The Day From Hell:
Bear with me, as this is a lengthy story...
My husband and I decided to drive to the beach on New Year's Day last year, which was about 100 miles away from our home in Portland, Oregon. We just wanted to see the ocean one more time for the year and get some yummy clam chowder... Just a day trip, mind you.
The ocean was stormy and the sun was out, it was great. I was running away from an incoming wave, when my car keys must have jumped out of my jacket pocket and landed in the soft sand?
At any rate, we didn't have a spare set with us, my cell phone was going dead and I had no car charger with me nor any change for the pay phone. Hind sight, I would have gotten cash and then exchanged it somewhere for coin.
So we are a hundred miles from home with no way to get there without a key or a ride. So I start making phone calls, wisely, to make sure we can get home before the hoopla of the new year rolls in and everything closes down for the day (no doubt early due to the holiday).
I utilized my phone until it died, then resorted to payphones nearby. I went to 2 out of order phones until the third one, which I used. Unfortunately for me, it was the phone that carried Zero Plus Dialing... Which I wasn't even caring who the long distance carrier was at that moment; we just wanted to make it home that day! Who reads any fine print at that moment when you are panicky or thinks to ask the operator (through no small number of options within the automated messages) how much this call will cost me?!
Anyway... I made 4 phone calls by way of charging to my home number (how they got an approval, I will never know, as no one was home) and was on the phone for a total of nineteen minutes (19 minutes!) trying to coordinate getting my car to the nearest dealer, a mere 12 miles away, so a special key could be made and programmed to make it start. We made it there just in time and got home by 8 PM. Yea.
Seventeen days later, I get my phone bill. For 19 minutes (13 min. Of which were only 12 miles away... To the dealer and 6 minutes to Portland, a distance of 100 miles) we were charged a total of $71.69. SEVENTY-ONE DOLLARS AND 69 CENTS! For god's sake! Are they INSANE??!! No, but Zero Plus Dialing Inc is an unethical RIP OFF COMPANY!!! COME ON!
This is highway robbery at its' best! What a joke (the joke is on all Zero Plus Dialing's customers) of a company. Apparently, we are not alone in our misery about dealing with con artists like Zero Plus Dialing Inc! AAAAAAHHHH
I won't ever be caught DEAD without my charged cell phone. God love the cell phone and free long distance!!!
0 comments