January 1, 2015--Best of Behind: Temporarily Suspended

We begin the drive to Delray Beach Friday morning and, as I do each year, I made a round of calls to the cable, Internet, and telephone companies to suspend service while we are away. Since I had the same kind of frustrating experience I had in December, 2010, I thought to reprise the Snowbirding piece I wrote on that occasion--

It seemed simple enough. We spend winter months in Delray Beach as snowbirds and thus need to forward our mail. It also makes sense, and saves money, to suspend our utility services.

So one cold afternoon before heading south we trudged over to the post office to fill out the mail-forwarding forms and I made a round of calls to Verizon (for our phone) and Time Warner to suspend cable and Internet service. And, I also phoned Con Edison to ask about turning off our gas.

When I had done all of this I proudly announced to Rona that by my estimate we would save at least $750 while sojourning in Florida. She smiled and said, “That’s good. But of course you know this amounts to less than what we pay for one week at the house.”

“But we love it there,” I retorted, “And we never thought about how much it costs until just now when I figured out a way to save some money.”

“That’s they way I am,” she confessed, “If you raise money as an issue it sets off my money-spending anxieties. But we’ll be more than fine. We can easily afford whatever it costs. You did very well,” she was smiling affectionately at me, “But it’s always good to be careful about money. And why give Verizon and Time Warner and Con Ed money they don’t deserve?”

I sensed she was about to go off on a corporate-greed rant, and so I put my arm around her and said, “We’ll have a wonderful drive south and everything we be ready for us when we arrive. You know how much you love the beach and . . .”

“And, I know what you’re about to say, ‘No matter how much it costs!’”

After an easy four days on the road, we are now settled in and as part of our routine, in addition to stocking up on groceries and household goods at Publix and checking to see if last year’s favorite restaurants are still in business (so far, they all are), we have been making a series of phone class to check to see if Verizon and Time Warner did what we asked them to do.

My first call was to our New York phone to find out if the recorded message was correct, especially to see if the forwarding number is as it should be. They did get the Florida number right but the message says that our phone number has been “changed,” not, as I asked, “temporarily suspended at the customers request.” So I called customer service.

The representative agreed that they had used the wrong message for our phone and that she was changing it while we were speaking, though it would take until the end of the day for the proper message to be in place. Ignoring for the moment why one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies with all the latest technology couldn’t do this virtually instantly—I try to relax while down here by the ocean—I thanked her and told her I would check the message that evening.

Which I did and found it still to be incorrect. Over two days, four attempts later, one of the customer service managers told me that, yes, it is true, that earlier in the year when we were in Maine and had our number temporarily suspended the message said that to anyone who called us but recently Verizon had changed its practice and now there were only two options available—the number has been “changed” or the number has been “discontinued.” “Temporally suspended” was no longer an option.

By now, much less relaxed when this all began, I tried to get them to explain the logic of this seemingly unfathomable change in practice. What, I more and more insistently and heatedly wanted to know, is the logic behind this? It certainly couldn’t be a cost-cutting strategy. Verizon’s systems are all automated. What was the big deal? In fact, as I steamed about it, I thought it probably cost them a few dollars to eliminate the “suspended” option.

No one of course could tell me. So we are living with it. Maybe a person of two who calls us in New York during the next few months will wonder if we have left the city permanently rather than snowbirding for the winter. But then they will also hear about our “new” 561 Florida number and if they call us and wonder what’s going on we will take aggressive pleasure in telling them the story and how, how else to put it, arbitrary and even stupid a company such as Verizon can be.

Verizon had the chutzpah to call us the next day, after my final exasperated conversation with them, to see if there were any additional services of theirs in which we might be interested. I said, “Yes, in fact there is--a call forwarding message that says our number, at our request, has been temporarily suspended.” Needless to say, even for an extra fee, that service is not available.

I next called Time Warner to check about the suspension of our cable and Internet service. “Oh,” the first person I managed to actually speak with me said (up to that point I had been routed trough a series of automated options—“To continue in English, press 2; to change service, 3; to . . .”), “weren’t you told, when you called us before leaving that it is only possible to suspend service for 90 days?” No one had. “Or that since your building is a coop in order to suspend your service for even 90 days a board member from your building has to write to us to ask permission to do so?”

“What?” I couldn’t help myself from screaming. Relaxation was out of the question. “Why do I have to have their permission? What does any of this have to do with the coop itself? I’m your customer; not the board or the building's.”

“Well,” the well-trained and calm representative, clearly from her accent and the static on the line based in Bangalore, said, “in truth the building is a customer of ours. We offered the building a special rate if more than half the residents ordered their cable service from Time Warner. So, in order to suspend any resident’s service, we need the approval of the board. To give the building the benefit of the special rate everyone has to behave the same way.”

“I was never told that. And by the way what does this have to do be behavior? I find that offensive. The point is that I was never informed about this arrangement. If I had been I would have switched our service to Verizon. [Forgetting for the moment the fiasco with the call forwarding.] Or had a Direct TV satellite dish installed or given up TV altogether. Watching it makes me aggravated anyway. Almost as much as talking with you!”

