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When I was 18 and had just started college (and was also therefore, incredibly dumb), I had a little incident with a certain internet provider (hint: their name sounds like MSN). As a result of this incident, I learned a valuable lesson: always check your credit card statements.
Turns out that I had been paying an internet access charge of $25/mo. for about six months and had never noticed. This was for an internet service that I had never used and never would have needed given I was living in the dorms. Nonetheless, I had been paying for it. Although $25/mo. is not a staggering amount, the total ended up being $150 dollars that I could have used for say... food. or tuition. I actually only noticed when I got a new credit card and received a scathing letter from the internet provider insisting I owed them monthly charges plus fees for an incorrect credit card number. yikes.
So, I called the company and after waiting on hold for about 20 minutes. I spoke with a rather unsympathetic gentleman of Middle Eastern origins. After explaining my problems to him about three different times in increasing levels of simplicity, he put me on hold again. After awhile, I was put back on the line with some other individual who was outright hostile. After I explained my problem again, he answered with a simple "So, what are you saying? Do you want to press charges or something?" Wow, I simply wanted my money back and an explanation as to how the hell they procurred my credit card number in the first place. I think that's about when I started to cry. He immediately transfered the call.
Apparently at some point, when all the outsourced employees are stumped, they finally let you deal with someone who speaks English as a first language. The women I talked to was incredibly nice... perhaps even trained in counseling and conflict management. She told me to calm down and breathe while she checked my account. Of course, she saw that I had never actually used the internet service I had been paying for and had reason to believe my claim. She said that the services that I had been paying for were part of a package that was offered with the purchase of Dell laptops that year.
AH HAH! It was my dad's fault! Not only did he set up my credit card for me, but he also purchased my computer. I could just see a Dell associate placing a stack of forms in front of my father, and my father, so naive of everything computer related, diligently fillng them out. One of those forms had to be from the internet provider.
Anyway, I got my money back and my internet service canceled, and I've never had any other problems. The main point of this story is that I believe that big companies try to fuck over older, naive individuals. Like my father, bless his heart.
So, as a result of this experience, I was REALLY pissed off when ADHD received this letter from American Legion the other day (I'll figure out how to post a scanned copy). It basically appeared to be an invoice requesting a payment of about $50 for insurance charges. It really looked like a bill, but when I asked ADHD about it, he said that it was a "fake" bill, intended to solicite veterans for money.
Come on, American Legion, is this how low you've really sunk? I can just imagine my 90-yr old grandfather hunched over his checkbook, writing you a real check for a FAKE bill. That's low. You should be ashamed.
Shit, I wish I could bitch a bit more, but I have to get going...
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Posted by KateBait84 on 2008-01-30 12:57:08 | Rating: | Views: 51
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