I have been an Ameritech Phone Company Customer for 7 and a half years! Why? Because, other than using a Celluar Phone, they monopolize the area in which I live and I have no choice!
With this in mind, I recently was making telephone calls, after returning home from being out of town, when all of a sudden my phone service quit working. I immediately went to the secondary line in the house and it was fine so I called Ameritech assuming I had technical difficulties. I am told my phone was just disconnected because of non-payment. I explained to the gal that I would just pay it to her over the phone right now because I had been out of town and had not had the opportunity to pay and mail my bills.
She then informs me that I have been charged a Security Deposit because this was the second time that my phone was turned off in a 1 year period. I was schocked! I said you have been paid every month for over 7 years. I have never NOT paid you. Yes, sometimes I am late because of being out of town, on business but never do you guys not get paid. She said there was nothing she could do for me that I woud have to pay the deposit, with my payment, to restore service. So, I asked to speak with a Manager. After several minutes, (maybe 10) I was disconnected after being on hold!
I called back and another Customer Service Representative went through the whole scenario described above and finally transferred me to a Manager again. After waiting for a few minutes, I was greeted in a manner less than professional! The gentleman said "This is Mr. &", why did you ask to be connected to a Manager? I explained in detail again about the fact that I can understand the need to charge customers a deposit who do not pay their bills or continously are getting disconnected and go several months without paying their bills. However, I called within 10 minutes of being disconnected and was ready to pay. It was not as if I was avoiding payment! He asked me several questions about why I did make payment arrangements rather than pay late. I explained that payment arrangements in my mind are for those who cannot afford to pay their bill. That is not my situation - I can pay but have a hrd time getting payment there in time because of being out of town on a regular basis. He said had I have called and expalined this that I would not have been disconnected. At this point I was feeling like maybe he was going to remove the depoist and allow me to pay the bill, and then restore service. (Mind you - I have 2 telephone accounts)
After several more minutes of sitting in silence, while he was reveiwing my account history, he finally said "Well, Ms. - , I am afraid that I cannot remove the deposit because this is the second time your account has been disconnected in a 12 month period. I could not believe my ears! I was told this within the first few minutes of my original call. Why did he just spend all this time discussing the other options I had to avoid disconnection, to only tell me he cannot help me. Lastly, I cannot believe you can call a company and make arrangements to pay your bill late and they do not bother you but call within 10 minutes, after being disconnected, to make a full payment and that is not good enough.
The depsoit is $210 and they do not refund it to you until after 1 year, at which time, they review the account and make a determination to refund it. I wonder if you ever see your money again? I am not going to pay this deposit because I do not feel like I am a "threat" of not paying my bill. They have received my monthly payments of $150 - $200 every month and that is just for one telephone! The other phone is $60 - $90 monthly and it is paid every month!
The lack of customer service or lack of ability to review an account ledger and see a good customer is amazing to me! How are these people trained? Would Ameritech rather have hundreds of payment arrangements or hundrends of customers paying their bill, in full, 10 minutes after the due date???
I guess we all know the answer to this!
Jeanie
Indianapolis, Indiana
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