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I cannot believe the amount of sheer fuckitudinal stupidity I've experienced from my cell phone company.
Yesterday afternoon it reached a point where they shattered my expectations entirely and left me dumbfounded with their idiocy.
So here's the story. We'll call these maroons simply Wireless Provider but if you live in Canada you may be able to piece two and two together.
July 17 my boyfriend calls into Wireless Provider to upgrade his iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3GS as well as place an order for another iPhone 3GS for me.
In this call he indicates that once the phones arrive he would like to have them put onto a family plan together.
Orders are placed, invoice numbers are emailed and we're told that the phones are on back-order and that there is a wait of three weeks.
Fine, we're cool with that and we pretty much expected it anyway.
Three weeks go by and nothing.
Four weeks. Nothing.
Five weeks I ask him to send them an email to see if they can tell us what's up.
So he sends the email and gets a response saying that one of the invoice numbers does not exist.
Huh?
Evidently they only had the invoice for the new phone (mine) not the upgrade (his).
A little bit of explaining later and they get his order in and promise to keep it at the same position in the queue as my invoice.
Six weeks go by. Nothing.
I start to get frustrated because while The Boyfriend has a phone I do not, and at this point school is about to start and because of the nature of my field placement I'm out and about in the city constantly and absolutely need to be reachable at all times.
So this is becoming a big deal to me.
I know that because the phones have not arrived yet my name isn't on the account, and because of that, despite the fact that we live together and I know all the information they would ask for, I can't access the account or get any information on the status of our order.
So I try another tactic.
I call Wireless Provider from work pretending to be a new customer interested in the iPhone 3GS and ask about wait times for the back-orders.
I'm told it is no longer than three weeks.
*ahem*
So I ask if I were to order over the phone but the wait got too long, could I cancel and buy in-store without any penalty.
I'm told that yes I can, but it would be advisable that were I to do that I should call at 24-48 hours before buying in-store to ensure that the phone order has properly been canceled.
I tell the rep I'm going to think about it, thank her, hang up then call The Boyfriend and tell him what she told me.
Two days later, September 24, I start calling around Wireless Provider stores and Apple stores to see if any of them have the 3GS's in stock. ONE Wireless Provider store did - two of the white 16G.
I asked the girl if she would please hold onto them and promised I would be in within the hour to get them.
In fact, we were there within 15 minutes. As soon as we found out they had them we grabbed our stuff, hopped in a cab and made our way over.
Now of course you're thinking, "But rerant, didn't they say you have to call in 24-48 hours before to make sure that the cancellation properly went through?"
I know, I know, our bad. But when we got to the Wireless Provider store the girl helping us said she would call in for us to cancel it and mentioned she knew the a bunch of people at the call centre and could likely get the cancellation pushed through faster.
Coooool!
So we get the phones, she calls to cancel, gets off the phone then turns to us and says, "They... said they didn't have any orders under your account name."
The Boyfriend: "None at all?"
Sales Girl: "No orders. Nothing."
Ok, well, Wireless Provider fucked up again, but since we're now buying the phones in-store I guess it doesn't matter.
We buy the phones (I paid cash for mine and The Boyfriend had the cost of his added to our Wireless Provider bill), get all set up on the family plan and go on our merry little ways.
I think the girl at the Wireless Provider store may have been getting commission because she was very pleased with us and actually had her family wait (guess they were there to pick her up) so that she could finish the transaction.
She was very nice, too, and very helpful so I hope she got commission (two iPhones, a $30 case and a whole new plan would have been a big KA-CHING, I'm sure).
Just for reference this is a basic run-down of what our family plan consisted of. This is important.
400 daytime minutes to be shared between us (fine for us since I'm pretty much the only one who uses the daytime minutes)
Calls to each other are free
Free evening and weekend calling
1G of data usage a month to be shared (again, more than enough for us)
Unlimited text messaging
Friday, October 2 The Boyfriend calls me at work.
"You're never going to believe this."
"What?"
"I just got an email from Wireless Provider saying 'Your order has been shipped'."
"Buh?"
