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there's a hole in the bucket, dear liza, dear liza ...
It all began when I tried to call the bookstore about an order I placed on the 2nd of May.
The book is still not here, although it was supposed to take six to eight weeks (or possibly eight to ten weeks) to arrive, but that's not important right now. What's important is that when I tried to call their main store number, I got a recording saying calls from this number are barred. 'How strange', I thought. 'I wonder why a retailer would publish a number on their website, but not let people call it.' So I called the number they specifically identified as their customer service number. Calls from this number are barred. 'Even stranger', I thought. 'And I wonder how they know it's me. I don't think I've ever called them before, so how can they be blocking my number?'
I sent them an e-mail about my inquiry instead, and I mentioned that I hadn't been able to get through on the phone, and they called me to say they were looking into the special order question but what was this about not being able to call them? Both those lines have been working fine, they said, and in fact they've taken incoming calls today, so if they were in my place, they'd see if something was maybe wrong with my phone.
'Hmm', I thought. 'I seem to remember that when B was out of minutes on his pay-as-you-go phone, he got a calls are barred recording when he tried to call someone -- but I'm on monthly now, so what gives?' I decided to try to call Queen P, who is out of town and whose phone is therefore off network, so I knew I wouldn't be bothering him with a dummy call.
Calls from this number are barred.
Right, then. Off I go to the Local Wireless Carrier website, to see what I can find out about my account. It turns out that my account has an overdue balance of £73.06, as a result of which online access has been suspended. All I can do online is pay the bill. No, I lie -- I can also arrange to have future bills paid by direct debit. But not, I suspect, until I have paid this one. I can't, for example, look at the bill, to see why on earth it is so high. £73.06, y'all. That's a lot of money. (about $130, according to today's exchange rate according to www.xe.com.) My plan is £25 a month, and (a) I've only had it three months and (b) I paid last month's bill two weeks ago, so WTFF, right? How can the current bill be £73.06 -- and how can it be overdue when I haven't even received it yet?
Ah, but when I paid last month's bill, in the store two weeks ago, I told them, listen, my address has changed. And they said they could change my billing address, in their computer -- I even saw them do it! -- but to change the address on the account, I'd have to go through some customer-service rigmarole. Whatever. What I cared about was the billing address. It seems that this change has not taken effect, because I didn't receive this bill any more than I received the last one. I should be able to change the address from the website -- but all online access is suspended until I've paid the bill, right.
Okay. But I'm not paying the bill until I've seen it. I want to know where these numbers came from -- what I paid last month was £43.30, because I had the £25 plan, plus a photo-messages bundle that had been free for the first month and which I'd been led to believe I'd have to opt in if I wanted to keep, rather than (as turned out to be the case) opting out if I didn't want to keep it, plus close to three hours' worth of non-included minutes (about which more shortly). And £43.30 from £73.06 is £29.76, which sounds a lot more reasonable -- in fact it's pretty much what the cost of the plan plus an ungodly 17.5% VAT should add up to. So if the £73.06 mysteriously includes last month's £43.30 brought forward, even though I've already paid it, I'll feel a lot better about this month's bill. Unfortunately, since I haven't received this month's bill, and I can't look at it online, I have no way to know this.
I should be able to call customer service, though, on the Special Number you can dial from your Local Wireless Carrier Phone (or this other number from any other phone). I do this. I get the recording with the menu; I choose 'ask another question about my bill', and am advised that for quality purposes, my call may be monitored or recorded. At which point I am told, calls from this number are barred.
I can't use the website. I can't call them. I can go down to the Retail Store tomorrow morning, but all I can do there is pay the bill anyway -- they can't deal with customer-service issues. In short, there is nothing I can do until I have paid this bill first; but I'm not paying the bill until it's explained to me.
We seem to be at an impasse.
Apart from, Son of a Preacher Man is downstairs and down the hall. I go borrow his phone and call customer service; they're happy to take calls from his number (which, by the way, is on a different network). I am connected to a young man with a South Asian accent who may be offshore or may just be Somewhere In Britain, who knows. I tell him the first thing I want to do, before anything else, is change my address, so my bills can reach me in time for me to pay them.
