I'd been with a long distance company for over 2 years. It'sbeen great until beginning of 2003. We tried to work Inetba over several issues, they tried to resolve it, we stayed and put up with the problem. I tell ya, it does not matter if I have been their customer for several years.
We have never been late except for last month and that's becuase they sent us a bill that's messed up. The front page has our company name but the rest of the bill belongs to 2 different companies we don't even own and nothing to do with. The toll-free number that's on the bill does not lead to any live body. You can die trying you will not get anyone. There's no other way to reach the company. Their entire system is set up where they send a bill and you pay. If you have issues/question, your dead.
So, we put a note on the bill asking them to send us the right bill so we can pay it and mailed it to where the bill payment goes. Several weeks later, we got a call from their collection dept asking us to pay the bill. While I inform them of the issue, they insist we pay the bill whether they sent the right one or not because it's out obligation to pay. I said of course but how do you expect a customer to pay when you sent someone else's bill to another customer?
I told them "I don't pay bills with wrong information. Send us the right one and we will review and pay for it. After several minutes of conversation with BOB LEE, he finally gets it and faxes us a copy of the invoice. It did not have details of the call. Just a bunch of minutes. I said to myself - heck, I'm tired of dealing with this company, let's just pay it and get this company out of our hair. So I asked that a credit card payment form be faxed over to us so we can fax back and pay that way. That went through. That same time I also requested that the service be disconnected because we are tired of the issues and it's getting to be too much for us. I was told to make sure that to get a provider before setting a date so that no dead time will happen. Was asked to send the request by fax do I did.
I called SBC 800# service and asked for them to take over the 2 toll-free numbers we have. Order was placed by SBC, date was give. I sent a fax to Inetba with a cut off date per advise of SBC.
I found out thursday 6/26/03 afternoon that one of our toll-free number isn't working. Our toll-free fax is working fine, but the toll-free phone number is not. Therefore, NONE of our canidates can call us, and our clients are wondering if our business went bellyup. For a small company like ours who's business rely a lot on phones, this is not a good thing.
Friday 6/27/04 I started to get on the phone around 9am to resolve the issue. I made calls to SBC, I was told it's on hold, put on hold to get connected to the company in-charge of the service, we went through series of representatives explaining things over and over again only to be transferred to the next representative, we got different conflicting information, things got very frustrating, I feel like I'm working with devils. Went through that for 3 hours non-stop, still nothing accomplished, they still will not release our line even if we already sent our payment by mail. After long frustrating hours, I gave them a 2nd payment via American Express Credit Card. I just paid our last bill TWICE!
I asked when will they be able to release our number and I was given "i don't know, it goes to a completely different system and we have no control over it". I asked so, I have to wait indefinitely? The representative said "i can't give you any date as to when that will be released". So, as a consumer, while my entire business has been put on hold becuase of their stupid non-relayed policy that I stretched my brain to the max trying to figure out what they want and what I should be doing and playing mind reader, I still have to wait and who knows how long, I can't do anything but wait?
Wait a minute! A phone company's holding our main toll free number hostage even if we had already paid for our last bill - TWICE!
Today we lost a contract worth about $180k because they can't reach us and today's the deadline. None of my clients can reach me, my applicants are returning our calls but the recorded message is saying "the number you dialed is unavailable or is blocked from your calling area, please check the number and dial again".
SBC can't take the line because Inetba won't release it but they kept saying that they told me I should have switched first before requesting disconnection. Well, how is the switch supposed to really happen when Inetba does not want to release it? Someone has to release it so that the new provider can take over. I'd been telling them this many times but for some reason, their one track mind is not getting it and I don't know how else to open their head and make them understand the issue.
I don't want to just keep quiet and take this. We just lost a major contract and we are sitting in the mercy of Inetba who can't tell us when our phone will be release after paying for the last bill TWICE!
Can anyone help? I want to get this people and make sure they pay for my loss. This is so unfair!
I want to request FCC to help us with this problem. I will give Inetba 1 week from today to do something about this problem and tell me how they plan to pay us for our lost contract of $62,400.
If they don't get back to me on this. I will publicly make this issue known to many consumer via the media and my network of recruiters who rely a lot on the phone company. I will also notify all the customers I refer to them about this so that all of them will move out of Inetba service. I will not keep quiet and just take this issue.
Maria
Folsom, California
U.S.A.
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