A new satellite tv customer to Qwest, regardless of their credit raiting, can be required to give a deposit for service—up to ninety dollars. Qwest customer service representatives claimed they didn't have any record of a deposit I foolishly provided them with, forwarded my calls to other service reps, gave me other numbers to call, etc.—for over four months. With the time I spent on hold counted, it took me well over three hours on the telephone to recover my 90 dollar deposit.
What does Qwest do with all of the deposit money they amass from customers accross the country? I spoke to one representative who said they doubted it wasn't making any interest—and I'm sure he was right. It's a fair bet that Qwest collects deposits and then drops the bulk of the money into a hedge fund or something similar. If that's true, then it makes money until they return it to you.
The money was returned to me with less than 1% interest. Far less than it would have made in my retirement investments.
Please don't send me hack rebuttals—Qwest can't by law do this or that. Accounting methods allow Qwest and others to use my deposit money for certain purposes, which then frees up other monies they would be using for those purposes to be put into places like hedge fund accounts. Clever, but not too clever.
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