"They're sending us the iPhone they had no record of that we canceled."
"But how... I don't... ugh just send it back when it hows up."
So yes, about a week after we cancel the order that, according to Wireless Provider, doesn't even exist, they ship out our non-existent canceled order.
The mind... she boggles.
Skip ahead to Monday the 5th. The phone arrives and we do not open the box. Why would we? We know what's in it and we don't need it.
I ask The Boyfriend to call Wireless Provider and let them know of the error and ask them how they want us to go about returning it, and also how they will go about crediting the account, since we've now paid for this third phone.
The Boyfriend calls and rather than being instructed on how to go about returning the phone, the Wireless Provider rep says, "Wouldn't you rather keep the phone and sell it to someone else?"
What the...
Did he seriously just say that?
"Umm... no, I'd just like to return it, please, and have the cost credited back to my account, please."
We're informed that there is a 30 day return policy. 30 days, ok?
About a week ago we finally got around to dropping the box off at a UPS store. Yes not exactly swift on our part but we're busy folks who barely see each other and we live in the same dang house. So yeah, it got forgotten.
BUT we were, and are, still within the 30 day return period.
Now we come to yesterday. The Boyfriend was online paying some bills and got to our Wireless Provider bill, which also consists of our cable and Internet.
$1,183!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Um... noooooo.
So he shits a brick and gets right on the phone with Wireless Provider. He showed me the call time later on and it was one hour and 19 minutes.
The first rep he speaks to immediately sees that something is not right.
Here is what apparently happened:
When the third phone was shipped they canceled our family plan (what?) and we were now being charged for every text message (supposed to be free - and we text a LOT!) all of our data (supposed to be 1G per month) and all of our calls to one another (we're supposed to call each other for free).
It was something like $300 in overages what were supposed to be included in the plan they, for some fucking reason, canceled.
So the rep reverses the charges and get us back on track with our proper plan but mentions that we've still been charged for the third phone.
The rep says that issue is handled by a different department and transfers The Boyfriend over there.
New Rep tells The Boyfriend we're responsible for the cost of the third phone because the return policy on iPhones is 15 days not the 30 days we were originally told.
Now, The Boyfriend is a lot more passive than I am which is why I am so glad he said this:
"So if that's your return policy on purchased phones, what's your policy on returning phones that the orders never existed for in your system but were in any case canceled by a Wireless Provider in-store rep?"
Evidently she did not have an answer for this and he flat out told her, "Look we waited nearly two months for our phones, Wireless Provider lost the order for one of them once, we canceled the orders entirely in-store, and we told when we tried to do that that there was no existence of either order, we bought the phones in-store and then Wireless Provider sent us a third phone from the order that we canceled, but never existed in the first place. Do you see how incredibly stupid this is? We are not paying for this huge mix-up and it's not fair for us to be paying for the overages that were incurred as a result of this massive fuck up. The phone has been shipped back, we canceled it before it was even sent to us, and it's not fair to expect us to pay for any of this."
SNAP!
So the end result is that we were credited for the erroneously charged overages, credited for the cost of the third phone, had our plan reset back to what they were supposed to be, had the cost of the hour and 19 minute call credited, and now our bill is back to what it should be.
My my FUCK what a pile of stupid Wireless Provider has been!
Personally, and I'm not a greedy credit grabber, but for all the crap they've put us through I think it would have been fair to tack on at least one tiny little credit for the epic struggle. Nothing permanent like extra data or anything but something small at least just as a gesture.
But The Boyfriend didn't ask for anything like that and the Wireless Provider rep didn't offer it so the idea is off the table.
*sigh* At least everything is back in order, which is fine enough for me.
A word of warning, if you've caught on to who Wireless Provider is and you're thinking of buying an iPhone 3GS save yourself a truck load of trouble and just buy in-store.
Truuuuuuuuuust me.
Yesterday afternoon it reached a point where they shattered my expectations entirely and left me dumbfounded with their idiocy.
So here's the story. We'll call these maroons simply Wireless Provider but if you live in Canada you may be able to piece two and two together.
