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| Sarge trying to pay his Verizon bill over the phone. (Source) |
While I can think of a few answers which make better sense, my only comeback was that a number of organizations have the number for that landline as a point of contact. So we just kept tossing 50 bucks out the window for no really good reason. Other than "But we've had this phone number for 24 years!"
Then Verizon decided to redo their website, a popular thing these days amongst certain tech companies, my employer did it as well. Thing is, for a period of four days, I would go to that website (which used to work) and get the same message: "That function is not available right now, please try again later." (Words to that effect, I don't recall the actual verbiage.)
On the website there is a chat feature, which is not manned by a human being as they following exchange might indicate -
- I can't log in, it says feature not available.
- Let's reset your password
- No, that's not the problem.
- Is there something else I can help you with?
- You haven't helped me yet.
- Tell me what the problem is
- I just did
- I'm not sure I understand
- Well, that's pretty obvious. I know my user ID, I know my password, your system just won't let me log in.
- Let's reset your password
- Can you read?
- I'm not sure I understand
- AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
- I'm not sure I understand
So I decide to try and get a human on the line. Nope, all I kept getting was a "you can log onto our website or you can pay your bill over the phone for only an extra $3.50." As it was the weekend, I figured I'd wait to Monday, the day the bill was actually due.
Same runaround, so I opt to pay over the phone, managing not to shout expletives as I did so. At that point, I decided that having a landline was not worth the candle. So I called customer service back.
- How can we help you?
- Cancel my service.
There was a click, the sound of an extension ringing and BANG! - I'm connected to a human.
So for the first time in living memory, I do not have a phone hardwired into my house.
It's somewhat liberating.
Not sure what The Missus Herself has planned for that 50 bucks we're going to save. I know I'd just blow it on beer and toys, books maybe ...
I cancelled my landline several years ago. The only thing I was using it for was to call my cell phone when I couldn't find it.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's a luxury we no longer have, but yeah, same here.
DeleteThat's why your spouse has a different number...
DeleteIf she remembers to turn the ringer on after church and knows where her phone is ...
DeleteSo "Can you hear me now?" wasn't available for customer service until possible loss of $$$ for the corp.....go figure.
ReplyDeleteThat's the impression I had. Bottom line, they lost a customer.
DeleteSarge, we did the same thing years ago for the same reasons: literally the only calls we were getting were from telemarketers and the ever popular "political season calls". We have not missed it (not that we saved the $50 either - it all got 'reinvested').
ReplyDeleteFor my parents' place, they had one for many years - up to last year - as cell phone coverage is spotty here. They still have land line in place for Interweb access as well - turns out last year when it snowed and power was lost, I merely needed to fire up the generator and power the router. Behold, Interweb and cell phone service.
Yeah, for some reason the phone company's lines seem to stay up when everything else goes down.
DeleteWe went from $50/mo to $50/yr with magicjack service. It will fail with the power or internet, but it does do one thing well: We use our home phone number for all registrations to keep telemarketers off our cell lines. Plus father in law will only call us on that line even though all 4 members of our house have cells now. Dunno. I'm hoping to get rid of it soon, too. (line not the dad-in-law)
ReplyDeleteAs a final dramatic event, have someone throw your old home phone onto your vehicle as you swiftly back out of your driveway. They should be on the roof wearing a wife beater t-shirt and yelling, "Welcome to the party, pal!"
Love your writing, btw.
Dan
Wow, I remember magicjack. We were using our landline as a Judas goat for telemarketers. At least the cell phone (at least mine) has gotten pretty good at indicating a call is from a telemarketer.
DeleteMy landline is more reliable than my AT&T cell phone. And it has an answer machine that actually works reliably!
ReplyDeleteI keep the cell phone for emergencies, since it generally has coverage wherever I go.
In theory a hard-wired connection should be more reliable. What do you use for long distance?
DeleteSpectrum has that free with the VOIP!
DeleteGood to know!
DeleteWe use Spectrum VOIP also. It's too late for you since you already cancelled your old service, but you could have rolled the old number over to any VOIP provider for free. Most ISPs also provide a VOIP service at reasonable cost. Spectrum is $10 per month with free unlimited long distance. Google was the same before I cancelled them several years ago. There is also MagicJack as one of the other posters mentioned.
DeleteI'm okay with just having the two cell phones.
DeleteYep, two weeks ago finally cancelled the land line I've had for 24 years. Like you, $50/month for a line that I no longer used and would receive only calls from telemarketers. It was a frustrating exercise to cancel it; took multiple attempts to reach the proper human being in customer service. Now my old "Snoopy and Woodstock" phone is sitting on a shelf...
ReplyDelete-Barry
Sounds like the physical phone set is a keeper, even if the service was not.
DeleteLandlines and humans... A few years back we had a landline and I was having some type of problem, I called and talked to a human. As things went along she said "if you don't like it go somewhere else". Son-of-a-gun! There was actually an alternative landline company we could go to then (most of my life phone service was a monopoly where ever I was). I did.
ReplyDeleteAbout a week later I received a call from a human asking about why we swapped companies, I told him :-) It's not often that this sort of thing works out like that.
My present phone number is REALLY important too, a lot of my day to day dealing in this modern world are tied to that number.