“I am sorry to hear that sir. But of course you are free to do whatever you want with your TV service. You are in America, aren’t you? The land of freedom.”

I did not sense that she was mocking me or America and decided I needed to hang up before risking a stroke and that it was time for a calming walk on the beach.

When I got back and told Rona what had happened she said, “Why are you aggravating yourself? You know how these kinds of things work these days. It’s all about big companies figuring out ways to make as much money as possible. Actually, to extract as much money as possible from people like us. But I too am trying to remain calm and don’t want to get into one of my rants about the current state of capitalism.” I was pleased to hear that. “So I think I’ll go for the mail. I’ll be right back, I want to check to see if our mail is being forwarded.” And with that she left.

By then I was feeling quite calmed down. The beach walk was just what my cardiologist ordered.

But when Rona returned it was immediately clear that she was not the same serene person who ten minutes before had left for the mailbox.

“What’s going on?” I asked as she stomped about the house.

“Here, take a look at this.” She tossed a handful of mail at me.

“What is it?” I was rooting around on the floor to gather all the letter and envelopes that had missed the kitchen counter. I could tell from the yellow forwarding stickers on the envelopes that the mail was being successfully forwarded. “It looks as if this is mail that was sent to our New York apartment and was then sent on to us by the post office. No? Am I missing something?”

“Indeed you are. But take a look at this.” She ripped a letter from my hand. “It’s from the postal service. Here, read it.”

“I will if you give it back to me.”

Instead, she read, “See what this says. It’s from the postal service: ’A customer temporarily moving may have mail forwarded for a specific time, not to exceed twelve months total duration.’”

“And?” I asked.

“And,” Rona said, they are claiming that by February 17th, our forwarding will have ‘met,’ to quote them, ‘the one year maximum duration.”

“This I do not understand,” I said, again feeling my blood pressure rising. “Is there anything we can do about this?”

“Read further. See, down at the bottom.” She was still holding onto the letter and I couldn’t in fact see. “They apparently have something they call Premium Forwarding Service, and there is an 800-number to call to find out how it works.”

“So let’s call them,” I said, trying to sound chipper and optimistic.

“I’ll do the calling this time,” Rona said, “Considering how you did with that person in India, let me handle this one.”

Surprisingly, it took only a few minutes for her to talk with an actual person. Rona, smiling, mouthed to me, “I think she’s an American.”

But then I heard her saying with increasing ire, “What do you mean you don’t know anything about how this works? How the 12 months is calculated? By February we’ll have only been here two-and-a-half months, not twelve.” Rona was rolling her eyes up in her head and in frustration holding the phone about a foot away from her ear.

“But this is the number the letter said to call about Premium Service and you’re telling me that not only can’t you tell me about how the 12 months is calculated—and as I said in February we won’t have been here for even three months—but that you also don’t know about this special forwarding service? I am totally confused.”

I passed Rona a note saying, “Go for it!”

“What do you mean you have to open a ‘complaint file’? I’m not complaining, I’m just trying to understand. But you’re saying this is the only way you can get the information to me? Unbelievable,” Rona exasperated sighed.

“So, OK, open a complaint file.” She covered the phone with her hand and said to me, “Can you believe this? I think I’m going crazy.”

“Remember,” I said, “we’re here to get and remain calm. Now both of us have high blood pressure.”

“I am having the nightmare,” Rona said, holding he head, “that we’ll have to go to the city every week or two to pick up our mail after they stop forwarding it in the middle of February.”

“Or, maybe we’ll have to find someone who can go to the apartment and mail us whatever seems important.”

“This is some way to relax,” Rona said, sounding defeated. “What? Can you say that again?” She was back on the line with the person from the postal service. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Rona said, and with that hung up.

“See what? Believe what?”

“She told me that I will hear from someone in two working days. That’s how they handle complaints. What are the odds that . . . ?” Rona let her question drift off into space. “I think I need a nap.”

While Rona was napping, tossing and turning on the bed, I masochistically decided to call Con Edison to see about the suspension of our gas service.

“What do you mean it was already suspended?” I was incredulous when the Con Ed customer service representative told me that there was no service to suspend. That we did not have gas service and thus there was nothing to cut off. “We’ve been living in the same apartment for 19 years and we’ve had gas all that time. How else would we cook?” I didn’t tell her that we eat virtually all our meals out and thus rarely do any cooking. But we do do some. Mainly, in truth, we boil water for tea or heat up soup that we take in from our local Ukrainian coffee shop.

“Our records show no gas usage for the past six years,” she said, calmer than I. “So there’s nothing to suspend.”

“That’s not true. That’s impossible.” By then I was shouting and woke Rona who staggered into the living room.

She mouthed, “What’s going on? Why are you yelling?”

I asked the Con Ed person to hold for a moment and, covering the phone, told Rona what they were telling me.

Rona said, ”You’re being silly.”

