Adelphia Keeps Calling
Posted August 18th, 2003 @ 08:24pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I haven't gotten a bill for my cable modem service in a few months. No surprise, then, to find out that the bill was at $160 and pending a disconnect! Silly me.
Unfortunately, Adelphia chose to alert me to this fact by having a recorded message ("Hi, this is Taylor Johnson from Adelphia. Please call 1-800-###-#### for an exciting message from your cable provider."). Every minute. For thirty minutes now.
I paid the bill after a few minutes when simply hanging up didn't seem to prevent the recording from calling back. I gave 'em $200 because I like round numbers. Taylor kept calling. After a few more calls, I complained and got another $20 credit on my account.
Taylor is still calling me. It seems to be slowing down a little, though. Maybe that's a good thing. The first four people with whom I've spoken have been unable to fix this. Maybe I can get another $20?
Adelphia sucks.
P.S. Taylor is still calling. The last guy at Adelphia said "we can't credit you for your phone bill." The last guy at Adelphia doesn't seem to get it.
P.P.S. Another update: I've stopped answering every call "fuck you Taylor" in case Kate Beckinsale decides to call me. Don't want to make a bad first impression, you know.
P.P.P.S. I called again. It's now been 50 minutes and Taylor is still calling. This time, the supervisor said "Pay your bill on time and this kind of stuff won't happen." That was about the most polite thing he said. His name is Mike and his ID# is 57100. He probably made that up, but if that is indeed his information, well, I expect he hasn't heard the last from me.
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Posted 18 Aug 2003 at 9:29pm #
That's why I have a DSL service that charges my AMEX once a month so I won't have to deal with the hassles of paying yet another bill.
Posted 18 Aug 2003 at 9:30pm #
That hasn't stopped MCI from calling me every month the day before my bill is automatically paid to remind me that I'm about to go past due.
Posted 19 Aug 2003 at 1:31am #
Couldn't this classify as some sort of harassment. Call and threaten legal action. You may get some progress.
Posted 19 Aug 2003 at 1:38am #
Suckage dude. A buddy of mine uses the "are you paid to take crap" approach and basically lets go on whoever he talks to. Then asks if they are paid to take shit like this. He keeps working on up until he gets someone who IS paid to take shit, and at that point something can usually be done. He got to the head of the support department for the easter us for Dell at one point like this I believe, after which his malfunctioning CDRom was fixed quite quickly (fuzzy on the exact details, but that's the gist). See what happens when you lay into someone, their mother, parantage, and what you'd like to do with the phone right now.
Posted 19 Aug 2003 at 1:28pm #
Der Kunde ist König
All fun in the services department. In German there's the saying Der Kunde ist König, i.e. the customer is king. And of course as a corollary, what the customer...
Posted 23 Aug 2003 at 6:03pm #
Somewhat along the lines of what arcterex said, just act really upset.
there once was a middle aged white guy who called Gateway tech support every 5 minutes and screamed "You're trying to take advantage of me because i'm a minority!" and then hung up. after about 3 hours of this, the head of the department put out a memo, so to speak, saying "just give him whatever it is he wants"
the guy got a brand new gateway. which was against company policy.
the moral? be annoying. ...or that guy sucked. or something.
Posted 29 Sep 2003 at 9:09pm #
hey how about working for this wonderful company for 3 years and they fire you for taking 1.5 hours off to spend with your daughter & with permission and making up time and not billing for it. so they got 3 hours from me and I lost my job for spending time with my daughter after not seeing her for 2 weeks. I have been catching 10 + customers a week for theft and they dont want me to shut them off. hmm do they want to make money or just raise the bills to the legal paying customers
Posted 23 Jan 2004 at 10:29am #
this country sucks !!! adelphia ,or dish or direct tv and all utiltys they are milking us like cows !! fuck them all
Posted 18 Mar 2004 at 5:25pm #
Adelphia charges entirely too much money for their entertainment. Their commercials blast the Dish and make false claims. They refuse to compete with the Dish and offer packages that have similar channels, and a similar pricing. You can get a plan from the Dish Network for $29.99 and get about 60 channels. If you pay an extra $5 a month you can also get the DVR service. Adelphia offers about 60 channels for their basic service for around $48 a month in my area.....without the DVR! You can save $13 a month with the Dish, and get more for your $$. The Dish also has a new DVR box that can controll two TV's. You can watch different channels on each TV and also record two programs at one time! Instead of paying for the extra box, you only pay the DVR fee. It is like you are paying for the DVR service, and getting a second box for another TV free! How much evtra would you have to pay Adelphia for their DVR service? Most likely you would have to pay a rental fee for the box, and at least have their digital cable service as well ( which is more $$ than basic service )I believe that I saw that the fee for the DVR service alone without whatever extra charges they throw in there is something like $12 a month! Adelphia relies on people to be lazy and accept getting railroaded because people in general do not like to change services. I had Powerlink Cable internet service. Just before I cancelled it, I called to see if I could get a better deal. I had basic, and digital cable along with powerlink. They said that I already had the best "Advantage" Pack, and that there was no money that could be saved. Whose "Advantage" are those Packs anyways.....certainly not their customers. I then dropped off my digital cable boxes, and powerlink modem and just kept basic cable service since I was not offered a deal. About two weeks later I got a phone call from Adelphia offering me Powerlink for $19.95 a month for 6 months. Where was this deal BEFORE I cancelled my service? I even called them to check on any deals before I cancelled. It was like they were waiting for me to cancell first and make sure I was serious about wanting more for my $$. I told them that it was too late because I now had Verizon DSL which seems just as fast to me. I asked them if there were any deals (once again) for my basic cable service that I currently still have. It has been 6 days, and still have got no response. I guess they are waiting for me to cancell that too before any offer will be made....if any. These people are doing their business the wrong way in my book. Once people like myself get frustrated and go looking elsewhere for a better deal.....and find them, they are not going to come back to their lowly overpriced service. I am now waiting for my Dish, and can not wait to make that LAST call to Adelphia to cancell ALL my services with them.
Posted 15 Sep 2004 at 8:49pm #
I've had so many problems with Adelphia and today was the final straw. From my blog "Around 4 PM today I found my internet and Cable out. Thankfully, there was a Adelphia contractor around the corner doing a install who came and checked it out for me. So what was the verdict? There was a Terminator on the line. Someone from adelphia had locked out my cable! The only problem is, My bill wasn’t due till the 26th and there wasn’t any past due funds. I called Adelphia and they told me “The service should not be cut off and it’s currently active with a bill due on the 26th.â€â€¦ well heck I could have told them that!"