phone company

Screwed by the phone company.

This is a rant. If one had sense, brains and even the slightest conscience, one would be a farmer. If one had creativity, one would be a poet. Sometimes, if one had courage, one would be a mountaineer. I fail to understand the combination of qualities which constitutes the mentality of those sodding sons-of-romulans who make up the so called 'executives' in any private company. The specific company i was dealing with (may they rot in hell) sells phone cards for Germany on the net. Well, I needed one, looked at the choices and made what I had assumed was an intelligent decision. So after selecting my card, reading the fine print (or so I thought), I checked out and paid by credit card. At which point my web browser died. It has a habit of doing this. If I were slightly, even slightly paranoid, I would imagine that there was a bloke hidden away inside the CPU who knows just what to do to make me scream, rant, stomp and pull my hair out. The last is a little difficult at this point, as I have about the same amount of hair as a Jawan in the second week of boot camp. And to put things in perspective, I work in a one person office. Hence, the ranting and stomping. But, this is not a blog about my computer. That particular entity deserves its own periodic homage. Yes, after getting Firefox up and about again.. (seriously, any more of this nonsense and I will start using Windows), I find that I am set up to make the payment. I do. At which point, they say that someone wil call me up and then and only then do I get my PIN. Which makes not much sense to me. Speaking to customer care people to me has the same appeal as walking barefoot through a desert and finding out that the only oasis which has water is surrounded by a moat of camel crap. Well, I did talk. Got my PIN. Tried to call my sis. Failed. Called customer support (crikey, people do this for a living??), and was told that I have to dial some code for international access. I did. FINALLY got through to the sis. And before the call starts, the system told me that I had 25 minutes to call. Which didn't make too much sense. I mean, do the math: 5$ card. 2.5c/min= 400 minutes. Ok? But I went ahead with the call anyway, and got promptly cut off at 25 minutes. At which point I call customer support and the conversation went like this:

Me: Hello, I have a problem.

Random Lady at the other end: How may I help you today?

Me: Well, I would like to know what is the calling rate per minute on my card.

RL: Could I have your name and address please?

Me: Could you just tell me the calling rate?

RL: Could I have your name and address please?

Me: Fine .......

RL: And your phone no is?

Me: ........

RL: And the last four digits on your social security no are?

Me: ........

RL: and your listed email ID is?

Me: ..... and before you ask, other identifiers: I have a duck tattooed on my arse.

RL: Thank you. And how may I help you today.

Me: By telling me the calling rate on my card.

RL: That is 2.5 c/min.

Me(with the prickling of my scalp telling me that I am close to something climactic): So why did my card cut me off after just 25 minutes of calling?

RL: Were you calling a landline or a cellphone?

Me: A cellphone.

RL: Well, Sir, the call rate for a cellphone is 20c/min.

Stunned silence.

So to sum it up, tricked, swindled, bamboozled, hoodwinked, ripped off, duped, fooled, misguided, misinformed, bilked, deceived, defrauded by the phone company.