Living in the country has its advantages. Real privacy, autonomy, a quiet existence. But one huge disadvantage is not having access that most ppl take for granted which is cable and more service options. When you live in the boonies your only options for phone are the rinky dink phone companies and if you want internet they have dial up which I tolerated for years thinking this was my only option.
I work from home, and after enduring trying to work on dial-up i decided I couldn't work at home using just that anymore so I signed on with a satellite provider for high-speed internet, which as anyone who is in the know knows its not really high-speed but it is much faster and easier than dialup.
Time went by and HughesNet turned out to be a disappointment but I still can't work on dial-up so i went with WildBlue sat.internet. To my hugest surprise the satellite installer asked me why I didn't sign on for DSL through my phone company. I told him they didn't have DSL and he informed me that they had had DSL for over 2 years!
I was both shocked and LIVID! I was never once notified that they had finally gotten DSL, they never once announced it in any of their bills, radio, newspaper or tried to upgrade me ever. I looked on their poor excuse for a website and on the very last option of the home page under "Events" there it was in big bold letters they now have ADSL.
I was floored. But even with that I definitely needed DSL for work so I signed on with them too. Now i had DSL and satellite, which i'm obligated to have because of the contract. But I've needed the sat.'net for a backup so it wasn't a big deal to keep it.
This phone company has jerked me around for so many years. One of my biggest pet peeves has been in how they accept phone payments. You can mail it in of course which for these incompetents is preferable OR you can use the local bank and make a payment there. The bank is in no way affiliated with this phone company.
In fact, all this really is is a deposit into the phone company's account. The phone company has no idea of any transactions that go on unless you call them either before or after and tell them you've made a payment there AND give them the teller no. That's it.
If you did not call and tell them, they apparently have no way of knowing you made a deposit at all. They seem to check only one time a month and if a payment is made after that they have no clue it's there. This one payment i made there was late but I kept the receipts and called the company and told them of the payment.
I then found out that they checked and they said there was no record of it and would need copies of my receipts. Ok, #1 this is an ABSURD way of doing business; #2 I live out of town, in fact I don't make trips into town everyday because of gas and/or need, etc. I don't have a fax so I made a special trip to town (to fix their mess) and faxed it.
It turns out the bank teller gave me the wrong slips. The money was there, the BANK actually did THEIR job and deposited the money but the slip to the phone company was mishandled. I guess the PC doesn't have access to their own accounts.
Are you getting the irony in all this? They wanted me to travel the 20 minutes it takes to get to town on country roads, to fax them some receipts all to fix a mess that could have been avoided in the first place and They couldn't get on the phone and call the bank themselves. I called the bank and tracked the money down myself!
The bank actually asked me why THEY, the Phone Company, hadn't called them, the bank would have told them it was there. The PC never apologizes or admits to anything they do as wrong or hokey or anything. When i talked to the PC ladies and complained they make me sound like I'm an idiot for not knowing how they do things. (! &%$#!) Like every company in the world conducts business like this.
So now, due to circumstances beyond my control I was late on another payment but experience has told me that I can't call them and arrange some kind of payment plan or anything "because they don't do that". As my pay days fall after the due date I asked if they could move the due date to after I get paid or allow a grace period, nope - "they don't do that".
So my phone was cut off. When i paid the balance, instead of turning my phone back on, they had put the order in that it had gone into permanent shut off mode and I will have to make a $315 deposit/turn on fee to get my phone/DSL back.
The moral of the story? Don't think that just because they're a small company or where they're located that they have a small town frame of mind. They are just as soulless and heartless as the next large company. They don't care about you, or your trouble, they just want the money.
And to top it all off, they've sent me a bill for charges on a phone that's been turned off. On a happy note, it turns out that I can work on my satellite connection but it's slower; however, it's not at full strength so once I call Dish Network and get them to give me the highest speed they have (for only 20 dollars more) I'll be able to work solely on my satellite.
I'm never giving Cherokee Telephone even 1 more cent of my money and I don't recommend you do either. Other options are: if you can get cell phone coverage in your area I recommend using it as your primary phone. If you can get Vonage try that. Even phone card minutes like "one suite dot com" is preferable to using these shysters.
My sat.internet will cost $89 a month and I can do pretty much everything DSL can do, its just a bit slower is all. No problems with Dish could never ever make giving up the sat.'net and going back to DSL ever an option!
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