The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

I talked about this morning in Science & Technology about latest a little bit about my reason for switching from cable to satellite. Now I will share with you a little bit about the first satellite company I chose.

Looked at both satellite offerings side by side, chose one of them, chose my package, ready to make my call—to my CFO: my wife. She had a few questions she wanted me to ask along with a few of my own, otherwise we were ready to make that move. I couldn’t do 3-way, so I had to keep hanging up to pass that info to my wife.

I just wanted to make sure that the monthly price I was quoted was absolute (meaning that fees and taxes were included). This is when I started to get different answers from different CSRs. There were a few other questions where once again I was fed inconsistent answers. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Finally get someone that sounds like they know what they are talking about, so I decide to go ahead with the process. The CSR tells me that the tech will be out on Tuesday (last week) between 8-12. Sounds good. So I make some changes in my schedule so that I am here. 11:50am comes along and I say to myself “Oh no they didn’t”, so I call them. The CSR tells me that the tech is running late because he had to take care of some more important customers (I am not lying here). He tries to clean it up by saying “not that you aren’t important…”.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The tech tells me that he should be to my crib between 12 and 2 pm. The only problem is that I had another appointment for that afternoon. The CSR tells me that he can reschedule for tomorrow. I ask him is it guaranteed. He tells me “no”.

So let me get this straight:

#1. I had to call to find out that he was running late

#2. Dude tells me that he had to take care of more “important” customers.

#3. THEY missed their commitment–not me

#4. They could not give me a guaranteed appointment

And for the piece of crap to top it off–The tech needed directions to my house (this after me giving them my address and nearest cross street.

I thought I was the one paying for the service?

And they wanted me to commit to a 2-year contract after all of this?

Peace!!

After canceling the who thing altogether, later that day I get an e-mail welcoming me to the satellite company’s family. I tried to respond to the e-mail to let them know that I had already canceled.

The e-mail address doesn’t receive e-mails, so it bounced—just like I did to their service.

Auto dealerships are just as bad. I had to go straight up berserk with the dealership in the showroom more than once for trying to lie their way out of a factory default. Like Bruce Banner as he is overtaken by the chemical reaction that changes him into the Hulk, my North Philly roots took over.

But seriously, I don’t want anybody to kiss my behind. I just want folks to do what they said they were going to do. Why am I finding myself going off on folks to just to do the minimum requirement?

For the record, when I do get good service, I do try to let the supervisor know about it.