A Rant and A Rave

I am so angst-y right now. I won't name names but we recently switched from a MAJOR monopoly of a cable company to a less expensive satellite company. We were promised massive savings and top notch customer service with the new guys. We signed up with the new and cancelled the old with the guarantee that we would be saving close to $60 a month in rebates, discounts and promotions. The first bill arrived from the new company and it was higher than we were told. I called to see what was up and learned that when *Bob set us up, he never hit the special discount button. Well that's okay, we forgive Bob. Now just press the button and resume our service with the discount that we were promised. But they didn't. They told us that the discount was no longer available and we were out of luck. Well that didn't seem fair. We entered into the agreement in good faith that all of the discounts, rebates and promotions would be applied and it wasn't our fault that Bob messed up. It wasn't our fault, but it was our problem. The new company would not give us the discount and for the next 3 months, they continued to screw up our bill with "forgetting" to apply certain discounts.
*The names were changed to protect the innocent

Today was the end of a 3 month promotion for free channels. I called to cancel and ended up learning that the last discount that was applied to smooth over some other mistake on our billing was misapplied yet again and our bill would be higher than the original agreement. I have worked in customer service so I try to treat others in these situations as I wish I had been treated. I pleaded with the guy to finally live up to their end of the agreement and give us what we signed up for. We were not asking for any freebies or discounts that were not originally apart of our contract. The guy was a complete jerk and basically told me that they were not going to tell me what I wanted to hear because they are in the business of following policies, not people pleasing. And the discount that I was requesting was not possible on our account because someone misapplied it.  I lost it.

After I hung up, I cried. I hate being treated unfairly and I hate dealing with dishonest people/companies with no integrity. I think the policy "the customer is always right" is stupid. Customers lie and bend the truth to get what they want, so to say that whatever they say is law is silly. But the contract should be law and when the customer just wants to be in contract with the original terms honored, why is that so preposterous? Just honor the contract, if someone made a mistake, correct it according to the agreed upon terms and let's all move on. That's all that I wanted.

JD ended up calling back and canceling our service. I stayed upstairs praying that God would have mercy on us and get us released without paying the outrageous termination fee ($420!!!!!!). After about 20 minutes, we were released without penalty. Praise God! I called the huge monopoly of a cable company and re-signed with them at a very discounted welcome-back-to-cable rate. The only problem is there will be a 4 day gap between service so I told JD we would have plenty of time to stare into each other's eyes lovingly and tell secrets about our love. Or write poems or whatever the mood strikes us. He's thrilled. I also went on our Netflix account and the first season of The Sopranos should be here in 2 days. That should last us until Wednesday. 


This whole thing just saddens me. Every company is only as good as its people and the people at that company sucked. Not all of them, I'm sure. I just hate being treated as if I am lying. JD and I are very truthful people and it hurts me to my core when I am treated as though I am not.

That was my rant, now for my rave. God is so good. Even though this whole cable swap situation has been a huge headache, we did save some money and now that we are back with the old company, we will be saving even more than we could have with the new one. I take saving money very seriously. If JD's job is to provide for our family, mine is to make sure we spend it wisely and save everywhere we can. And raise babies and cook and clean. My experience has always been that no matter what the issue, just pray. God cares about it all. Thank God that is over!