This is a guest post ~ my first of what I hope will be many. Hope you enjoy it.
Do you want to know what really annoys me? It’s my cable/phone/internet provider.
I know I could shop around, but it’s time consuming and I’m lazy. I prefer it all on one bill, in one place, etc. Seems everytime I have called them for support recently, I have someone from some other country on the phone which:
1. I can’t understand because their accent is so thick;
or
2. They want me to pay for services I am already paying for!
For example, I was having trouble getting HD and OnDemand on only one television in my house. It kept going down, and each time I had to call for Tech assistance, I was on the phone for at least an hour. Talk about annoying! The most recent time it went down, I was just so plain frustrated that I didn’t even call them for 2 months because I didn’t want the entire long, drawn out process of having to dig behind the furniture, find the right buttons and wires, etc….
Remember..I’m lazy when it comes to this stuff. Why? Because I don’t understand anything Techie and my mind just wants to block it out before I get so frustrated I start screaming at people for no reason at all and sometimes for days on end.
OK…I finally decide I’ve had enough of paying for a service I’m not getting and I break down and call for assistance. Yep, you guessed it. Some lady with an accent so thick I could cut it with a knife…Here’s where the annoyance begins. I am asking her to repeat herself over and over, and I feel like she is not quite understanding me either, so…the screaming begins. You’ve witnessed this I’m sure. Even though the person can hear, you scream at them like they are deaf. She insisted that I had to pay a fee of $29.95 to reconnect my TV. I insisted that I was NOT going to pay for a service that I already paid for the prior 2 months and didn’t receive. This goes back and forth until she has the nerve to hang up on me!!!! Remember, this has happened numerous times and I was never asked for a fee to reconnect!
Steam coming out of my ears, I redial the company. More steam because it takes 10 minutes to go through the automated service. ARGH! Luckily for me, I now get someone who speaks English. Right off the hop, I explain that I was hung up on, and if I seem militant, at this point I probably am. She simply asks if I have my remote handy, has me push 3 or 4 different buttons, and lo and behold, it works! NO CHARGE.
Fast forward to yesterday. Out of the blue, my wireless will not accept my passwords or pass key…???? Oh my God really? Panic! I have to call for assistance! Oh, and did I mention that I can’t even get service on my cell because they have also blocked that when they changed my password?
After 10 minutes, “Hello, yes, I am calling because I can’t access my wireless, it’s telling me that the password that YOUR TECH SUPPORT gave me is not valid.”
Answer: “We have changed over our wireless tech service to another company and if you want a tech to remotely go in and change your password we will be happy to do that for you for an enrollment fee of $44.95!!!!”!
Ahem..”EXCUSE ME? Did I just hear you correctly? Enrollment fee?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Ok, let me understand this, you added another division to your company, blocked out my passwords, and now want to charge me to get a new password?”
“We changed over Tech Support for Wireless, and yes, the enrollment fee is $44.95, but we could spread that out over a few months if you can’t pay it all at once.” (Isn’t that nice of you)
“What??? No, I’m not enrolling in anything, I just want someone fix the fact that YOU disabled my password and security key.”
“Ok Ma’am, then the one time fee for Tech Support without enrollment in the plan is $49.95.”
To say that I was annoyed beyond belief at this point would be the understatement of the Year!!!
“Look, just forget it. I don’t want your @*!@% tech support. In fact, I may just close my accounts with you altogether. Seems like everytime I call you people you try to come up with another way to dip into my pocketbook.” Click…(more like.. Slam!!!!)
Can you believe this? Obviously, the first time they tried to charge me it was bogus, so why would I believe them this time?
Today, a friend of mine with some Tech knowledge came over, read the serial numbers on the equipment THEY supplied and went in, reconfigured it and changed my passwords! We are now back up and running, but it makes me wonder how many times these crooks have charged people that have no other choice but to pay what they are asking because they don’t have the technical knowledge to fix it themselves.
Yep, that really annoys the heck out of me.
This is a guest post by Ann Babenco, who was not paid in any way for this post and all opinions expressd herein are her own.