Like most hellish experiences...

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: ....at least it made for a good story. Thanks for sharing it. And I whole-heartedly agree on the amount of suckage phone companies are capable of, right up there with HMO's. Good for you for wading through the bullshit and at least getting the charges reduced! : : : My dad is like a little kid when he drinks. My dad drinks 8 days a week. Given the apparent desire 2 and 2 have for one another, easy math is on the way and you can see that my dad is always... after about 6pm, a bumbling idiot. : : That isn't to say that he loses function though. : : He can't walk so well, or talk without a slur, but when he is drunk he gains the amazing power to dial long distance in a single... or more likely 17 digit... bound. : : Apparently, SWBell doesn't believe in giving you the services you pay for. I told them I wanted a long distance block as soon as I signed up. : : I knew that one of the symptoms of drunken ex-military chodes is that they like to...oh I don't know... call Korea for 24 minutes. : : Yes, that one cost me 50 dollars... then there were his calls to Denton that cost another 20 dollars in total. All of this while I was away at my mom's for 3 weeks. : : Now I had a few 10-10-321 calls myself, but since I was asking for his stuff to be dropped I figured I would go for the gold. : : I call them today, I have a cold, my voice is cracking... they apparently sensed this weakness because they began the process of keeping me on the phone for over an hour. I don't talk to my friends for an hour. I played Spider-Man while I talked to her in order to keep from falling asleep. : : I explained that I asked for a long distance block and that it apparently hadn't been placed on my phone because there were long distance calls. She didn't understand this because no records showed a long distance block. Then I said that my phone bill had been 21 dollars the last few months because of it so it had better be there. : : Here is a partially accurate transcript of some of our conversation: : : : : Me: I don't owe this money, you're dumb : : Her: I see what you mean. Your bill is 125 dollars : : Me: I can't afford that, can you fix the incorrect charges : : Them: Incorrect Charges? : : Me: The stuff I shouldn't have been charged for... : : Them: Ok, then what we'll do is add 5 more dollars for the long distance block so that we can keep this from happening again. : : Me: Great will that effect this bill at all? : : Them: No, it's still 125 dollars : : Me: But you acknowledge that I've been overcharged : : Them: On a personal level yes, but when I applied for a job here I had to sign a contract not to be reasonable at any time : : Me: Oh. : : : : Apparently she thought that after a phone bill has been paid it self destructed because she went on to tell me that I had only been paying 14.95 a month. I said that I was looking at my bill and it said 21 dollars before tax. She put me on hold... : : When she got back she changed the subject by telling me that she sent the 55 dollar charge back to the company for the Korea call. She then went on as if the conversation was over, apparently she thought I would be happy with this. I was, but I'm also not dumb and I went for the kill. : : I asked, as if I wasn't aware that she was wrapping it up, "what about those other calls?" : : Flustered she repeated a few things she said before. : : I said to her: When a parent gets 900 blocks or 976 blocks on their phone, it isn't because they are worried that they are going to call them. They're worried about their kids or other people who stay with them. The same is true about long distance and that's why I don't feel that I'm obligated to cover these charges. : : Then, she won the award for either best attempt at a deflection, or for best at missing the point, and told me, "But sir, we've already put 900 and 976 blocks on your phone." : : Undaunted by her stupidity I pushed on and got another 30 something bucks knocked off after tax etc. : : I wound up paying around 35 bucks. : : I hate phone companies.

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