What? You shut me off for not paying the bill? No way!

[greensinestro]

This moron called me today in our technical support department, upset that we shut off his internet service for not paying the bill in over four months. It turned out he took over the billing from a guy that retired and sold the business, and when he did so, it was explained to him that he would assume the current charges on the bill as well as the future ones. Within a month, it showed where our collections center called him, stating the bill had not been paid and that arrangements needed to be made. He refused to do so because he had not seen the actual bill, even though the billing address was correct. We told him that just because you don't have a paper bill, that does not discharge your obligation to pay it. Well, after this first collections call, the next three months rolled on, and he would not pay the bill whatsoever. Until he had a paper bill, he was not going to fulfill his obligation. It turned out the bills were referred to his secretary in accounts billing, but of course, he refused to acknowledge anything on this when asked.

This call really angered him more than me, because I maintained my calmness the whole time. First, he was upset we expected him to pay what the previous owner of the account owed, although again, it was explained and noted on the account. Second, because he did not have a bill in his hand, he felt he was not obligated to pay anything on that. The bill amount was the same as before, so nothing had changed on that. Third, he proceeded to tell me that other internet companies do not treat their customers this way, to which I had to respond. I told him flat out that internet companies often treat their customers with respect because they want to retain their customers, but that they also expect the customers to pay their bills on time or action would result for non payment. I also told him most companies will pull the plug on your service for an unpaid amount, and that under no conditions are they obligated to provide free service.

Finally, after this, he demanded to speak to my manager, and told me he wants his $200 bill wiped clean and to start up the service again! I told him I would refer this to manager, but he should expect the same information to be provided, that we are a company providing him with service, but not a free service. He will be expected to pay the bill.

This may be an ongoing thread being no resolution has been made on it. But, I'm pretty confident this man will not get off the hook scott free. If he does, then that opens the door to new precedents set, and everyone will be able to get free service.

[that_chick_in_I.T.]

We get that all the time.

The really fun ones are the customers who are automatically billed, and expect us to pay their overdraft fees.

Or when the mailserver goes down for a day, we get calls expecting anything from a free month to a free year of service.

[greensinestro]

We get that all the time.

The really fun ones are the customers who are automatically billed, and expect us to pay their overdraft fees.

Or when the mailserver goes down for a day, we get calls expecting anything from a free month to a free year of service.

Yes, also have had that this week. In the New York area, there was an outage of about a week or so, yet we have those calling in demanding $50 credits and so forth. The service is $19.95 per month, which means the service is 66 cents per day. Folks, this is just not good enough for these people. Whenever there's an outage, they want more than they're paying for each month. If they buy a new pair of shoes for $50, try them on, walk out of the store with them, then two days later the heel falls off, do they go back and demand a $150 refund in addition to a new pair of shoes?

Come on! Gimme a break.

[Spankmonkey]

Yes, also have had that this week. In the New York area, there was an outage of about a week or so, yet we have those calling in demanding $50 credits and so forth. The service is $19.95 per month, which means the service is 66 cents per day. Folks, this is just not good enough for these people. Whenever there's an outage, they want more than they're paying for each month. If they buy a new pair of shoes for $50, try them on, walk out of the store with them, then two days later the heel falls off, do they go back and demand a $150 refund in addition to a new pair of shoes?

Come on! Gimme a break.

Yeah we get that all the time too, it doesn't help when your company purchases cheap crap because of the advice it received from another company that we purchased alot of hardware from that decided after we had it all installed, that they were no longer going to be in the DSL business anymore.

So rather than purchasing something reliable they got equipment from some place and somehow (I swear with peanut butter and masking tape) managed to get it installed on the network. It seems like every 2-3 months it flakes out and everyone gets kicked off, so we get the round of calls of people "running businesses" out of their homes, losing thousands of dollars because they can't get online.

Another side issue, is that the company I work for is hardly competitive with anyone else. Our DSL offerings have been the same price for the same speed for the last 4 years, so unless the company wants to upgrade their equipment (which they're always looking for the cheapest deal.. thus our beloved DSL Server that goes down more than a 5 cent whore), the ship will sink, or be overtaken before speeds have the possibility of increasing.

Not to mention, the execs in the company don't look at us as tech support, but customer service, hence the progression has started to migrate us into a call center.

Great idea, demote all your techs and involve a revolving door as your staffing policy.

[TNT]

It seems like every 2-3 months it flakes out and everyone gets kicked off, so we get the round of calls of people "running businesses" out of their homes, losing thousands of dollars because they can't get online.

Oh, lordy... those are my least favorite calls.

Callers: My internet's been out for an hour. I could be losing thousands of dollars.
Me: You run this lucrative business off a $40 a month residential internet connection that explicitly prohibits commercial use? That's certainly a responsible business decision.

That shuts them up.

[that_chick_in_I.T.]

Callers: My internet's been out for an hour. I could be losing thousands of dollars.
Me: You run this lucrative business off a $40 a month residential internet connection that explicitly prohibits commercial use? That's certainly a responsible business decision.

LOL!
That's another one we get. Our hosting service costs less than ten bucks a month, but every time a mailserver or webserver goes down, we get callers screaming about how we've cost them thousands of dollars, and they expect us to pay them back. Yep. They think we're supposed to pay them for the customers they supposedly missed.

