A hot tip for cell phone customers...

[DesignFox]

Pay your damn phone bill on time, and the company won't shut your service off!

Seriously. I'm sick of the past two days worth of customers complaining they've had their service shut off. I mean, DAMN. You have to have not paid your bill for 60 DAYS before the company shuts your phone off.

Cry me a river.

One lady was so bold as to threaten legal action for having her phone shut off.

Too bad we couldn't access the account...I would have LOOOOOOOOOVED to note that little nugget and have her funneled through legal. (not that I'm even sure that agents have that power, but I would have noted the threat and hoped....)

Oh. and the excuse that you "have a contract" so we "can't do this to you." Doesn't hold water, either. It says right in the print, if you don't pay your bill, you don't get phone service. kthxbye.

It's been a week.....

[PepperElf]

heh.... kinda thing where you want to say, "Ok take legal action. I need a good laugh."

[RayvenQ]

Oh. and the excuse that you "have a contract" so we "can't do this to you." Doesn't hold water, either. It says right in the print, if you don't pay your bill, you don't get phone service. kthxbye.

It's been a week.....

And this is where I'd mention that contracts work both ways, either that or try to strangle them through the phone.

[freeatlast]

When I worked at the Call Center from hell, I had many customers threaten to sue us. Normally, it would be because we would not ship a new order because they had previous, seriously past due orders on their accounts. I always told them that if they wished to waste their time and money to go ahead. Figured their lawyer should have a good laugh. And yes, if the call was monitored for quality, I would lose lots of points. But it was worth it.

[powerboy]

I get the samething. They are to pay their storage rent between the 1st and the 10th of the month. When the 11th comes around, we are too over lock them. This is to make sure they do not move out and not pay off the bill. We have gotten a few people threaten to sue us. It is all in the contract that we over lock by the 11th of the month.

[marasbaras]

SC: I have a contract.
Me: Yes, and you're in breach.

[draftermatt]

Nothing to do with cell phones. But you just reminded me of the asshole I dealt with on Friday, who I will have to clue my boss in on on Monday, who's favorite line is "if you look in your contract you will see..." Ass.

What he doesn't know is that because he isn't paid up like he's supposed to be we're fileing a lein against him like it says in our contract.

Sorry for the thread jack.

[Tigress]

In regards to the threat of legal action, I love the line: "I have a friend... who's a lawyer."

My favorite response was, "OMG, really?! (Waits for affirmative answer.) So do we! How much do you pay yours to be your friend? Because we pay ours lots of money to be our friend!"

[Danno]

One of my jobs when I was an office temp put me in the middle of the collections dept. for a gas company. Thankfully I wasn't a collector, I was just put where there was an available desk. It was amazing how predictable the phone calls were when you heard them all day. They generally went through three main phases:

"I didn't get no bill!"
(Doesn't matter, you signed the contract. Funny how like everyone else you don't receive any bills for three months but manage to receive the shutoff notice.)
"You're being mean to me!"
(This isn't customer service, this is collections.)
"I'll sue you guys!"
(For what, you're the one who broke the contract.)

Usually by that point the caller would swear and hang up, or rarely try to bargain a payment. As stressful as the job of a collection agent was, it was kind of hard not to envy the fact that they were allowed to say pretty much whatever they wanted. It was downright hilarious to hear all the EWs snap when they were accustomed to abusing costumer service reps who had to be nice to them. It would just shatter their little brains to hear things like "Yes, fuck you too ma'am, now will you be making the payment or shall we proceed with the shutoff?"

[edible_hat]

"I didn't get no bill!"
(Doesn't matter, you signed the contract. Funny how like everyone else you don't receive any bills for three months but manage to receive the shutoff notice.)

That happened to me once! Although instead of a shutoff notice I recieved a letter explaining the problems in their billing system and that they would be reducing the bill and extending the due date. (oh and it was a power bill)

[RichS]

My favorite response was, "OMG, really?! (Waits for affirmative answer.) So do we! How much do you pay yours to be your friend? Because we pay ours lots of money to be our friend!"

That was one of the nice things about my boss at my old office manager job. He had a lawyer group under contract, and he wasn't afraid to use them.

I didn't have to worry about people paying bills ( rehab clinic) or rent (rental property) late, boss had the lawyers handle everything.

[otakuneko]

At the callcenter I used to work at, IIRC we were supposed to transfer to a sup any legal threats.

I don't recall ever getting any though.

[Shimatta]

We have 3 year contracts where I work (not for phone service) and we get people every day calling in to cancel and not realising they signed for 3 years. It is literally the first line of the agreement that you would read on the FRONT of the contract - "This contract is for three (3) years".
I'm so paranoid about what people miss with contracts that when I went down to have my ski boots fitted to my skies I read through the whole contract - the guy behind the counter told me I'm the first person he's ever seen read it in the 2 years he's been working there.

[DesignFox]

At the callcenter I used to work at, IIRC we were supposed to transfer to a sup any legal threats.

I don't recall ever getting any though.

I don't work in a call center, I work for an authorized retailer. I'm just a sales drone, basically. But, we do have the power to notate a customer's account. I'm not sure if it was due to the recent changes in the billing system, or if this lady just fucked up and didn't pay for so long that they eliminated her service, but we couldn't actually pull her account up at all.

If we had access to the account, I would have noted the threat of legal action, hoping that just maybe it would escalate to cause her further frustration. I hate when people are nasty, especially about things that happen to be their own damn fault.