gmc@mvuxr.att.com (Glenn M Cooley) (03/14/90)
>I called MCI yesterday to switch my service over to them. >They told me that I'd have to call my New England Telephone Business >office also, because "the local phone companies don't believe us What has been happening is that TELCOs hire telemarketing firms to harass, I mean call, people at dinner time and ask if they want to switch. These firms get paid on commission and so MAGICALLY, the TELCOs were told of many people who wanted to switch but didn't. NETCO, my local TELCO, also does this (and who out there thinks they're squeaky clean?) and started charging me for added services (e.g. call waiting) which I never ordered. They insisted that I just must have said yes in such a call (or it just must have been my wife) because this service could not have been supplied otherwise. After further argument, they canceled the service and credited me the overcharges (do TELCOs hire people who see arguing as a fringe benefit or are they trained to never, never, never, give in before 20 minutes are up) still maintaining that this just could not happen and that mine was the only case they had ever encountered. Some two years later I read in TIME about this WIDESPREAD problem which was a COMMON occurrance for up to 50% of the orders relayed by the telemarketers.
bakerj@ncar.ucar.edu (Jon Baker) (03/21/90)
In article <5169@accuvax.nwu.edu>, gmc@mvuxr.att.com (Glenn M Cooley) writes: > NETCO, my local TELCO, also does this (and who out there thinks > they're squeaky clean?) and started charging me for added services > (e.g. call waiting) which I never ordered. They insisted that I just > must have said yes in such a call (or it just must have been my wife) > because this service could not have been supplied otherwise. After > further argument, they canceled the service and credited me the > overcharges (do TELCOs hire people who see arguing as a fringe benefit > or are they trained to never, never, never, give in before 20 minutes > are up) still maintaining that this just could not happen and that > mine was the only case they had ever encountered. Also happened to me a few years back - my long distance service suddenly changed to MCI, even though I had deliberately elected AT&T as my carrier. I called MCI about it, and they admitted to the practice of calling US West and bogusly reporting that customers wanted to change to MCI. The Telco wouldn't argue, for legal reasons and because they could charge for the switch. (As it happens, this was my first such switch, which was a freebie). I convinced the MCI rep that I'd keep their service if they'd credit me the $5 switch fee (which I wasn't actually charged) PLUS another $5 switch fee to switch back to AT&T if I didn't like MCI. I used up my $10 credit years ago, and have kept MCI since. Moral : cheap marketing tactic, but it worked.