Friday, October 17, 2008


Like a Yorkie.....Grrrrrrrrr......a rant.......

Sometimes I wish I were more like a Yorkie. Hank, pictured above, looks so sweet and quiet, but he is very effective at getting things done and in a way that is always beneficial to his situation. He weighs 3 pounds and 7 ounces but has the presence of a pachyderm and is an effective communicator. While it is true that his bark is worse than his bite, his bark gets attention.

The past two weeks have been frustrating and I have not been able to resolve an ongoing issue with any kind of "barking"---even whimpering.

Remember that (sort of) humorous page I wrote about changing ISPs?

Not so funny any more.

If you are tempted to sign up for a very popular NEW DIGITAL service, don't do it unless you have patience, time to spend on the phone with tech support, and the desire to be disappointed.

We have no phone service since last night. We have no caller ID, no call waiting since we had it installed. The web site where on might be able to track messages is down about 50% of the time. And the answering machine on our NEW digital phones they told us to buy won't work with the system either. Foolishly, we bought digital TVs after being told they would improve certain features. After installing them, we had to take them back to the store. Luckily, we didn't have to pay the dreaded "reshelving fee."

After spending 45 minutes on hold last night on my cell phone that was nearly out of power, I was told the phone service was out NATIONALLY. It would be restored in 2-4 hours. It is not restored 14 hours later.

Somehow, we have managed to take reliable phone service and make is unusable. I have had reliable phone service all my life. It is inconceivable that a company would be able to operate this way. I have since found out by Googling that there are tens of thousands of complaints about the service. The Attorney General in our state is going to launch an investigation soon.

But, for now, I worry about emergency calling. Have to keep that cell phone pumped up. I never gave out my number to anyone but my immediate family so I suspect that any phone calls we receive that are important will never reach us.

To quote Hank, "Grrrrrrrrr!!"

Have a good weekend! If you have phone service--or any service that works--be grateful!

4 comments:

Christine LeFever said...

But the telemarketers can get you anyway. There is a number to call in order to assure that you'll not get those calls, which you pay for:

888-382-1222

Good luck!

Zwee!!!!!

Eileen said...

Wow. This is a nightmare.

ShabbyInTheCity said...

You aren't mad enough! Really...what if you need 911...think you'd better get another phone service and not wait on these folks? It sounds like they are criminals.

Lena said...

I've heard more than just a few stories about things not going well, when folks have switched services and bundled everything. I've decided to just keep things as they are for now. I sure do hope that everything is better for you soon, Helen. Good luck!