Alternatives to Bell?

[guigsy]

Why does everyone hate Bell so much?

my latest plight goes a little like this..

called last tuesday to have my phone line switched to new address on the following monday.

on the thursday in between they arbitrarily switched my phone line, without my knowledge or consent. when i called to figure it out, the answer was that yes, originally the date was monday, but somehow it got switched. no one knows, but it defintely shows being switched.

sympatico was also slated to go the same day.

digging through this whole debauchle i found out out that my sympatico also got arbitrarily switched to be switched over on the following thursday. why? again, no reason. they just felt like it, apparently.

and this is NOT having dealt with the front line customer service reps... i've learned my lesson with Emily (worst.service.ever.) and the CS reps, i dont even bother anymore - when they ask how they can help me, i tell them they can help by getting their supervisor to help me, nothing personal, just the way i want to do things. truth is, i've been fucked too many times, and now it seems like the supervisors cant even get it right.

so, thursday when they took my phone line down, and i called to get it back because i needed my line (i manage a store, what if there was a break-in? im trying to co-ordinate a move with someone from out of town, i cant even use email now, etc..), the response i got was, well, it'll take 2 business days, whats the point? seriously. when i told them the point was that i wont be paying the connection fee, they had it back up in an hour.

but i thought it HAD to take 2 business days? fuck you.

oh, but my sypatico still wasnt working. no one could figure out why. then they realized it was suspended based on an old ticket from 2 years ago! again, arbitrarily without looking into shit, or contacting the customer, they just fuck with you.

when they thought it was a line issue, not that someone fucked up and switched the line over early, they were going to charge me $35 just to have someone come and check it out, because i wasnt on their "Maintenance Plan". no? BUT I PAY FOR YOUR FUCKING SERVICES EACH MONTH!!!!

the departments are so segregated in their, you cant get the right person half the time, because they dont even know where to send you. i got sent to an internal bell help line at one point... where the CS reps have to call when they cant figure something out! i got disconnected at least twice. and i've probably wasted a good 7 - 10 hours on the phone waiting, talking, dealing with these clowns.

they pass the buck on all their issues. the vocabulary they use to do so... oh, you're a customer with an issue, unfortunately though, thats not a customer service issue, thats a repair issue - let me put you on hold. no, im a customer with an issue with your service and i need to tell you what its like.

and this is not uncommon. i've heard many a similar story about those fuckers.

i honestly dont know how Bell got so big. their customer service is so maddening, that even if you have to go through it once, its enough to make you never want to do it again - but you know you'll have to again eventually because they're perpetual fuck-ups.

[Birdy]

grrrrrrrrr.. see OLLIE! i'm thinking our destruction is inevitable.. digital will either kill us all or we'll all open fire, vigilante justice style, on bell employees and create a massive civil war of big, shitty monopolies vs. we, the small guys, the victims.

"maintenance plan"! that's what i'm talking about! CROOKS!

[rubberdinghy]

Exactly!!!

The reason they are so big is because they were the sole provider of telephone service up until just recently...If you wanted a phone, you were stuck with Bell....

Talking to some folks that had been there for years, they could basically tell customers to "go fuck themselves" and get away with it...