“What do you mean?”

“You asked them to suspend service so we could save, what, $15 a month and they are telling you it’s already being suspended and we haven’t used any gas for years, whereas we have--at least a little—and thus haven’t been charged for gas for all that time. So, if you convince them we have had service and have used gas won’t they then want to back-charge us for years of service? And who knows, maybe apply additional charges and penalties? You want that?”

We both pride ourselves as being honest and never wanting to take advantage of anyone or anything, but after our experiences with Verizon and the post office and Time Warner, I said to the Con Ed woman who had been holding on the phone, “Sorry to have bothered you. Have a very nice day and a happy holiday season.” She was as nice as could be.

“While we’re on a roll,” I said, “let me make the one last call, again to Verizon, but to a different division, to check about our hopefully-suspended telephone land line.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Rona solicitously asked, “Haven’t you, we I mean, haven’t we had enough aggravation for one day?”

“As I said, we’re on a roll after Con Ed and the gas so let me take care of this one last thing. How complicated can that be? Though maybe they’ll tell us they haven’t been billing us for five years.” Rona glared at me. “Just kidding I said,” and dialed the Verizon wireless 800-number.

Again I was drawn into the proliferating world of automated responses. I pressed 2 to Continue in English, 4 to Suspend Service, and then 3 to Get Information about it. Zipping right along, feeling pleased and surprised that all was going as I had hoped, I pressed 3. What harm could there be, I thought, to see what I could learn without speaking to an agent, even one based in America.

From recorded messages I learned that there were a variety of options about how to proceed and all, after our previous experiences with Verizon and Time Warner and the postal service, seemed sensible and varied enough to cover all circumstances—there was no 12-month rule, no need to seek anyone’s permission, and no need to file a complaint. All I needed to do, I was directed, was talk to a representative about whether or not I wanted to suspend service "with or without billing." Curious about what that might mean, I pressed 0 to talk with an agent.

She was as polite and articulate as I could have hoped. She assured me that my service was already suspended and that it would be resumed, just as I had requested, in April. No problem at all with that. “Good I said. I am so happy to hear that all is well. You don’t want to hear about my other experiences with Verizon. Or Con Edison or the post office.” I could hear her chuckling knowingly. She was obviously very experienced and had heard it all.

“But, there is one thing I’m confused about.”

“What’s that?” she asked compassionately. “That why I’m here. To answer all your questions.”

“It’s about the billing-no-billing option.”

“Oh that. Many of our customers are confused about that. I can help you understand the differences. It’s all rather simple.” I could feel my blood pressure dropping to the normal range. “With the no-billing option you do not pay any monthly fee; with billing you pay your monthly fee.” She sounded as if she was smiling, satisfied with herself.

I could feel my heart beginning to thump again. “About this I am now totally confused. You sound like a very nice person and I know it’s not your policy but Verizon’s, but why would anyone opt for the billing option when suspending service? Why would anyone want to continue to pay the monthly fee while not getting the service? That doesn’t make any sense at all.” I paused to let this sink in. “That is,” my suspicions had quickly returned, “unless there is a difference between the two options. Maybe if I choose the no-billing option I’ll lose the telephone number associated with it?”

“No, sir,” she said, still as chipper as ever, “that won’t happen. There really is no difference from a customer’s point of view. I could sense her smiling even more broadly.

As nice as she was, I couldn’t control myself. “You, or should I say Verizon, are making me feel that I’ve lost my mind. First you took away my temporarily-suspended option and now there is this crazy billing-no-billing deal that makes no sense whatsoever. You understand that since this is so ridiculous on the surface that someone like me, of for that matter any of your customers, would be suspicious that something else is going on since no one in their right mind would want to pay for something they’re not getting when they can avoid paying for the same thing they’re not getting. Am I making any sense?”

By then, hearing me shouting into the phone again, Rona had returned to the living room where I was talking on the phone while pacing about and gesturing wildly. “You’re going to give yourself a stroke,” she whispered to me in an attempt to calm me down. “What’s going on?”

“Here. You talk to her,” I said handing the phone to Rona. “The Verizon customer service person. Ask her about the billing-no-billing option for our phone.”

Frustrated with me and my behavior Rona snatched the receiver and after a minute she too was stomping about the room and gesturing wildly, “This is crazy,” she said, echoing what I had just been saying, “It makes no sense at all. But to end this once and for all, to retain our health and sanity, we’ll go for the no-billing option and not pay the monthly fee. That’s how it'll work, won’t it? The service will be suspended and we won’t be charged for it?” She was nodding her head. “Good. Thank you. And, yes, you too have a wonderful day.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “We both could use the beach.”

“One good thing,” Rona said with a wink, “when they stop forwarding the mail in February we won’t be getting any bills from Verizon for our monthly charges. Or from anyone else.”

“Didn't you just take care of the no-billing option? And I thought you already took care of mail forwarding.”

“Dream on,” Rona said. “But let’s forget about all of this. We’re here to relax.”