[img_assist|nid=|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=|height=] A CONSUMER-MATH PROBLEM: How many cell-phone calls would you have to make to be billed $1,759.35?
That question recently occupied our household, as did a consumer-satisfaction problem: How many customer-service calls would you have to make to your cell-phone company before someone admitted that the $1,759.35 wasn’t your responsibility? “Our” debt was finally cancelled, but not before the company let us know we were being referred to a collection agency.
It all started back in August, when we decided to trade in my wife’s car. The trade was straightforward, our old car (plus, of course, some cash) for a new one of the same model. But there was something we had to tend to as we traded.
Our car had an in-dash phone. It’s a marvelous convenience, since you can talk hands-free. But it’s not the sort of phone you remove and keep for your next car. So we called our cell-phone company to end the service. We also asked that the number be held for the next few days. We explained that we wanted to keep the number for the in-dash phone we figured we’d soon buy for the new car.
When we saw the stratospheric price of in-dash phones (a subject that ought to interest my colleague David Brooks), we decided we didn’t need one after all. So Jill called our company and asked that the number be transferred to one of our hand-held phones. It was a number already known to schools, doctors, and neighbors.
As summer turned into autumn, we forgot all about this. We assumed the number had been transferred to the hand-held since the bills we got in September and October were small, in line with what we’d been paying.
Early November brought the bill for the previous month. My wife didn’t open the envelope right away, knowing that the payment wasn’t due for some weeks. When she did open it, she immediately realized something was badly wrong: $897.86 was “DUE UPON RECEIPT.” We’d never had a bill anywhere near that much. It stretched on for pages, and the calls listed–all 556 of them, mostly made while roaming–were to places we didn’t recognize. Maybe, we thought, the service on that in-dash phone had never been ended. Maybe the number had never been transferred. Maybe someone–the new owner–had racked up those charges.
In a call to customer service, Jill navigated the many recorded prompts before reaching first someone named Richard, then someone named Philip, who said he’d “research” the problem. At least he asked whether we’d like to have the service terminated and the number retired. This was finally done, on November 22. But that left the matter of the bill. We weren’t going to pay it.
Soon the bill for November arrived, and it, too, was astronomical–$888.48, for 483 calls, most (again) while roaming. And this bill informed us that October was “past due.” Past due! Days later we got a letter advising that a collection agency would be assigned the job of prying the $1,759.35 out of us. Just what we needed: more strangers calling us around dinner time.
Surely there was a disconnect here. None of the customer-service people we’d talked to had so much as hinted that we would have to pay. They had told us, in fact, that their own records showed a note back in August recording our request to have the service on the in-dash phone terminated.
After a week of conversations with Philip, Ramon, Richard, another Richard, and then Angela, a very helpful lady named Mimi, who works in “fraud,” finally realized what had happened. She blotted out the debt and actually gave us a combined credit/refund (which we hadn’t thought to ask for) of close to $100.
I’ll confess that I finished my conversation with Mimi unsatisfied. What about the person who made those calls–all 1,039 of them? We’re talking an average of more than 20 per day, most while roaming, to places in the Mid-Atlantic region but also to California, Michigan, Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Would the new owner get a bill for $1,759.35?
No, said Mimi. Why? She didn’t really explain, but I guess the phone company figured it didn’t have a case. After all, it had made a mistake when it had failed to end our service and transfer the number. The new owner simply took advantage of the mistake. But that doesn’t mean he can be excused, and I refuse to believe he didn’t know what he was doing.
Meanwhile, I can’t help but wonder whether he’s got our old in-dash working, and if so who’s providing the service. And, not least, whether he’s making as many calls as he did when the phone was still “ours.” I doubt it. If he is, he’ll shortly be learning the fine points of the difference between free speech and paid speech.
–Terry Eastland
