Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Qwest and the one day rule.

Fun hour here folks. I tried to call the company making the welcome mats for the high school and found out my cell phone (and only phone) had been shut off. I was automatically forwarded to their collection department. Now, a few months ago I had renewed with a 2 year contract and was given $150 credit. This month was the first time in a few months that I actually owed something, on the 12th I was notified that I owed $20. I get paid once a month, so I was just going to pay it at the end of the month, like I always have. Not so much this time. Seems that over the months that I've had the credit Qwest found out that since cell phones are luxuries, they are allowed to shut off your service for being one (1) {uno} [a single] day late. And even if it's for a mere $20. I explained all this to the service rep, trying to remain calm since it really wasn't his fault. He was sympathetic, to the point of transferring me to the accounts department so I could have my due date changed to after the 1st. After being on hold for about 5 or 6 minutes I lost the connection and was basically hung up on. So I called back. Got another guy and told him my whole story again, adding in the fact that I've had the same phone number for 15 years and been paying on it faithfully for that long and that I thought it was absurd they would shut off my phone for being one day late. He was sympathetic too, got my phone back on without having to pay the $20 right now (I told him I wouldn't have the money until I got paid at the end of the month). The only problem is that now I have to go down to the Qwest store tomorrow and get them to change my due date to the 3rd, because if I don't I will have to either go through this every month or start paying my bill 26 days in advance. I tell ya, I love big corporations.

3 comments:

Jannx said...

Wow, that's crazy. I'd always assumed that corporations gave a 10 day grace period after a due date to pay a bill. Once I got back from Japan, the last thing I wanted to do was get caught up in those contracts for a phone. When I finally broke down and bought a cell phone, I went with a prepaid phone, and I haven't really had any major difficulties.

The other surprise was that you get paid once a month. Here in NYC, we get paid bi-monthly. Again, I just assumed that educators in other areas were paid the same.

Max Sartin said...

Yeah, I was a little ticked off. To shut down my phone one day after the bill is due, especially after my history with the company. I could understand it if it was my first month, I have no doubt that there are a lot of people out there that get a new cell phone and never pay the bills, just switching companies every time it gets shut off. But come on, they have to have a way to tell how long a customer's been with them and adjust their policy accordingly.
It's kind of funny how we expect things to be similar in education across the country. I've been surprised at things like that when I've talked to teachers from other states at conferences. But, yeah, we get paid at the end of every month. It's not too bad when you get used to it, I just have (or at least I thought I did) all my bills set up to be paid at once, do it the first of the month and it's done with.

Jannx said...

In Japan, I was paid once a month, and you're right, it does take some getting use to. The down side was having to pay off my rather large debit from several credit cards.

Paying all of my bills at the beginning of the month meant that I was broke for about 30 days from the day after pay day until next payday.