knuckleheads unlimited

i called my telephone/isp people yesterday. i was on hold for 15 minutes before my call was answered. i explained the problem, read out the letter i had received and pointed out that i had no evidence that anyone from their company had tried to call me. the girl i spoke to said that under the privacy act, they are not allowed to leave messages. i told her that was crap. i've worked in a call centre, i leave messages all the bloody time. she said they could not leave messages with personal account details. i told her that was crap also - they could just say 'hello, i'm knucklehead from knuckleheads unlimited, please call back'. she agreed that yes, they could have done that. when asked why that had not happened, she didn't know. 1st rule of customer service: don't make stuff up - especially not something that relates to a goverment legislated/act of parliament type affair. she could not tell me what had caused the problem with the direct debit. she put me on hold for another 10 minutes and then came back to tell me that someone from their finance department would call me back. i had some credit on my amex so i paid 20% of the outstanding amount - an act of good faith to prove that i am willing to pay. i waited for the call. it didn't happen... bad move...

i called them again this morning. apparently their finance people don't make outbound calls to customers. too bloody important maybe. 2nd rule of customer service: don't make promises you cannot keep! at least this knucklehead knew what the problem was - my bank details had been entered into their system incorrectly - their error. i know i put the right numbers on the form - i triple checked it. he said my account might or might not be disconnected on friday but more than likely would be as there is and outstanding amount. i said that this problem is not my fault and i should not be disadvantaged because of their error. i was starting to get angry. he told me to send in my bank details again and that he would send me another form. i asked to speak to someone regarding setting up a payment plan as i just do not have the money to pay the outstanding amount by friday. he said that was not possible. i got angrier and expressed my dissatisfaction with a communications company who have no idea how to communicate and with the fact that they were not willing to admit that the error is theirs. he said 'we tried to contact you' and i reminded him that not a single message had been left on my messagebank and that they had also entered my email address incorrectly in their system. he said 'well, i'm going to send you the form, free of charge.' bad, bad move. i became the customer from hell and felt totally justified. i asked him to explain the concept of sending me a form 'free of charge' - since when do they charge people for this? i told him what i thought of his company. i asked to speak to his supervisor and got put on hold for another ten minutes. i hung up and called three more telephone companies. all three agreed that they would have contacted me much sooner if payments were not received and that in cases like this, they would agree to some sort of payment plan.

i have a new telephone service/internet account. i will call the old one tomorrow and request an itemised account (seeing as how i never received anything from them previously) and that i will be paying it off as i can. f*ck'em!

i've got the nasty stuff out of the way - back to the light and fluffy...

tuesday was a bit of a washout. i think i pulled a muscle in my back when bowling and was a bit crippled yesterday. i spend a lot of it on the couch with hot water bottle attached to my back - much better today. i went for a walk down to coogee, did some housework and tonight i went to bingo with mrs jane. as usual, we won nowt but it was fun.

supposedly 32°C tomorrow - eek! meeting my old boss, rc, for coffee, hopefully somwhere with aircon!!

today's soundtrack:
abc 702
kicking the national habit : grand national