In an effort to lower our month to month costs at the request of my fiance' I started to research lower cost telephone providers. I went to Lowermybills.com in late October and selected the lowest cost service that appeared to be the lowest base cost at 19.95.
I signed up for the service and followed all of the directions to setup the account online. Since the phone is listed and billed to my fiance'; I filled out the electronic forms as requested. (There was no location to add my name to the forms without violating the directions.)
My fiance' asked me in early December if I knew what was going on with the phone; At that time I did not know.
I started to research the issue: I found order number was 357019 was placed on October 27th and was completed on October 31st 2008. Our telephone was set for suspension on 12/9 for lack of payment.
On 12/4/08 I contacted Marsha in the payment department and she transferred me to Nicole in Customer Service. I was unwilling to pay the bill until I could see the details related to our billing since the total bill was 77.54 and this amount was in excess of our ATT bill.
Once online with Nicole since my name is different than my fiance'; she would not provide me with any information or access to the account. I asked her to lookup the telephone I was calling from and she would find that my fiance's name was listed on this phone.
I continued to explain that I had setup the new account with their company and that I was contacting them at my fiance's request. Nicole would still not provide me with the information necessary to logon to the web site to review the bills for payment. She was willing to allow me to pay the bill, but, not to gain access to the account that I setup.
Now I must add that by this time I am very irrate; I set up the account and I can not log into the account to see what I have been billed. Nicole referenced that she is only following the guidelines setup by the FCC.
I go on to repeat that I setup the account at which time Nicole tells me that I fraudulently setup the account. At this point I asked to speak with her manager.
Sharon came on the line to explain that due to the FCC regulations I can not do anything. I was still very frustrated and irrate with Sharon and frustrated that I can setup an account, but, not access the account.
Sharon said there was nothing I could do to fix this issue without having my fiance' contact them and have my name added to the account.
My fiance' came home and paid the bill online 12/8/8 via the automated system.
She called the company on 12/9/08 and had me added to the account so that I could talk with them about the account.
1/19/09
We still have not received any notifications from Cleartel that we have an account, that our phone was ever ported, or anything.
I called customer service today to gain access to our online account.
I asked the customer service person if she would provide me with the information (account number) needed to logon to my online account. I gave her my name and told her that I had been added to the account. She went off-line for a few minutes.
When she came back she said that she could not provide me with any information about the account because my name was not on the account. I explained to her that my fiance' added my name on 12/9/08; she notated that she added it on a printed out order confirmation that we received on Ocotber 25th 2008.
She told me that there was no activity on my account since I called on 12/4. I told her that she needed to lookup and find when the bill was paid and she would see that the bill was paid after 12/4 and that she would find that my name had been added to the account.
She insisted that I was not on the account and that whoever paid the bill paid it online. I disagreed - (wrongly) - that my fiance' had talked to someone to pay the bill and that she added my name to the account. Actually, the bill was paid via the autmated phone system on 12/8 and my fiance' called the customer service department on 12/9 to add me to the account.
I expressed my frustration and anger that due to poor record keeping this company is preventing me from accessing my account. She offered to contact my fiance' via cell phone. I explained that this was not appropriate to interrupt her while she was on a client site. She did not understand that these types of interuptions are inappropriate.
I asked to speak to a supervisor; she said that Sharon remembered me and would not talk with me.
I continued to express my anger and frustration; I also apologized to her that I was not angry with her just with these ridiculous policies and with the fact that the account change on 12/9 was not properly documented.
I asked her name and she gave me the name Nicole and she then transfered me to Sharon - I went to voicemail.
This has been the most frustrating and un-profesional processes I have exerienced.
We received one confirmation email that the order via Lowermybills.com on 10/25/08.
Since that date we have not received any informational telephone calls, emails, or paper mail explaining the changes or the process for assuring payment of our account.
We followed the directions properly on the web site signing up for the new service. We followed up with the requirment to have my fiance' add me to the telephone account.
Yet we do not have access to the account. We can not review the account to get an understanding of why the cost of our bill went up from our ATT bill.
We can not review the two billing cycles that we have already paid.
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