🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <PLUMMER.92Sep9223016@nutmeg.cs.swarthmore.edu>
plummer@cs.swarthmore.edu (David Barker-Plummer) writes:
>Sprint switched my residential service from AT&T without my
>permission.  When called on this, they could produce no documentation,
>no reason they might have believed that we wanted to be switched,
>nothing.  They fought the suggestion that they might pay to switch us
>back; to restore our long distance service to the way it was before
>they intervened without our permission.  Further, they billed us
>repeatedly for calls made under their service, before we found out
>that we had been switched.

Oh so familiar.  I pay the TelCo bills; my wife makes most of the long-distance
non-business calls on our home phone.  Thus, the fact that our LD bill had
dropped to zero didn't register as unusual with me.

The fact that Sprint contacted me some 3-4 months after they'd switched me from
AT&T and wanted approx. $300 in back charges *NOW* did.

Seems that they'd pulled the switch, and for whatever reason, I wasn't getting
notified in my Illinois Bell bills about the accumulating long distance charges
to this alternative carrier.  And they weren't sending me bills, either.

We had quite a long conversation about this.  It could have qualified as a good
practice session for an improv workshop, as I went through a lot of emotional
expression in the course of the conversation--mild curiosity, perplexity,
annoyance, irritation, and flat-out anger.  They seemed to take the stance
that no matter that *they'd* initiated the change, and that nobody had sent
me any bills; I owed the money, and owed it damn fast.  Needless to say, Sprint
will never be my carrier of choice, and I'll let anyone who cares know about
this incident.

Oh, how did the face-off come out?  Well, I agreed--after checking--that we
owed for the calls; and after they arranged to switch me back to my then-
preferred carrier (AT&T; since dropped in favor of MCI because of the BSDI/
Berkeley lawsuit stupidity), I'd pay them $150/mo. over a couple of months.
This was because I was annoyed at having a hole appear in my spendable-income
budget.  They demurred; I then offered $100/mo. over three months.  They
objected; I then offered $60/mo. over 5 months.

They finally agreed when we got to $50/mo. over 6 months.

This isn't to say I didn't have very satisfying discussions with them over
the whole thing in the next 6 months, as it seems somebody felt compelled to
rake the issue every month to make sure I hadn't decided I really liked them
and wanted to pay the whole schmeer at once.

I never did.  I didn't.

Don't you just love divestiture?...
--
		Dave Ihnat
		ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us (preferred return address)
		ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us