycheck and overdrew my checking. Several thousand dollars in my purse and I was overdrawn $10. I went to auto-deposit right then and there.)
      I carry check reorders around until I literally run out of checks. I happen to know I have some with a different address - same account. (I am using checks that say San Diego while living in Fremont - have some checks that say Fremont. Seems fair. Well, I was living in San Diego for 6-8 months.) The idea that I have them - lessens the urgency to order new ones. In my pea brain at least.
      I respond to deadlines you see - and these things in theory have none. Well, bills do but you get "reminders" and threats before you get that far. (They have perfected the art of the nasty letter - even to customers who have paid faithfully for 12 or more years - you would think they would temper the tone a bit. Nope. Nasty all the way around. But if you call to complain about something? Good luck getting thru!
      I went along, writing checks, and I have TWO AT&T accounts. I don't want to simply suffer, I have to double that experience. Well, the San Diego bill was OK. But the Fremont bill----.
      It was over $100!
      Wait just a darn minute!
      In the first place, Neither the Fremont or San Diego house has a phone connected. The AT&T service is a DSL line for the computers. The G5 tower and Toshiba laptop up here in Fremont, and the MacBook laptop when I am in San Diego.
      I don't plug in the phone unless I am making a call (to people in San Diego from the San Diego phone - since that's a long distance call for my cell). This is because in one week-end, I collected 28 Telemarketing messages on my answering machine in San Diego and unplugged it. Ditto Fremont. The phone company couldn't tell me how to get on the do not call list, and I hear it is expiring! ARE THEY CRAZY?? Thank GOD for answering machines. I have to in fact hunt for a phone to use to test the DSL line when there's a problem.
      Yep. The cell phone is my phone of choice North and South. God help the idiot who places a telemarketing call to my cell! (Two did and I bit their heads off. Next time I bill them.)
      So how did all these 24-26 calls end up on my long distance bill?
      First thought - perhaps the contractor called somebody - I checked - nope they have cells and long distance on the cells. No need to find my one phone unit and plug it in. OK - that was not logiccal - but I had to check.
      Scratch that.
      I called AT&T - and it is darn near impossible to figure out what number to call. They hide it on a different page of the phone bill - and put other numbers where you would expect the number to be. They dropped me. They dropped my call. After about 10 minutes, they dropped me.
      I called the strange number - from work, and got a FAX signal. A FAX machine???
      I called AT&T again - they dropped me again. Must be, if the call is complicated, they just don't want to deal with it so they disconnect you and let you land on someone else's phone.
      GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE!
      I managed to call again, having located a better number, and got into billing - finally. They brought up the file - finally. And I said "Block long distance" - on BOTH accounts! Like - I've had enough of this!
      They opened a pending claim.
     
      They mumbled "Crossed lines". (I doubt that. I used to work for Pac Bell after all.)
      They admitted - other people have had this problem. (That sounds suspicious).
      They can't check if the next bill is the same until it is issued. (Lovely - we get to do this again.)
      They computed my actual bill - since I didn't know if I had called someone in UTAH at that hour - I have to go check my numbers - I paid that call - not the rest. (Probably not my call but it was low enough to leave it be. Seehow they rip you off? They wear you down.)
      OK.
      Someone will call me tomorrow - on my CELL PHONE - which I will go home and CHARGE. Because I sometimes forget to do so. (They calim they did - I didn't get it.)
     
      Then I decided to call Wells Fargo and order the new checks - I was about out. This had been brought home when I wrote out my checks. They wanted a PIN number. I don't have one. I refuse to have an ATM card. Too risky.
      I had to ignore the auto-voice trying to cajole me into giving them a pin number. Over and over and over. Why not ask if I have one? Process the call accordingly? No - that would take THOUGHT! Brains are not required for customer service.
      Finally the auto voice put me thru to a banker --- actually - to the banker's busy signal.
      So much for that.
     
      I also realized I was over-heated. My face was flushing red. I took off the big shirt. And checked. Some J___ A__ had made REAL coffee in the DECAF unit. (You can fill in the blanks)
     
      I went to the coffee room, dumped the contents of the decaf unit out, made fresh real decaf. Must flush my system. Great. Now I am shaking, overheated and wired higher than a kite.

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      It's been an hour, I am cooling down. Coffee makes my blood pressure rise sharply, and my dr said NO.
     
      I skipped a meeting because I would have been unruly. I could redesign the building by 5PM when wired.
      I can get rather impatient after dealing with "customer service" for an hour.
     
      At one point, I had two conversations going at once, the office phone unit (AT&T on their 888 line) AND the cell phone (my contractor on the 510 line), one phone in each ear.
     
      I felt like a cartoon nightmare.