After a couple of moments of typing things and asking me questions, South Asian Call-Catcher tells me that because I've had the account less than three months he has to transfer me to another department to get my address changed. No problem. I am connected to An Irish Guy Named Sean, who wants my postcode first. (I give it to him.) What's the first line of the address?, he asks. (I tell him.) There's no match for the postcode, he says. (Um ... well, it's right here, I say. I mean, this is the postcode.) What's the address again? (This address, I tell him. Which is a college and a street name, and a postcode.) There's no street number? (No, just the college. It really is just this address.) But there's no match for the postcode. (I don't know what to tell you, man -- this is the address.) But what's the specific address for you?, he says. (This is the address!) But you can't be the only person who lives there. What's your address? (I'm not the only person who lives here. My address is MY NAME AT THIS ADDRESS!) So, what, is there just one mailbox at your building? (No, of course there's -- yes. Yes. There is just one mailbox. The mail comes here, and we worry about sorting it once it's in the house.)
An Irish Guy Named Sean puts me on hold a couple of different times, and finally comes back to tell me that because my credit check was run on my previous address, and because I've had the account less than three months and now I've moved, and the computer can't find my new address because of the postcode, they want to run a new credit check and they're asking for a(nother) £150 deposit. But I already paid a deposit, I say. Yes, but that was for the handset, and this is a whole other thing, he says, because you moved so soon. But I told them when I got the account that I'd be moving soon, I say. Well, that's not noted, he says. We go around and around on this for a while, the final upshot being that there's a department he has to talk to that isn't open until 9am tomorrow, and he'd like to call me back after that; and I say sure, call me, have someone from there call me, have anyone call me you like, but there is -- and I'm not like trying to play the system now or anything, I'm deadly serious -- there is no way I'm paying another £150 deposit. I'm just not going to do it. No.
The problem, he says, is that this doesn't seem to be an address. As far as the system is concerned, it's not an address. And I've had the account such a short time, there are flags going up now. Okay, I say, but this is my address, and my difficulty is, if you don't change the address, I don't get the bills. The last bill, for example, was generated when? August 1. I have not yet received it, and today has been August 5. And there's a block on my phone, because the payment is late. Five days! In fact, when did the block go on? Well, he says, if you're more than thirty days late, then another block will go on your phone, if it's more than a month in arrears. No no, I say, the block that's on it now -- when did that block go into effect? Yesterday, he tells me. YESTERDAY. In short, the bill is generated on the 1st and maybe goes into the mail that day. More likely it's mailed out on the 2nd. It arrives on the 2nd at the earliest, more likely the 3rd or even the 4th -- and if it hasn't been paid by the 4th, it's considered late and the phone is blocked. And that's assuming it's sent to the right address! You see my trouble, don't you, Sean, I say.
Sean does see my trouble, and says Okay, so the mailing address is changed now for your billing -- it's just the permanent address associated with the account that we need to work out with the other department. I boggle. That's all I wanted!, I say. Leave the permanent address! I don't care! I just want to GET THE BILLS! And he smiles (I can hear it) and says he understands, but there's things that have to line up, so he did this thing with the mailing address but we're still going to have to -- whatever. That problem seems to be (for the moment, at least) solved.
But that was just the first of my questions, I say. What can you tell me about this bill I haven't seen -- how much do I really owe? He's looking at 29, he starts to say. Oh, good, because I had this thing with seventy-something, but that must have been a holdover from before, I say. Is that £73.06? he asks -- yeah, that's the total amount.
head. desk.
It's £43.30 from July, Sean says, and £29.76 for August. (Which explains now, I suppose, why the block went on so fast, if the computer thinks I'm two months overdue with payment.) But I paid that £43.30, I say, and in fact I still have the receipt that says so. I'll bring it with me when I go in to pay the bill tomorrow. Sean agrees that this is a good plan.