I now have my third cell phone number since we said good-bye to the landline people ... The first number was lost when I was unable to port it over to a new phone/service when I was in Georgia... I finally got frustrated trying and just got a new number (it was a Georgia number). Then I went for 5 or six years with that Georgia number, (I'm not a Georgia person, I was just visiting -shrug-) but I lived with the world thinking I was.
Now I'm in Florida and I like it here! So I've got a new Florida number, a little bit of work changing doing the "change number" dance at the places where my number is need for life in this modern world but it was not too bad.
So today, for the first time in a lot of years my phone number agrees with my address!
Interesting. My area code is a Massachusetts number, it confuses the people who aren't really familiar with cell phones (or travel for that matter).
DeleteJust a news update from Poland, it seems the errant missile that impacted village near border and killed 2 people was Ukrainian SAM. Since this was not deliberate attack, there is no need for retaliation. Good thing...
ReplyDeleteSaw that.
DeleteAnother confirmation of the 72 hour rule. Now I use the 144 hour rule before getting reading the news, I figure 6 days is long enough for the dust to settle to see what happened.
DeleteThe first reports are always wrong. (History has shown me that much.)
DeleteCrusty Old TV Tech here. This is going to get long, apologies in advance.
ReplyDeleteSome 10 years ago, AT&T (formerly SW Bell) jacked up their landline rates so much, it became cost effective to go with a VOIP service and "dry loop" ADSL, AKA ATT U-Verse. No fiber near here, only Comcast and AT&T ADSL. It worked OK for 5-6 years. As the former SWBT stopped maintaining the copper back to the DSLAM cabinet on the main drag, the ADSL service started acting up around then. When you diagnose their problem for them by noting the frequencies that the ADSL modem has "blacked out" correspond to local AM radio frequencies (interference ingressing poorly maintained buried copper lines)...I switched to Comcast cable internet. Service was OK, still using VOIP with our landline number. Then Comcast started getting slower, and T-Mobile introduced a fixed monthly rate cell modem service in our area. $30/mo cheaper than Comcast. We switched, and have received excellent service, and download rates around 3x Comcast's best. Now, we are looking at dropping the VOIP service, with a number we've had since 1985. Same thing, telemarketers and political crapola mostly, and something like $50/mo, for what?
That was the big question, why?
DeleteIn our little house, the cellphone reception is a bit iffy. The house was built 100+ years ago of stone; walls are nearly two feet thick. We still have our landline.
ReplyDeleteSo you live in a Faraday-cage for all intents and purposes. Yup, need a hard-wired connection through the walls for that.
DeleteThank you for the inspiration and motivation to save my family what could have been $3000 since the last time I think I used our land line- 5 years ago. I will be going through the same rigamarole shortly.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that!
DeleteThe nice thing about a landline is that, if you call 911, they should know exactly where you are. That could be useful if the situation is such where dialing is all you can do.
ReplyDelete911 on a cell phone worked for me in the National Forest south of the Grand Canyon, I wasn't sure where we were.
DeleteComrade M - That might have been enough to hang onto the line, but in the end I decided to stick with the cell. GPS ya know.
DeleteRob - I assumed that would be the case, with modern tech the way it is.
DeleteIf you call and tell them you need to cancel your service because you are on a fixed income, and can't afford the $50 anymore, they may offer you a lower price. And I get through by telling the computer over and over and over that "NEED TO TALK WITH PERSON". Works on the CVS pharmacy phone line too.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was living in MI, we needed to have a landline as the cell phone reception was lousy, until the tornado went through and took down a bunch of trees, but the landline worked...until the mouse got into the connection box and made a nest. Guess the lineman was pretty startled when he opened up the box.
I couldn't do that as it isn't true. The "can't pay online" like I have for five years put me over the top.
DeleteI still have both. The main reason is redundancy - having two independent communications links. And handy minor ones (I like friends with both). Want to stop over for coffee? Call the land line. If no answer, they're not home. Remembering too when I recently got a new Old People's Phone activated with the same number. Being able to talk to the cell customer rep on the land line during the transition (there were minor technical problems -old cell phone dead and new one not yet activating correctly).
ReplyDeleteThe redundancy was nice, but unneeded as we have two cell phones, two different numbers.
DeleteActually, redundant, but not independent. You have two different devices that communicate the same way (the unspoken assumption being that either one can communicate with a cell tower at the other end).
DeleteStill not worth $50/month to keep the landline. But I see your point.
DeleteDealing with the automated site is about like dealing with the automated site on my mail order pharmacy! We get our landline cheaper than you and have a land line internet soon to be fiber optic. Our cell service includes dropped calls, texts delivered hours late and voice mail that shows up sometimes with no sign of a missed call on the register. So we keep the land line!
ReplyDeleteOuch!
DeleteSarge, I know my story is now over a decade in the past but it still may haunt you too so here it is.
ReplyDeleteI quit the landline after the bonfire of my life and moved to a nice condo (site unseen) the day I returned from a month in Korea where an old friend said he just happened to have one available for a new bachelor. About six months after moving in and long after deciding I didn't need a landline I stood over my fax/printer/copier/wonder machine trying to send a fax and finding it absolutely insufferable that it didn't work! Yes, it took me about 5 minutes and a sip of fresh hot coffee to recall that the damned thing actually needed a landline to do that fax thing....felt like a complete idiot for a couple of seconds.
Yup, been there, done that. But these days who faxes anything? Scan and email. (Though my doctor's office lives in some past world where faxes were an actual thing.)
Delete