Verzion FIOS, Where Are You When I Need You?

OK, so you guys know that I don't really pay much attention to my finances ... right? I mean I pay attention to them, but I don't get all crazy with a calculator and a monthly budget. I'm more of a glance over my online statement a couple of times a month to make sure everything seems reasonable and that I'm not going to be in any trouble if I want to buy something extravagant like groceries, kind of girl.

So I'm browsing through my statement yesterday and I see that my cable bill is $20 more than it was last month. Since it's Comcast, which at my house I lovingly call The Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan, I immediately fly off the handle: TWENTY DOLLARS?! WHERE THE HELL IS MY TWENTY DOLLARS YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!! You know, that kind of thing.

I immediately rummaged through my pile of mail to see if my bill had arrived so I could get to the bottom of this mystery. But .... it was no where to be found. So I tried calling them. Now, just to give you an idea of how often I have to call the Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan for whatever reason (snowy picture, randomly dropped channel, no picture etc.) I have their local number stored in my phone. (I don't know if this is unusual for most people, but I only store the numbers of people I call a lot like my friends or Baja Fresh.)

So I dialed them up. But - oh what a surprise - they were not taking calls at this time .... whatever THAT happens to mean. So I get on the internet machine and look up the national number. But that TOO dropped my call. I was livid. One good thing about me is that even when livid I can still be rational. So I decided I would just try again tomorrow.

Today, I called them up ready to raise hell.

To protect the innocent I'll call my customer service representative Erica. Because that is her name. And if she wants protection she can ask her Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan employer.

I explain to Erica that I have a mysterious $20 charge, and could she please let me know what it is for? She sleuths around for about 15 minutes while I jam to "Don't Cry Out Loud .... Just keep it inside .... and learn how to hide your feelings" on muzak. When she returned she said that the charge for $19.95 was for a technician call. At some point in August my picture had disappeared and now I was being charged $20 for them to send someone to fix it.

She informed me that I could purchase Service Protection for just $4 a month to keep me from getting these $20 charges if my service fails and someone needs to come out and reinstate it.

At this point my skin peeled back from my face and flames shot out of my eyes. "NO! I am NOT going to pay $4 a month to make sure that you provide me a service that I pay SIXTY dollars a month for you to provide! Doesn't that seem completely ridiculous to you, Erica? Doesn't it? I mean, if you aren't selling a service, what are you selling? Why do you need to sell insurance for your service? Shouldn't service be PART OF THE DEAL?"

Erica agreed. As anyone with even half a brain would do when faced with such irrefutable logic. And she offered to refund the charge, thankyouverymuch.

I'm telling you, as soon as Verizon FIOS is available in my area I'm going to drop The Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan faster than they can say Competition-Infringing-Monopoly. And FIOS may suck, who knows. And really, who cares? Its not about getting FIOS, its about dropping Comcast on its fat corporate ass. Oh and about getting more channels at a better rate on 14 spectrums of light. That'll be cooool.