July 17 my boyfriend calls into Wireless Provider to upgrade his iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3GS as well as place an order for another iPhone 3GS for me.
In this call he indicates that once the phones arrive he would like to have them put onto a family plan together.
Orders are placed, invoice numbers are emailed and we're told that the phones are on back-order and that there is a wait of three weeks.
Fine, we're cool with that and we pretty much expected it anyway.
Three weeks go by and nothing.
Four weeks. Nothing.
Five weeks I ask him to send them an email to see if they can tell us what's up.
So he sends the email and gets a response saying that one of the invoice numbers does not exist.
Huh?
Evidently they only had the invoice for the new phone (mine) not the upgrade (his).
A little bit of explaining later and they get his order in and promise to keep it at the same position in the queue as my invoice.
Six weeks go by. Nothing.
I start to get frustrated because while The Boyfriend has a phone I do not, and at this point school is about to start and because of the nature of my field placement I'm out and about in the city constantly and absolutely need to be reachable at all times.
So this is becoming a big deal to me.
I know that because the phones have not arrived yet my name isn't on the account, and because of that, despite the fact that we live together and I know all the information they would ask for, I can't access the account or get any information on the status of our order.
So I try another tactic.
I call Wireless Provider from work pretending to be a new customer interested in the iPhone 3GS and ask about wait times for the back-orders.
I'm told it is no longer than three weeks.
*ahem*
So I ask if I were to order over the phone but the wait got too long, could I cancel and buy in-store without any penalty.
I'm told that yes I can, but it would be advisable that were I to do that I should call at 24-48 hours before buying in-store to ensure that the phone order has properly been canceled.
I tell the rep I'm going to think about it, thank her, hang up then call The Boyfriend and tell him what she told me.
Two days later, September 24, I start calling around Wireless Provider stores and Apple stores to see if any of them have the 3GS's in stock. ONE Wireless Provider store did - two of the white 16G.
I asked the girl if she would please hold onto them and promised I would be in within the hour to get them.
In fact, we were there within 15 minutes. As soon as we found out they had them we grabbed our stuff, hopped in a cab and made our way over.
Now of course you're thinking, "But rerant, didn't they say you have to call in 24-48 hours before to make sure that the cancellation properly went through?"
I know, I know, our bad. But when we got to the Wireless Provider store the girl helping us said she would call in for us to cancel it and mentioned she knew the a bunch of people at the call centre and could likely get the cancellation pushed through faster.
Coooool!
So we get the phones, she calls to cancel, gets off the phone then turns to us and says, "They... said they didn't have any orders under your account name."
The Boyfriend: "None at all?"
Sales Girl: "No orders. Nothing."
Ok, well, Wireless Provider fucked up again, but since we're now buying the phones in-store I guess it doesn't matter.
We buy the phones (I paid cash for mine and The Boyfriend had the cost of his added to our Wireless Provider bill), get all set up on the family plan and go on our merry little ways.
I think the girl at the Wireless Provider store may have been getting commission because she was very pleased with us and actually had her family wait (guess they were there to pick her up) so that she could finish the transaction.
She was very nice, too, and very helpful so I hope she got commission (two iPhones, a $30 case and a whole new plan would have been a big KA-CHING, I'm sure).
Just for reference this is a basic run-down of what our family plan consisted of. This is important.
400 daytime minutes to be shared between us (fine for us since I'm pretty much the only one who uses the daytime minutes)
Calls to each other are free
Free evening and weekend calling
1G of data usage a month to be shared (again, more than enough for us)
Unlimited text messaging
Friday, October 2 The Boyfriend calls me at work.
"You're never going to believe this."
"What?"
"I just got an email from Wireless Provider saying 'Your order has been shipped'."
"Buh?"
"They're sending us the iPhone they had no record of that we canceled."
"But how... I don't... ugh just send it back when it hows up."
So yes, about a week after we cancel the order that, according to Wireless Provider, doesn't even exist, they ship out our non-existent canceled order.
The mind... she boggles.
Skip ahead to Monday the 5th. The phone arrives and we do not open the box. Why would we? We know what's in it and we don't need it.