Now where did these overage charges come from?, I ask -- how can I have gone into extra minutes before I'd maxed out my included minutes? Unless it's-- Yeah, he says, your international calls don't come out of your bundle.
What that means is that my 120 minutes a month are only good for calling within the UK. I don't make 120 minutes' worth of calls -- I don't make and receive 120 minutes' worth of calls within the UK in a given month. I do, however, spend as much as an hour a week on the phone with my parents, and sometimes I talk to other people in the United States as well. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that I could have a month where I used no 'included' minutes and 250 'additional' minutes. At 15p/minute. That shit can add up! This, I tell Sean, is something else I was misled about when I signed up for the plan. In fact, the guy who sold me the plan -- who didn't note that I was going to be moving soon, didn't tell me I had to opt out of the photo messages, and now, didn't tell me my international calls would be extra -- doesn't work there anymore. They told me this when I went in to pay the previous bill, and they saw the contract where the photo messages were marked 'try 30 days free'. So there's no telling, you know, what kind of screwed I'm going to be tomorrow, with this thing.
Sean agrees and is sympathetic. What, if anything, I ask, can I do to get the international minutes so they are included in my bundle?, since that's where I make most of my calls?, and by the way, I'm sorry to have been so, you know, but you can see where this is incredibly frustrating for me. Oh, no problem, Sean says, he understands completely. There are these options for --
It's only a minute before I decide you know, I'm going to ask the guys at the store about it tomorrow when I go in to pay the (£29.76) bill. And once I've paid it, the block will be lifted, right? I won't have to wait seven to ten days? I'll have the receipt from last month, so someone will be able to show that I'm all paid up? Because if this doesn't work, you know I'm going to have to climb all around my building and find someone whose phone I can borrow again, since I CAN'T EVEN CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE TO UN-BLOCK MY PHONE when there's a block on it. Sean thinks so. It should be quick. And the guys at the store, I say, the ones who still do work there, they'll be able to tell me what's what and it'll be true and this whole thing will get fixed?
I'd think so, says Sean.
Well. You know, I'd think so, too, but that was before the time I went crazy and they put me in a rubber room.
The book is still not here, although it was supposed to take six to eight weeks (or possibly eight to ten weeks) to arrive, but that's not important right now. What's important is that when I tried to call their main store number, I got a recording saying calls from this number are barred. 'How strange', I thought. 'I wonder why a retailer would publish a number on their website, but not let people call it.' So I called the number they specifically identified as their customer service number. Calls from this number are barred. 'Even stranger', I thought. 'And I wonder how they know it's me. I don't think I've ever called them before, so how can they be blocking my number?'
I sent them an e-mail about my inquiry instead, and I mentioned that I hadn't been able to get through on the phone, and they called me to say they were looking into the special order question but what was this about not being able to call them? Both those lines have been working fine, they said, and in fact they've taken incoming calls today, so if they were in my place, they'd see if something was maybe wrong with my phone.
'Hmm', I thought. 'I seem to remember that when B was out of minutes on his pay-as-you-go phone, he got a calls are barred recording when he tried to call someone -- but I'm on monthly now, so what gives?' I decided to try to call Queen P, who is out of town and whose phone is therefore off network, so I knew I wouldn't be bothering him with a dummy call.
Calls from this number are barred.
Right, then. Off I go to the Local Wireless Carrier website, to see what I can find out about my account. It turns out that my account has an overdue balance of £73.06, as a result of which online access has been suspended. All I can do online is pay the bill. No, I lie -- I can also arrange to have future bills paid by direct debit. But not, I suspect, until I have paid this one. I can't, for example, look at the bill, to see why on earth it is so high. £73.06, y'all. That's a lot of money. (about $130, according to today's exchange rate according to www.xe.com.) My plan is £25 a month, and (a) I've only had it three months and (b) I paid last month's bill two weeks ago, so WTFF, right? How can the current bill be £73.06 -- and how can it be overdue when I haven't even received it yet?
