WESTMINSTER WEST — I've been fed up with dial-up Internet for a long time, but instead of doing anything about it, I've just let it slide.
I realized it was a waste of money to be paying for something I was barely using, but it wasn't the first time.
I'd paid for satellite television for over a year but watching my TV less than once a week, before finally disconnecting. It had taken a prod in that case (a rate increase) to give me the impetus to actually call and cancel.
Now here I was with another service provider, this time phone and Internet, from whom I wasn't getting my money's worth. The monthly fees were billed directly to my credit card, so I didn't pay enough attention, even though I did notice the charges gradually increasing as the months and years went by.
Then last month, the increase was over $50 - and that got my attention in a hurry.
I was told that I had been charged for a “dispatch.” And I had made a service call.
“But the problem I had was outside the house,” I argued. “I'm not responsible for problems outside my house. I even called the problem in from that box on my outside wall so the technician could hear the disturbance was from beyond my area of responsibility.”
“I have the bill here saying 'no problem found,'” said the provider representative.
“I think it was squirrels,” I told her. “But no matter what it was, it was outside my home, and whether your technician found it or not, it isn't something I should be charged for.”
“Well, how about I split the charge with you?” she offered.
I couldn't believe it! She wanted to bargain with me?
“No,” I said firmly. “I was not the cause of this problem; I lost service for several days and I showed that the disturbance was outside my realm of responsibility. There is no reason I should pay for any of that charge.”
She reluctantly agreed to remove the charge, but by then I was even more upset. What kind of a business tries to dicker you down?
It was the kick in the pants I needed to search for a new provider.
* * *
I went and found the website for Comcast. I spent three hours that day trying to change to their service.
The process was a whole mess with third-party vendors I didn't know were third-party vendors, people chatting with me in little boxes on my computer screen, people talking to me on the phone in indecipherable accents through fuzzy connections with those delays where both parties talk at once and both are silent at once (is this the kind of service I could expect them to provide?), and people in Texas who insisted service was not available at my house even though I knew it was.
I also talked to legitimate Comcast people in Massachusetts who explained about the third-party vendors but, although they were real and understandable, their prices were higher than the third-party offers.
The third-party vendor had even told me the company would be able to forward my messages from my current provider email without any charge from the current provider, which the Massachusetts people explained to me was a technical impossibility.
I communicated with the third parties four or five times, sometimes on the chat screen and other times on the phone. That second time I got in touch with the actual Comcast people, it turned out they'd already made me an appointment for installation the following Tuesday - an appointment that I hadn't even known about. I cancelled it and said I'd call next week after I'd recovered from the ordeal.
Then, despite cancelling the appointment that Comcast never told me about in the first place, I got home from work last night to find a message on my answering machine from a robotic voice telling me that I needed to call a certain number to complete the third-party verification process before the installation guy could be at my house at the time scheduled for my appointment: Dec. 31, 2044!
I'm not making this up.
When I get my strength back, my next stop will be Fairpoint.
I feel like a modern-day Diogenes, walking around, holding up my lamp looking for an honest provider.