I ask The Boyfriend to call Wireless Provider and let them know of the error and ask them how they want us to go about returning it, and also how they will go about crediting the account, since we've now paid for this third phone.
The Boyfriend calls and rather than being instructed on how to go about returning the phone, the Wireless Provider rep says, "Wouldn't you rather keep the phone and sell it to someone else?"
What the...
Did he seriously just say that?
"Umm... no, I'd just like to return it, please, and have the cost credited back to my account, please."
We're informed that there is a 30 day return policy. 30 days, ok?
About a week ago we finally got around to dropping the box off at a UPS store. Yes not exactly swift on our part but we're busy folks who barely see each other and we live in the same dang house. So yeah, it got forgotten.
BUT we were, and are, still within the 30 day return period.
Now we come to yesterday. The Boyfriend was online paying some bills and got to our Wireless Provider bill, which also consists of our cable and Internet.
$1,183!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Um... noooooo.
So he shits a brick and gets right on the phone with Wireless Provider. He showed me the call time later on and it was one hour and 19 minutes.
The first rep he speaks to immediately sees that something is not right.
Here is what apparently happened:
When the third phone was shipped they canceled our family plan (what?) and we were now being charged for every text message (supposed to be free - and we text a LOT!) all of our data (supposed to be 1G per month) and all of our calls to one another (we're supposed to call each other for free).
It was something like $300 in overages what were supposed to be included in the plan they, for some fucking reason, canceled.
So the rep reverses the charges and get us back on track with our proper plan but mentions that we've still been charged for the third phone.
The rep says that issue is handled by a different department and transfers The Boyfriend over there.
New Rep tells The Boyfriend we're responsible for the cost of the third phone because the return policy on iPhones is 15 days not the 30 days we were originally told.
Now, The Boyfriend is a lot more passive than I am which is why I am so glad he said this:
"So if that's your return policy on purchased phones, what's your policy on returning phones that the orders never existed for in your system but were in any case canceled by a Wireless Provider in-store rep?"
Evidently she did not have an answer for this and he flat out told her, "Look we waited nearly two months for our phones, Wireless Provider lost the order for one of them once, we canceled the orders entirely in-store, and we told when we tried to do that that there was no existence of either order, we bought the phones in-store and then Wireless Provider sent us a third phone from the order that we canceled, but never existed in the first place. Do you see how incredibly stupid this is? We are not paying for this huge mix-up and it's not fair for us to be paying for the overages that were incurred as a result of this massive fuck up. The phone has been shipped back, we canceled it before it was even sent to us, and it's not fair to expect us to pay for any of this."
SNAP!
So the end result is that we were credited for the erroneously charged overages, credited for the cost of the third phone, had our plan reset back to what they were supposed to be, had the cost of the hour and 19 minute call credited, and now our bill is back to what it should be.
My my FUCK what a pile of stupid Wireless Provider has been!
Personally, and I'm not a greedy credit grabber, but for all the crap they've put us through I think it would have been fair to tack on at least one tiny little credit for the epic struggle. Nothing permanent like extra data or anything but something small at least just as a gesture.
But The Boyfriend didn't ask for anything like that and the Wireless Provider rep didn't offer it so the idea is off the table.
*sigh* At least everything is back in order, which is fine enough for me.
A word of warning, if you've caught on to who Wireless Provider is and you're thinking of buying an iPhone 3GS save yourself a truck load of trouble and just buy in-store.
Truuuuuuuuuust me.
One complaint I have about in-store is that these folks are on commission, meaning it's in their interest to tack on extra bells and whistles to line their pocketbook. When I bought my phone in-store, I was told to be careful not to hit certain buttons or it would take me on-line (not part of my plan, so it charges me extra). Of course the guy was trying to get me signed up for a higher plan than I need, which is why he warned me. I point-blank asked if the onl-line feature could be blocked/removed/cancelled. He point-blank said no. Guess what I later found out can be blocked? And guess who gets a commission for every phone signed up with internet feature? Yeah, that's one way to piss me off.
-a-thon.
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