Ah, but when I paid last month's bill, in the store two weeks ago, I told them, listen, my address has changed. And they said they could change my billing address, in their computer -- I even saw them do it! -- but to change the address on the account, I'd have to go through some customer-service rigmarole. Whatever. What I cared about was the billing address. It seems that this change has not taken effect, because I didn't receive this bill any more than I received the last one. I should be able to change the address from the website -- but all online access is suspended until I've paid the bill, right.
Okay. But I'm not paying the bill until I've seen it. I want to know where these numbers came from -- what I paid last month was £43.30, because I had the £25 plan, plus a photo-messages bundle that had been free for the first month and which I'd been led to believe I'd have to opt in if I wanted to keep, rather than (as turned out to be the case) opting out if I didn't want to keep it, plus close to three hours' worth of non-included minutes (about which more shortly). And £43.30 from £73.06 is £29.76, which sounds a lot more reasonable -- in fact it's pretty much what the cost of the plan plus an ungodly 17.5% VAT should add up to. So if the £73.06 mysteriously includes last month's £43.30 brought forward, even though I've already paid it, I'll feel a lot better about this month's bill. Unfortunately, since I haven't received this month's bill, and I can't look at it online, I have no way to know this.
I should be able to call customer service, though, on the Special Number you can dial from your Local Wireless Carrier Phone (or this other number from any other phone). I do this. I get the recording with the menu; I choose 'ask another question about my bill', and am advised that for quality purposes, my call may be monitored or recorded. At which point I am told, calls from this number are barred.
I can't use the website. I can't call them. I can go down to the Retail Store tomorrow morning, but all I can do there is pay the bill anyway -- they can't deal with customer-service issues. In short, there is nothing I can do until I have paid this bill first; but I'm not paying the bill until it's explained to me.
We seem to be at an impasse.
Apart from, Son of a Preacher Man is downstairs and down the hall. I go borrow his phone and call customer service; they're happy to take calls from his number (which, by the way, is on a different network). I am connected to a young man with a South Asian accent who may be offshore or may just be Somewhere In Britain, who knows. I tell him the first thing I want to do, before anything else, is change my address, so my bills can reach me in time for me to pay them.
After a couple of moments of typing things and asking me questions, South Asian Call-Catcher tells me that because I've had the account less than three months he has to transfer me to another department to get my address changed. No problem. I am connected to An Irish Guy Named Sean, who wants my postcode first. (I give it to him.) What's the first line of the address?, he asks. (I tell him.) There's no match for the postcode, he says. (Um ... well, it's right here, I say. I mean, this is the postcode.) What's the address again? (This address, I tell him. Which is a college and a street name, and a postcode.) There's no street number? (No, just the college. It really is just this address.) But there's no match for the postcode. (I don't know what to tell you, man -- this is the address.) But what's the specific address for you?, he says. (This is the address!) But you can't be the only person who lives there. What's your address? (I'm not the only person who lives here. My address is MY NAME AT THIS ADDRESS!) So, what, is there just one mailbox at your building? (No, of course there's -- yes. Yes. There is just one mailbox. The mail comes here, and we worry about sorting it once it's in the house.)
An Irish Guy Named Sean puts me on hold a couple of different times, and finally comes back to tell me that because my credit check was run on my previous address, and because I've had the account less than three months and now I've moved, and the computer can't find my new address because of the postcode, they want to run a new credit check and they're asking for a(nother) £150 deposit. But I already paid a deposit, I say. Yes, but that was for the handset, and this is a whole other thing, he says, because you moved so soon. But I told them when I got the account that I'd be moving soon, I say. Well, that's not noted, he says. We go around and around on this for a while, the final upshot being that there's a department he has to talk to that isn't open until 9am tomorrow, and he'd like to call me back after that; and I say sure, call me, have someone from there call me, have anyone call me you like, but there is -- and I'm not like trying to play the system now or anything, I'm deadly serious -- there is no way I'm paying another £150 deposit. I'm just not going to do it. No.