One of my coworkers used to work for Comcast. He'd get the same calls from people screaming about how a cable outage was destroying their business. At which point he would inform them that running a business on a residential line was specifically prohibited, and close down the account.

[BlaqueKatt]

In the New York area, there was an outage of about a week or so, yet we have those calling in demanding $50 credits and so forth. The service is $19.95 per month, which means the service is 66 cents per day.

I feel your pain-my job used to be to issue SLA(Service Level Agreements) to both DSL and Managed Internet Service customers. Now mind you I dealt with anywhere from $49.95/month DSL customers to one client that had a monthly invoice of 21 MILLION dollars. One major retailer paid extra for a gold SLA plan and thus if the service was down for more than four hours got service on that line free for the month, the client had heavily discounted T1 lines about 2 thousand of them, every month I got a list of trouble tickets from tech support and issued the major retailer their credits, usually around 3 or 4 grand, they thanked me for my work and were quite pleasent to deal with-but man the worst were the $49.95 DSL customers-I hated them with a passion-they would argue over 60 CENTS!!!

[Raerlynn]

What's worse are the ones I shut off because they're spamming and/or chewing up a metric crapton of bandwidth...then tell me I have no right to interrupt "their service".

After the third one, I began pointing out that if they didn't like it, imagine how the rest of their town must feel, since they're preventing them from email/internet access. Usually shuts em up.

[greensinestro]

Oh, lordy... those are my least favorite calls.

Callers: My internet's been out for an hour. I could be losing thousands of dollars.
Me: You run this lucrative business off a $40 a month residential internet connection that explicitly prohibits commercial use? That's certainly a responsible business decision.

That shuts them up.

I absolutely love that one. I dealt with that in customer service for the telephone. The one I remember most was the man who wanted a $50 credit for one day of outage, yet he paid residential rates of $30 per month. Per the Public Service Commission, a business account is defined as an account where the customer pays equivilent rates of a business account, and has a business listing in both the white and yellow pages. My response to this low life scum was, "Sir, you do not pay $50 per day for phone service. You pay $1 per day, and if you were out an entire day, we will compensate you for $1. If you are using the line for business, you need to change it to a business account, pay business rates, and list it as a business. Needless to say, he was pissed and went up the chain of command. He got his $50, but after he went all the way to the corporate level. Screw company policy if it means satisfying an unreasonable bastard like this.

[BravoOrig]

I always love the "run a business from home" customers. As previously stated, $40 a month connection, and no backup plan just in case, so you don't lose MILLIONS of dollars?! Sounds like you won't be in business too long.
Or if I schedule a technician to come out, because it's something I can't fix on the phone, and it's uber important, then I look back on their account to find: Tech called their cellphone, left a message, then went to their house and doortagged when noone was home.
Had one who uses our phone over cable service, says its for his state office line, etc. I inform him we never intended to sell our phone service for business purposes, for this very reason.

And finally, the three-punch combo. Running a business, on a residential line, also have our phone service, modem is not connecting, and no picture. Which means something is seriously wrong. Sorry, no picture and no dialtone automatically gets "high priority" at our company, so the fact you run a business too, won't get them out any sooner than that.

[TNT]

Yeah... I love the old, "I can't wait until this afternoon for a tech. I'm running a business on this connection and I need a tech out here right this minute." Great... not only are you violating the terms of service, you want us to give you special service.

I wonder about a lot of these home based businesses... especially when someone says, "Without email, I could be losing thousands and thousands of dollars in orders."

That usually means the caller hooked up with some spammer outfit and is seriously expecting huge profits to flood in. I'm so tempted to say, "I just checked the headers in your mailbox... I know this is going to come as a surprise, but it's not filled up with hundreds of orders for generic C1/\|_1S. There are, however, several thousand emails offering you more opportunities to get rich at home."

[greensinestro]

Yes, I love that, too. What's funny is these people most often are the ones who get their accounts suspended for non payment, and always make this claim when they are shut off. But, when it comes to no dial tone on a phone, the customer will make this claim only when the committment date of repair is past 15 minutes! This also is a defense used by customers who report an additional phone line out, which they are paying residential rates on, and expect top priority to be taken even though they have another phone line working in the house. "Well, nobody has that number because it's a private line." OK, so call customer service, and tell them you want your line upgraded to a business line, then we'll count it as a business line. For now, it's residential, it's an additional line in your home, and therefore it is not a dire emergency to have it repaired.

[Lehk]

transfer to billing for a service upgrade to a business account

[Tito]

Oh, yeah, I remember calls like that all too well from my call center days. I had this one guy threaten to call his congressman because he had been shut off for non-pay.

I had another guy claim he had not been notified of his past due balance before being shut off. I told him the notification is on the bill. His response was, 'Well, I didn't see it! It's not my fault I don't read the bill!!!!' It was one of those moments where I wish I had the ability to reach through the phone.

[TNT]

I remember one of my favorite non-pays... I posted this story one of the earlier incarnations of the board.

Caller: I keep asking you guys to call me and send me a fax about two days before the bill is due, to remind me to pay it. Is that too much to ask?
Me: Let me get this straight... you want someone to monitor your account, and then call you and fax you to remind you to pay the bill?
Caller: Yes.
Me: Sort of like your own personal account executive?
Caller: Yes.
Me: You're serious, aren't you?
Caller: Is that really too much to ask?
Me: Yes. Yes it is.