A Wee Rant

subtitle: RING THAT, BELL



The Bag Lady is on the warpath.

She is ordinarily quite easy-going, and easy to get along with. Some might say she is just plain easy, but that's not true! She has standards and morals and all those other good things.....

Anyway.

She has had satellite television on the ranch for many years now, and has been mostly satisfied with it. One tends to get in a rut, a wee bit, and when things go wrong, one tends to let it slide, thinking it will get better. Such a thing happened with her satellite provider. The television would simply go blank. No audio, no picture. At first it was rare, and brief. Then it started happening with more frequency. Until it got to the point where the Rancher and the Bag Lady decided that perhaps it was time to switch providers. There were other considerations, too, but that was the main one. And no, before you ask, they didn't bother to call their provider and complain because neither of them felt like sitting on hold on the phone for the required hours, waiting to speak to a service representative who could not speak clear English. (Lord forgive me for being politically incorrect, but it damned well pisses me off to not be able to understand someone who is supposed to be serving me! I don't care what colour someone is, or what country they originally hailed from, but for God's sake, if they are working in a position where their main contact with the public is verbal, they should be able to speak English clearly! Damn - is my redneck showing?)

*ahem* Anyway.

The Bag Lady took advantage of a *deal* offered by the satellite provider's competition and, for the most part, has been very happy with it so far, thank you very much. She waited a week after switching in order to make sure that she was going to be happy with the new provider, and to make sure any kinks were worked out, then she called her old service provider and canceled her service. The (non-English-as-first-language speaking) fellow that she talked to tried to convince her not to cancel her service, but she was determined, and had already purchased the new satellite. He told her that because they bill in advance (of course!!) her next bill would reflect the fact that she canceled her service at the beginning of December, and would be for an amount in the neighbourhood of $9.00. Fine.

The Bag Lady finally received said bill and opened it to discover to her shock and dismay that not only was the bill for the same amount as usual for the month of January, but they had dinged her (again) for the month of December, putting her bill in arrears. She called the service provider in a rage and when, after being on hold the requisite half an hour, she finally got to speak to a (non-English-as-first-language speaking) service representative, she immediately requested to speak to a supervisor. She then had to sit on hold for another half an hour, only to have the first fellow come back on the line and tell her that his supervisor was still too busy to speak to her and would call her back.

By this time, the Bag Lady was beyond annoyed. The (non-English-as-first-launguage speaking) fellow tried to tell her that she should go ahead and pay this bill and that the NEXT bill would reflect a credit balance of almost $70.00. She proceeded to tell him that that simply was not going to happen. Why would she pay them for services she did not take advantage of? She has not used their satellite since before the end of November. He said that they required 30 days notice to close her account. Well, that would be the end of December, wouldn't it? She was under the impression that her account was up-to-date, except for the $9.00 which her next bill would consist of. And now she is so angry she doesn't even want to pay them the $9.00! If you add up all those blank spots in the programming, surely that was $9.00 worth of television that she paid for and did not get to see!!

And why would she want a credit balance with this company? She has no intention of ever dealing with them again in any capacity whatsoever, so a credit balance would do her no earthly good. And in her experience, getting them to cut her a check for the credit balance would be like asking for an audience with the Queen of England. There is a very remote possibility, but........

She rarely loses her temper, but cannot see this ending well. Especially considering that she has to wait for this supervisor to call her back. She has things to do which require not being in the house, waiting by the phone for a call that, more than likely, will not come; unless, of course, she actually physically leaves her house to go do something important. Like feed her cows. Then the phone will ring. GRRR. Perhaps she should take a shower - that usually makes the phone ring, doesn't it?

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(those little marks represent time flying, which, BTW, it did NOT!)

The deadline has now passed, the Bag Lady has not received a call from the esteemed supervisor. She now feels especially vindicated in her decision to turf this satellite provider. This, in the Bag Lady's lowly opinion, is just another example of how sick our society has become. Big corporations are not willing to go that extra mile, or to put any effort into customer service or customer satisfaction. They are just like the sleazy, slimy guys who hang around in bars, looking to pick up *broads* or *chicks* (insert derogatory descriptive word for women currently in fashion here), oozing charm until they get what they want, then forgetting to call when they promise they will! As soon as the big corporations get you signed up and have your money, forget about getting anything else from them! Oh how the Bag Lady longs for the good ol' days where if a company did you wrong, you had some sort of recourse, even if it was simply to bad mouth them around town and do some small harm to their reputation! ~~sigh~~

So the Bag Lady will now go out and feed her poor hungry cows and will call Bell-frickin'-ExpressVu in the morning and go through this all over again. (and believe me, she would never have called them by name in this blog post if they had simply kept their word and called her back when they said they would!!!!!)