Customer Service

A warm, muggy afternoon. No rain yet, but radar looks like we might have some move in within the next hour. Hubby and I will do our afternoon walk inside – neither of us want to melt in the rain. 

And Easter is over. We had a very quiet but nice weekend. It has been quite warm outside the last few days – and so we're ready for the apartment building to be switched over from furnace to air conditioning. It may not happen for a few weeks yet, but we really see the science behind heat rising living on the third floor.....ceiling fan is on high, all windows are to the top, lights are off. There's a gentle breeze outside, so it's been bearable so far – with the exception of when I was cooking lunch.

As I reflected on Friday's blog about Easter eggs, I kept coming back to those marshmallow Easter eggs the bunny always brought. No offense to the bunny, but those things were nasty tasting! I know they were very reasonably priced at the local five-and-dime, and that's why they showed up year after year. Mom was always gracious enough to help eat the jellybeans, especially the black ones. I could handle a few, but I didn't care for them all that much.

I would eat some of the Easter eggs as well, on principle. But soon their true taste came through. I'd nibble the ends off a few, but the taste never improved. They had a long life as something to play with. I remember a year or two being told that since “it's almost the 4^th of July”, I should really throw them away. Mom can occasionally exaggerate a bit, so I can't verify that it really WAS almost the 4^th when I got rid of the eggs. If there had been peanut butter eggs in my day, they wouldn't have lasted long at all!

We had one of those mornings that leave you wondering why you ever bothered to open the mail. We had a mailing from our former satellite TV provider. They had shut off service as requested March 15 when we moved, and we had returned the SIM card from our receiver. We had been billed for just a partial month of service in March and thought everything was squared away. Not so. Today's mailing showed us owing $39.99........from a 2012 Pay-Per-View purchase of NFL Sunday ticket. 

When hubby called to unravel the issue, he got someone in Customer Service who obviously did not speak English as a primary language. She also had a somewhat condescending attitude. Needless to say, that conversation did not go well. Hubby kept asking her to check our account history, kept repeating that we purchased NFL Sunday Ticket for an early-buy discount, and paid the entire amount up front. She did finally check that part, but would not listen to his logic that we would not do a pay-per-view for one weekend when we'd already purchased the entire season.

He finally requested a supervisor, and asked me if I would take over the conversation. She was entering contact notes in the computer to forward to a supervisor, so I remained patient and listened to her data entry. Finally she came back on the line and told me she had sent the notes and would be connecting me. She didn't even pay enough attention to realize Hubby had passed her over to me. I started talking to the supervisor and immediately lost the call.

I dialed the Customer Service number again and was answered by a pleasant-sounding young man in Phoenix. I told him the backstory and that my call had been cut off. He checked their computer until he found the notes from Hubby's prior call. He asked me to go through the issue with him again, and as I was talking he was looking at our account history. He agreed immediately that we had been long-term customers with no payment issues. He checked and verified that we'd ordered and paid for 2012 NFL Sunday Ticket in June 2012, and that the Pay-Per-View was for a one-time purchase on November 30 – and he volunteered that didn't make any sense.

He typed up his additional notes as he tried to coax us to reconnect their services. I told him that cable comes with our apartment and we weren't allowed satellite (if that's not on our contract with the apartment, it should be!!). We were transferred to a Billing Services supervisor who checked the facts and immediately said she would reverse the charges. I don't know where Hubby's original Customer Service person was from, but they're definitely a lot warmer in Phoenix.