My phone was out the entire week before Thanksgiving. No phone = no computer. I had notified them on Monday and they said because of the holidays repair would be delayed but gave no date to come.

When the repairman finally came, he told me that one of their own workers had mistakenly pushed "an off switch" down the road from me when he was doing routine checks.

Did they take a week off my bill? NO.

Oh, I love the excuses. When we built our house they came out and laid a line on top of the dirt from the house to the back lot line, connecting our house to the main line. I asked when they'd bury it. (Silly me!) The answer was they'd do that when the temporary workers they hire every summer were off from college.

Yes, you guessed it. Nobody showed up in June or July and when I called in August...gosh, those workers had 'gone back to college'.

It finally got done, many calls later. Now we have service unless it rains a lot! There's a connection somewhere that gets WET.

Wanna hear about trying to get online with Comcast AND/OR DirecTV? (More Rhodes scholars at work.)

Hi soxxx,

What to do about the phone bill? Paying good money for nil service for about a week?

Soxx it to 'em, that's what!!

Call as many times to request an amendment to your bill - more times than you did to notify them/complain about the outage!

Be persistent.

On the other hand ...

... there has been some fake money (granted, it's Canadian) floating around this area for some time. Perhaps we could find some and send it down to you.

You could offer to pay the phone company ...

... with fake money ...

... in compensation for fake service!

After about the tenth call ...

... tell them that you're keeping track of the unnecessary time that you've been putting into trying to get justice from them ...

... and that you're going to be billing them for it.

And you can guarantee that your billing would not be for service that was not provided!

What would it cost you to sue them in small claims court?

Up here, one can do it for about $10.00, I think.

You'd be doing it in your area, and you can bet that they'd be sending a high-priced lawyer to answer to the charge.

Your local newspapers and TV would more than likely be happy to attend at court, as well.

Teach the phone co. that they can't push you around!

I'm sure that the newspaper readers would be interested to read the story of the messages from the phone co. ... especially after they notified you that your problem had been fixed.

Maybe your husband could send them a bill!

On the othe hand - be careful: they might charge him with interfering with their facilities!

No doubt your newspapers and TV would be happy to attend that hearing, as well.

Have a great inter-holiday week!

Again ... soxxx it to the phone co!

Hey - what am I talking about: I own shares in the phone co! (That have gone down in price since their purchase).

Again ... have a great inter-holiday week ... and a winderful New Year, as well (that's one in which you're long-winded - especially on the telephonephonephone).

ole joyful

It must be the season for phone problems. Our landline went out on Christmas Eve. I called Verizon, they checked the line and tole me the problem was inside the house and scheduled repair for 12/29/09. 30 minutes later a Verizon repair tech showed up- he said it was so slow that they told him to come by and check. He also verified that the problem was with my equipment and left.

1 hour later I get a recording from Verizon that a problem had been found in the outside wiring and that it had been corrected.

Well- not true. My phones were out from 9am on 12/24 until 11 pm on 12/26 when I finally got around to unplugging them from the Verizon box, waiting the prescribed 10 minutes and plugging them back in. I guess all it needed was a reboot.

We dumped Verizon last year(except for cell phones).
Now use Comcast for landline, internet and TV.

We have been waiting for years for FIOS...then they stopped installing it here because surrounding low income towns were complaining of discrimination.
Verizon still has no idea if or when they will install FIOS here...so a lot of people have dumped them completely for COMCAST.

We're happy, COMCAST is cheaper. We have unlimited calling 24/7/365 to anywhere in the US and Canada at half the price Verizon charges.

Reminds me of the day last summer, our electricity went out suddenly (no wind or rain). so I called my elec co. and told them. The power came back on about 2 hours later, and then the phone rang. My elexctric company, telling me my power had been restored. Duh.

I can appreciate their calling - suppose you had some job that was rather urgent, but with the phone out, you went for a sleep/nap ... whether premeditated or not ...

... so wouldn't have been aware that the service was back in operation until some time had elapsed - unless you got that call.

ole joyful