The problem, he says, is that this doesn't seem to be an address. As far as the system is concerned, it's not an address. And I've had the account such a short time, there are flags going up now. Okay, I say, but this is my address, and my difficulty is, if you don't change the address, I don't get the bills. The last bill, for example, was generated when? August 1. I have not yet received it, and today has been August 5. And there's a block on my phone, because the payment is late. Five days! In fact, when did the block go on? Well, he says, if you're more than thirty days late, then another block will go on your phone, if it's more than a month in arrears. No no, I say, the block that's on it now -- when did that block go into effect? Yesterday, he tells me. YESTERDAY. In short, the bill is generated on the 1st and maybe goes into the mail that day. More likely it's mailed out on the 2nd. It arrives on the 2nd at the earliest, more likely the 3rd or even the 4th -- and if it hasn't been paid by the 4th, it's considered late and the phone is blocked. And that's assuming it's sent to the right address! You see my trouble, don't you, Sean, I say.
Sean does see my trouble, and says Okay, so the mailing address is changed now for your billing -- it's just the permanent address associated with the account that we need to work out with the other department. I boggle. That's all I wanted!, I say. Leave the permanent address! I don't care! I just want to GET THE BILLS! And he smiles (I can hear it) and says he understands, but there's things that have to line up, so he did this thing with the mailing address but we're still going to have to -- whatever. That problem seems to be (for the moment, at least) solved.
But that was just the first of my questions, I say. What can you tell me about this bill I haven't seen -- how much do I really owe? He's looking at 29, he starts to say. Oh, good, because I had this thing with seventy-something, but that must have been a holdover from before, I say. Is that £73.06? he asks -- yeah, that's the total amount.
head. desk.
It's £43.30 from July, Sean says, and £29.76 for August. (Which explains now, I suppose, why the block went on so fast, if the computer thinks I'm two months overdue with payment.) But I paid that £43.30, I say, and in fact I still have the receipt that says so. I'll bring it with me when I go in to pay the bill tomorrow. Sean agrees that this is a good plan.
Now where did these overage charges come from?, I ask -- how can I have gone into extra minutes before I'd maxed out my included minutes? Unless it's-- Yeah, he says, your international calls don't come out of your bundle.
What that means is that my 120 minutes a month are only good for calling within the UK. I don't make 120 minutes' worth of calls -- I don't make and receive 120 minutes' worth of calls within the UK in a given month. I do, however, spend as much as an hour a week on the phone with my parents, and sometimes I talk to other people in the United States as well. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that I could have a month where I used no 'included' minutes and 250 'additional' minutes. At 15p/minute. That shit can add up! This, I tell Sean, is something else I was misled about when I signed up for the plan. In fact, the guy who sold me the plan -- who didn't note that I was going to be moving soon, didn't tell me I had to opt out of the photo messages, and now, didn't tell me my international calls would be extra -- doesn't work there anymore. They told me this when I went in to pay the previous bill, and they saw the contract where the photo messages were marked 'try 30 days free'. So there's no telling, you know, what kind of screwed I'm going to be tomorrow, with this thing.
Sean agrees and is sympathetic. What, if anything, I ask, can I do to get the international minutes so they are included in my bundle?, since that's where I make most of my calls?, and by the way, I'm sorry to have been so, you know, but you can see where this is incredibly frustrating for me. Oh, no problem, Sean says, he understands completely. There are these options for --
It's only a minute before I decide you know, I'm going to ask the guys at the store about it tomorrow when I go in to pay the (£29.76) bill. And once I've paid it, the block will be lifted, right? I won't have to wait seven to ten days? I'll have the receipt from last month, so someone will be able to show that I'm all paid up? Because if this doesn't work, you know I'm going to have to climb all around my building and find someone whose phone I can borrow again, since I CAN'T EVEN CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE TO UN-BLOCK MY PHONE when there's a block on it. Sean thinks so. It should be quick. And the guys at the store, I say, the ones who still do work there, they'll be able to tell me what's what and it'll be true and this whole thing will get fixed?
I'd think so, says Sean.
Well. You know, I'd think so, too, but that was before the time I went crazy and they put me in a rubber room.