Cable/Car

To recap what had happened previously:

· I called our cable representative twice to get cable TV. He never responded to my messages.

· About a week and a half after I left the second message, my cable representative called me to say he could save me money by hooking us up to cable television. The deal sounded too good to be true, but he assured me the monthly bill would go down if we added basic cable television to our contract. After making sure that what I thought he was saying was really what he was saying, I agreed. (When I asked him if he was returning my phone call, he had no idea what I was talking about. by the way.) We set up a time for the Mr. Cable Guy to come hook us up the following Monday morning, when I’d be home from work.

· Mr. Cable Guy never showed on Monday.

· The Socialist, miffed at being snubbed, tried to get hold of our cable representative. When he encountered no success in that project, he gave up and contacted the cable company directly. The cable company verified what Mr. Representative had told me: Add basic cable and your monthly bill will go down. They even listed the extra stations we’d get with basic. Now HBO or Showtime, but then we didn’t care about that anyway. The Socialist set up a new service time, Saturday late morning. Mr. Cable Guy was to arrive by 2:00.

And now, to continue our story:

· At 2:30 Saturday Mr. Cable Guy knocks on our door. He’s late. What a surprise. And he arrived with incorrect work orders – for some reason he thought he was adding another computer to the cable instead of hooking the television up. We finally got that straightened out, and it was really only a matter of ten minutes or so before he had the television connected and was out of the apartment (without even a hearty “Hi Ho Silver, away!). That’s when the fun began.

· The Socialist looked at our copy of the work papers that was left for us. The monthly charges weren’t totaled, and the paperwork was difficult to figure out. It appeared, however, that instead of paying $5 less a month for our new cable-combo we’d be paying nearly twice as much. The Socialist called his friends back at the Cable Company.

· “Oh yes,” gushed the girl that The Socialist was finally able to get hold of at the cable company. “You’ve added basic and standard. The cost will be $80/month.” “But we told you we just wanted Basic,” responded my rather perturbed Socialist. “And the person who I spoke with on the phone listed all the extra stations we’d be getting with Basic coverage.” “There’s no extra stations with Basic,” replied our little gusher, in best Mary Sunshine fashion. “You need Standard to get extra channels.” “We didn’t order standard, ” the Socialist reminded Mary Sunshine. “Well, why don’t you keep it for a month and see how you like it?” Mary suggested. “You can always cancel it if you don’t want it after you’ve tried it.” “And if I don’t want to try it?” the Socialist replied. “Well, you have till tomorrow to cancel the standard, and you won’t be charged.”

I was furious when the Socialist reported all this to me. I believe it’s fairly obvious that the cable company set us up. If the Socialist hadn’t been such a stickler and tried to figure out those stupid work orders, we’d have never known we’d gotten the “bait and switch” routine until our first billing. As it was, we had to decide what to do next.

I had been considering getting extra channels, but only at some future date, when I was on disability and stuck in the apartment all day. And there were a few programs that the Socialist and I had been looking forward to seeing on cable, before we knew it was going to cost us $80/month to see them. We ended up keeping the Standard cable, even though it kills me that I can’t write letters of complaint to a dozen different people about how we were handled in this deal. All I can say at this point is that, had Comcast waited until we ordered the Standard, they’d have had grateful customers. All they have now are resentful ones.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While I’m registering complaints, I might as well get my car situation off my chest as well. My poor little Escort had a cracked headlight housing. It was causing me to blow headlamps left and right, because moisture was getting through the shattered housing and causing my bulbs to fry themselves. I tried to take the car to Pep Boys to fix it, but they informed me that the only place I could get a headlight assembly was through a Ford dealer. The Elder Sister suggested a Ford place down the road from where I work, informing me that they’d give me a free loaner car and that they’d always done good work on her vehicles. It’s nice when someone can scout a place out for you in advance, and I gladly took advantage of her suggestion.

I was disappointed to discover I didn’t qualify for a loan vehicle, but that was because they ran a shuttle service and I worked so close that I could be shuttled to and from work. That was certainly a fine alternative to me. I dropped my car off at 7:00 in the morning Monday, got shuttled to work, and didn’t think about my car until after noon.

Since I hadn’t heard from them yet, I figured I’d call around 12:15 and just make sure they hadn’t run into any additional problems. They informed me that they had my car slated for the afternoon and hadn’t started work on it yet. No problem. I’d told them I wouldn’t need it until the end of the day anyhow. They promised to call back once the car was done.

· 2:30 – I just thought I’d call and check again. Mike said they were working on the car, would be done soon, and be back to me as soon as the work was completed.

· 3:15 – I called again. Mike said the car was finished. Oh! You want a shuttle ride back to the shop? Let me check on the shuttle availability and get back to you.

· 3:50 – I called again. Mike said he still hadn’t found out about the shuttle availability. Let me call you right back. I reminded them that they closed at five, and that I needed the car today or I wouldn’t be able to drive home. No problem, they reassured me.

· 4:15 – I called again. Sorry, Mike isn’t around right now. Can anyone else help you? Yeah … anyone who can pick me up and take me to your shop can help me, dude. Where the heck is your shuttle?

· 4:40 – The 5:00 deadline looms. I run around like an idiot, get some poor sod to agree to drive me over to the shop. I call the service department and tell them what they can do with their shuttle and then head out.

· 4:55 – I am dropped off at the shop, in front of the parked shuttle. When I walk in and give my name, one of the guys behind the counter walks off into the service bays. I figure he’s Mike.

· 5:00 – $327 and I part ways (for a lousy headlight assembly unit?), I retrieve my keys, and I leave the lot, never to return again. As I depart, I leave behind me another disgruntled customer who came to pick up his car but has been unable to because they’ve apparently lost the paperwork. Do I know how to pick ’em or what?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, at least last night’s episode of Monk was good.