Today is the day I really get excited. The man in brown will be visiting me today. UPS. I love getting packages. It's like Christmas, but year round! No matter that I already know what is in the box or even if the package is not for me. I still get a little rush from knowing that I am getting something today! Completely silly, I know. Today's delivery is all stuff for me or my business so it is extra fun!
The phone company... ugh.
The history: We have from time to time gotten billed for things that we didn't authorize or want on our Verizon account. Crummy people like to order a service, say a 12 month online subscription to how to get out of debt for the low low price of $29.95 a month, and somehow they get it billed to their phone number. Problem is they don't give their phone number, they give ours. Verizon does allow third party billing. The first time this happened (with the above mentioned service) we had a third party billing block added to our account. But once we switched to FIOS, the block didn't switch with us. So about 2 months after getting FIOS, we were hit with a $39.99 fee from some long distance companythat I had never heard of. We're on Verizon's freedom plan so our long distance is with Verizon. I called Verizon who transferred me to the company that was billing us. That company said they were billing on behalf of some other company that was actually charging the service. I got the number and called them. Someone had used our number to sign up for this service and got a free 100 minute calling card. I explained that I didn't sign up for the service and the lady said she couldn't cancel unless I sent the card back. Um, no, I didn't sign up for this service. I freely admit that the tone of my voice was not friendly. She hung up on me. Everytime I called back, she hung up. The billing company refunded the money charged but warned that unless we squared it with the rude company, the charge could keep reoccurring. And it did, month after month, we'd deal with this. Finally, it stopped after 4 months. Fast forward to this morning.
The phone rang. It was an automated service call from Verizon. It said this is a call to the Switzer residence to remind you that FIOS will be installed at ... on Friday Sept 4th. It wasn't our address. I pressed the button to speak to someone, talked to her, she transferred me to a FIOS man. The FIOS man wanted to transfer me right away to sales and billing. I had waited for over 5 minutes on hold just to speak to the FIOS man. I asked him to please help me and not to transfer me. He checked my account and said nothing was there. Why then, did we get a call? Well, someone must have just transposed the phone number when they typed it into the system. Okay, then why did they say our name? Oh, you must have just heard it incorrectly. Well, is there anyway to trace it based on our phone number. Only if you talk to sales and billing. So, I transferred again. The sales lady was helpful, except anytime she had to pause to wait on the computer system to search, she tried to sell me something. FIOS TV, would only bump our bill up to $119.99 a month. Nope, not interested. Okay, how about FIOS TV, a free Netbook, and a two year contract for only $99 a month. So, I had to ask, what if we move to a place that doesn't have FIOS. Well, then we'd be charged a penalty fee for disconnected before the two years are up. Okay, then no, not interested. Okay, how about an extra phone line. No, still not interested, could you please just solve my problem?
No one could find anything on my account at this moment. Which means, it could show up later. We'll keep fingers crossed on that one.
I like our phone number because it is soooooo easy to remember and two of my three children have already memorized it. However, I HATE our phone number for some many other reasons. For instance if a person goes online to get a free quote on their mortgage, but doesn't want to get annoying phone calls from mortgage brokers and only wants the emails, they will often enter our phone number. I get the annoying calls instead. Or, the girl (or guy) gives the annoying guy (or girl) at the bar our number. Sometimes, the jealous ex-girlfriends that call at 2 am looking for some guy and then cusses me out because I'm sleeping with her man. Collect calls from an inmate in the Baltimore City lock up that we don't accept. First it starts out as "a collect call from John at the Baltimore City Jail" No, don't accept. Then it gets creative "a collect call from Yo, it's me at the Baltimore City Jail" No, still no. Pretty soon it's a call from "pick up the phone" and "bitch you better accept". That happens at least once a year, sometimes twice.
And of course, there's the Gibson Island Gatehouse calls. The last four of their number is 0012 vs ours at 1212. And of course, the misdials for telephone information at 555-1212. I try to nicely suggest just dialing 411 and several times have been told "that's what I dialed". Well, no, you pressed 10 buttons, not 3.
We also get lots of random calls to things like auto part stores, doctor offices, etc. Perhaps people are just too lazy to look up the phone number.
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That is so weird and annoying! I would've ditched that number right away. But who would have guessed that that was everyone's go-to fake number? I guess it's more believable than xxx-1234 and more memorable than something random. But still!
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