Kind of a lame, short rant, but… The difference.
ComEd-
Me: I was late with my bill. I don’t want to default on my payment plan.
Them: No problem. You payed it today? I’ll put that down, shouldn’t be an issue.
SBC-
Me: I was late with-
Them: INFIDEL! cuts off phone service
sigh.
If you live in a SBC area you may be able to change to Sage Telecom. I recommend Sage (Disclosure: I used to work for them and I have shares in the company).
SBC cut off my phone service once because they failed to get some information from me that they needed. Rather than contact me and tell me that there may be a problem they just cut off the service. Bastards.
I spent over two years trying to get SBC to change the name on my bill from my exes to my own. Over and over and over, despite the fact that I was the only one who’d ever paid on the account, and the ex was no longer living in state. I filled out the paperwork they sent me, twice, and still it was an issue. So I cancelled and went with a cell and never looked back.
I gotta tell you, when I started getting collection notices for the final month’s balance, I took great pleasure in ignoring them since they weren’t in my name. Where’s the smug smiley when you need him?
The only problem I have with SBC is that indecipherable Hindi accent every time I call tech support. :mad:
When I was having my own problems with getting SBC to start phone service in a new apartment, one of my friends and I tried to come up with things that SBC could stand for. The best one I could think of was “Sucks to Be a Customer”, but he came up with a much better one: “Satan’s Bastard Children”.
I’m so incredibly close to cancelling my SBC land line - I called them recently to turn off my long distance service, and they informed me that there would be a $10 charge for that. So I switched to a no monthly fee plan for the moment. As soon as I get that next bill, if there’s any sort of LD monthly fee I’ll be cancelling the service completely.
And they had the nerve to remind me that they have deals with Cingular for cellular service after I told them that I had recently gotten a cell phone. I told the rep that that was why I didn’t go with Cingular (and that was the main reason I didn’t go with them).