Do you get those constant telephone calls (even though you are on the NO CALL LISTS) where they try to upgrade something you have, or sell you something you do not want???? We have caller-ID and seldom even answer the home phone anymore. It's SO annoying ---even though you tell them to take your name off of the list. We have even reported some of these annoying people.... That works for awhile, but then, more start coming!!!!
Anyhow ---we were expecting an important phone call this past week, so we answered one of the NON-LISTED numbers... This one just happened to be our local telephone company. Gee Whiz---did they have a 'deal' for us, their 'good' customer... I was stupid and LISTENED.
Okay--I need to give you some background about our telephone company, and our history with them. This is
FRONTIER Telephone, and we started our home phone service and DSL with them in 2002. We have an old plan with them which is semi-adequate (not really) for our needs, even though the DSL is SLOW.
Anyhow, about 2 yrs. ago, a Frontier Salesman came to our door and told us that Frontier was improving its plans --and that he could sell us a plan that would give us better internet access, for about the same money we were paying then. We decided to accept this plan. WELL--a few days later, we noticed that we didn't have voice mail or caller ID anymore. SO---I spent hours (it seems) on the phone with their customer service finding out that it would cost us more to get these options now. The sales person had not told us this.... SO---after bitching and griping, we went back to our old plan...
THIS brings us to this past week. Another Frontier salesperson caught us off-guard after answering the phone. WELL--since we are still unhappy with our internet speed and also have been having problems accessing our internet mail through Frontier, I listened to this lady give us her talking points... (Big Mistake!!!)
This time though, I was much better prepared with my questions. She told us that we could get a MUCH BETTER plan than we have now and it would cost us LESS..... (That should have been a clue to hang up right then!!!! ha)
My questions to her:
-Does this plan include voicemail and caller ID? YES
-Are there any set-up charges ? NO (BIG LIE)
-Is this amount which you have quoted the absolute bottom line cost (except for taxes)? YES (another BIG LIE)
To be truthful to you, I will say that this NEW plan was better than the one we have. It 'should' cost more. BUT--why can't companies like this just be honest when going over all of the details??? Do they think we are stupid??? Maybe we are stupid when talking to these telemarketers... AND---I was stupid because I had already gone through this once before with this same company.
The lady emailed me the confirmation with ALL of the costs and details... When I got this email, I was SHOCKED... SO---I called Customer Service again and talked to someone there---who just had no idea how one of their sales people could have told me those things. I told her to go back and listen to our conversation --since they announced when I first got the call --that it would be recorded. She didn't have an answer for that. Anyhow---she couldn't give me a better deal, so we opted totally out of this new plan.
We now still have that OLD plan --which is truly inadequate. And now it seems as if Frontier changed it after this phone call---and our email access through Frontier no longer is available at all, and getting on the internet is even slower than it was ... We obviously are looking for another internet option --and will probably get rid of our home phone completely (since we do have a cellphone).
This was just so frustrating to me. I was upset with myself for even listening to this company's propaganda, and then believing them. I don't think we would have minded paying more for a better plan, but we just wanted them to be HONEST with us. Why can't they do that?????? I'm an honest person and I expect others to be honest with me.
My questions for you to ponder:
-Has this type of thing happened to you?
-Do you experience dishonesty?
-How do you handle situations when people are dishonest?
-How can we stop all of the dishonest telemarketers in our country? (It's kinda sad that we can't even answer our phones these days.)
Hope you have a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday.
Hugs,
All illustrations came from the internet.
