Matt Simpson <SYSMATT@ukcc.uky.edu> (03/19/90)
Bob Goudreau's description of having his phone service disconnected because the phone company forgot to delay a cutover as he requested reminded me of one chapter in my long story of trying to get phone service in my new residence ... so I thought I'd relay the whole bitter story. It started in about Feb. 89, when I was almost through (I thought) construction of my new house, about 1/4 mile fom my old one, on the same property, served by the same central office and same cable. I called SCB to request a new service installation. Since I was unsure of my exact moving date, I asked if they could go ahead and do the physical cable installation, and I would call back later and give a cutover date. No, they couldn't do that, they had to cutover the day they installed the cable. I asked if I could have the service active at both locations for a transition period. She thought so, but if not, what date did I want it cutover? I picked an arbitrary date in April, figuring that if I didn't move at the same time the phone service did, I could just leave the answering machine at whatever location had a live phone jack. Several days later, I recieved a letter informing me that due to "unanticipated growth" in my area, they would not be able to immediately fulfill my request for new phone service. I called and asked what the problem was, and was told that they lacked the necessary outside plant capacity; translation: no more pairs on the cable. When did they think they could provide service? Maybe September, but they couldn't commit to that. I said that was totally ridiculous, that all they had to do was to use the pair serving my old house to serve the new one, since the old one would be probably be vacant until after they "upgraded their outside plant". I was told that they didn't do business that way, that they couldn't take a pair from an existing location to serve a new location, not even when requested to do so by the owner of both locations. Much irate screaming got me connected to a supervisor, who told me that there were other people in that area who had been waiting for service for 6 months, and were probably facing another 6 month wait, and that if they disconnected my existing service, they would have to use that capacity to fulfill one of those waiting orders before they could give it back to me, because that was a newer order. I said I didn't want my service disconnected, I wanted my demark point moved to another location on the same premises. Finally, they agreed to investigate that possibility. The next day, they called back, to tell me they had checked with engineering and had been told that the pair which served my old house could not be used to serve a new house 1/4 mile away. I'm not a telephony person, so I didn't understand their reason. They said something about a booster coil on the cable between the two locations. I was also so mad thay I didn't think quickly enough to catch their contradiction; the day before, they had threatened to give my pair to someone else, now they're telling me it won't work anywhere else. At this point I gave up, figuring I'd move without phone service, relying on an answering machine at the old location and a voice pager to keep in touch with the outside world. This was fine, till one day I came home and picked up the phone to return a call, and it was dead. I knew right away what the problem was, this was the date that I had originally requested the cutover. Of course, the new service was not installed. I drove 3 miles to the nearest pay-phone, and talked to repair service. The rep was extremely apologetic and helpful, and promised to have my old service restored by Monday evening (this was Friday). He mentioned that to get the order into the system, he actually had to enter a transfer request that said I was moving from the new house back to the old house, but not to worry, it wouldn't cost me anything. Sure enough, on Monday, I had phone service again, but I was a little dubious about the effect of the rep's new transfer order. So a couple of weeks later, just for grins, I called the service dept. to ask if there had been any improvement on the anticipated date for my new service. .."Sir your new service should already be operational" .. "Well, I'm afraid it isn't" .. The call almost became a Laurel-and Hardy type of conversation " Is your new address ....?" "No, that's my old address..." Finally, the confusion was resolved, and they regretfully informed me that the installation schedule had been delayed even more. For a couple of months, I lived with this inconvenience, until one day I got a bill which included $60 for "new service installation". I instantly guessed that this was for restoring the old service, and after I came down off the ceiling, I called to complain. I got hold of a real rude rep, who explained to me (in a "You idiot" tone) that the charge was for reconnecting my old service. When I complained that I didn't think I should pay for telco screwups, she explained in a very exasperated tone that a transfer request generated two work orders, one to disconnect old service, and one to connect new service, and just because one got cancelled, the other didn't automatically get cancelled. I said that I thought that was their problem, that all I wanted was continuous phone service, that they had disrupted that because of their own internal screwup, and that I shouldn't have to pay to restore it. She told me that I was all wrong. I then pointed out that I had been told that there would be no charge. "Who told you that?" .. "I don't remember his name, but it was one of your service reps" ... "Well, there are over 200 of us, and if you don't remember which one you talked to, I can't help you" ... "Well, if you can't help me, I'd like to speak to a manager" ... "All our managers are in a meeting, and I don't know when one will be available". She didn't offer to take a message to have a manager return my call when available. At this point, I got really angry, and did what I should have done months earlier: I called the state Public Service Commission and explained the situation. Less tahn 2 hours later, I received a call from someone at SCB, telling me that the $60 charge had been deducted from my bill, and that my new service would be installed the next week. The PSC rep even called me back the next week to verify that SCB had made good on their promise ... they had.