Jaci Dawn

I did not think it was possible to have any more to add to this story, but that was before I got up this morning and checked the messages on my cell phone.

When I had my brain fart last week and ordered Comcast, I wrote down the instructions given me by the very nice man who sold me this bill of goods. “Do NOT call CenturyLink and cancel your phone until you have your modem and you are ready to go,” he said. “You will need your phone to call us if you have any problems and to activate the account.”

There was one voice mail message on my phone. It was from the CenturyLink telephone repairman who apparently called shortly after I put in my service request online. How I missed the call, I don’t know. I’m kind of glad I did:

Comcast put in a disconnect order for me and had my land line disconnected. This is wrong on so many levels that it boggles my mind. I hadn’t even connected with a person who could activate the work order to start our cable internet service yet, so why would they have my land line disconnected?

Whatever.

So now I have a disconnected land line. Thankfully, Comcast did not put in a disconnect order on our Internet, or I’d be without Internet.

I had a root canal scheduled for today (as if dealing with Evil Entities wasn’t enough). I had some errands to run and ended up at the endodontist’s half an hour early, so I thought I’d just finish this business while I waited for my appointment. You know, something to take my mind off of the oral surgery I was facing (which was actually a little more complicated than a simple root canal and involved an incision into my gum and stitches and an $800.00 down payment).

I dialed 1-800-XFINITY and selected the right buttons to put me through to the right person. Her name was Jamie. I explained all of the past few days to her, as briefly as possible. At this point, I was polite. I calmly told her that we wanted to cancel our work order, we’d changed our mind, and that I had to call from my cell phone because Comcast had managed to get my land line disconnected already. And, yes, I knew that I had authorized it but I didn’t understand why it was done before we got the cable Internet activated.

She pulled up our account and said. “You can’t cancel the work order. Your account is under one name.”

Say what?!

It’s only under my husband’s name.

I said, “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?”

She assured me that she was not joking, that only Mr. Presley could cancel the work order.

I was no longer calm. *I* could call and activate this account, *I* could call and activate the work order, but *I* could not call and CANCEL the damn thing? What is wrong with this picture? I had to have his SSN# to open an account. How could *I* open the account if *I* could not close it?

She actually asked me if Mr. Presley was available to speak to.

I started calling her “honey” and “sweetheart” and I didn’t mean it in an endearing way. I wasn’t very nice when I told her that Mr. Presley worked for a living and he was not available. Of course, I put her on the defensive, but I forewarned her that I was already irate and why.

I hung up.

I called CenturyLink to see what they could do about hooking our land line back up. As mad as I was at Comcast, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. So with shaking hands, I punched in the number at 12 minutes to 10:00.

Enter China, a Customer Service person for CenturyLink. China looked up our account. Bad news: because I had a brain fart last week and decided to switch to Comcast and because Comcast had our land line disconnected by C-Link, our account with C-Link no longer existed. In order for us to get a land line reconnected, we would have to open up an entirely new account with an entirely new telephone number. China explained that unless the work order with Comcast was in place, Comcast owned our phone number.

She wanted to put me on hold, but it was now 3 minutes to ten and I really had to go. So she offered to call me at noon (“If you can talk then”) to work on fixing the mess. If she couldn’t reach me at noon, she would call me again on Monday morning, but she was shooting for the noon appointment.

I went in to have the root canal. That was fun. The endodontist cut open my gums and took one long look at the tooth with the infection before announcing, “That tooth is fractured. I have to pull it.”  Yes, dear readers: I donated a tooth today, on top of everything else. It’s not right in front, so you can quit sniggering.

The good news is that the $800 co-pay dropped to a $60 co-pay, effectively saving us a lot of money.

China called at noon. I held an ice pack in one hand and my cell phone in the other hand.

35 minutes later, we had a new CenturyLink Internet/telephone bundle with our same phone number because China worked magic (and asked her supervisor questions). We are going from 5mps to 12mps, we get a new wifi modem/router to handle the bumped-up speed, and it’s $30/month less than our old contract with the same company. Ten dollars a month cheaper than the package Comcast sold me.

Bad news: it can’t be connected until 12/6/12.

Good news: we get to keep the 5mps Internet until 12/6/12.

All that was left was canceling the work order with Comcast.

Oh, but wait – it gets better.

I waited for Don to get home so I could put through that call to Comcast. Our marriage has a few rules and one of those is this: I do all the business calling, setting up of accounts, and dealing with automated systems. Don doesn’t do that. Don doesn’t even own a cell phone. So in keeping with our unspoken set of rules, I made the call.

I got through to Bob. I explained to Bob who I was and what I wanted to do while Don waited for his turn.

Bob asked me one question, “What relationship are you to Mr. Presley?”

“Oh, you’re his wife? Well, for security purposes, we have to verify who you are before we can go through with this. Do you know the last four digits of his Social Security Number?”

I rattled them off. Bob canceled our work order. I asked if he needed to speak to my husband because he was sitting right next to me.

Bob answered cheerfully, “Oh, no, we don’t have to do that. As long as you can answer the security questions, we’re good.”

Comcast: Bob needs a raise. Bob is a really great employee and he understands the concept of Customer Service.

CenturyLink: China deserves a raise. She deserves a promotion. She deserves to be Employee of the Month.Give her a Christmas Bonus, too.

I take back every nasty thing I’ve written about Qwest (CenturyLink) in the past. Comcast has been elevated to Evil Entity #1.

*The End*