The reason Monopolies are BAD
Written: Nov 13 '01
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Pros: ZERO
Cons: Worst Customer Service Ever! High fees!
The Bottom Line: Avoid these people at all costs, if they are your local provider consider moving.
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| hiphop101's Full Review: General Reviews of Alltel Customer Service |
The HORRID service provided to me by Alltel has inspired me to write again. It has been a while since I have written an epinion, but after getting off the phone with Alltel "customer service" I felt furious, trapped and like I had no where to turn.
Before I continue with this little story, let me address the title of this piece...I understand the logistics problems of a competitive ground line phone market, but since the phone companies are some of the few who are allowed to maintain legal monopolies they should be held responsible for their actions and not allowed to blatently take advantage of the customer. That said, let me tell you how Alltel (who has a monopoly over local phone service in Lincoln, NE) has ripped me off and treated me like absolute garbage over the past few months.
Back in August I moved in to a new apartment with my girlfriend. I was moving into her place, so her name was on our phone bill. The first month I was there we recieved an extremely high phone bill. I'm not sure what she had paid before I moved in, but my old roommate and I had paid about $20.00/month for local service, from Alltel the previous month. The local bill my girlfriend and I recieved was over $40.00. So I decided to call Alltel and find out what each of the 14 different charges on the bill was really for.
I dialed the customer service number and waited for an operator. It wasn't a terribly long wait, maybe a few minutes. A woman answered the phone and asked for my phone number. I gave it to her and then she asked how she could help me. I told her I had questions about the bill. Before I could ask about the charges she said "Wait, what is the name of the person on this account?"
I told her my girlfriends name and that she had given me the ok to talk to the phone company. The woman on the other end of the line rudely told me she was not authorized to speak to me. Since I knew this would be a problem in the future I asked what my girlfriend needed to do in order to authorize me to speak. The response was "Sir, I am not authorized to speak to you."
"Wait," I said, "I just want to ask..."
"Sir, I am NOT authorized to speak to you."
"I can't even talk to you?" I replied
"No sir, goodbye."
"Well, I just..."
"Goodbye."
"This is the most rediculous..." click, she hung up. I didn't even have the chance to tell her how deplorable her service had been.
I immediatly called back and yelled at some poor woman who had nothing to do with my previous call, and she agreed to at least walk me through all the charges on the bill and explain what they are. Some were legit, a few, which I will get to later were not, but I was not yet authorized to make any changes to the account, so I hung up.
Later that day I got a call from a telemarketer, normally I would have hung up, but she was calling about a long distance plan. Our current plan was with Alltel and I was willing to do anything, even talk to a telemarketer, to screw Alltel in any way. So I switched long distance providers, this will be important later.
The next day I had my girlfriend authorize me to speak with the people at Alltel...I was finally in! Important enough to talk with a customer service rep!
So I called them back and told them I would be switching long distance carriers. I wanted them to assure me that they would not charge me for this and the man I spoke with told me Alltel would not charge me anything for the switch. I hung up confident I would never pay for a dime to Alltel again, at least for my long-distance.
Well, my bill for last month arrived a few days ago. Guess what was on it? Not one, but TWO charges for my switched long distance. As an authorized caller I had the authority now to pick up the phone and speak to an Alltel employee. The gentleman who helped me, after a few minutes of arguing finally took the charge off my bill, but they tried to sneak one by me there.
There were also a few other odd charges on the bill that I didn't have time to argue about at the time.
That brings us to today, when I called back for a detialed explanation of EVERYTHING on the bill. Here's what I found out:
1) They claim three charges on the bill are federal taxes, although the federal government claims there are only two federal phone taxes (one of which goes to pay for wars, which is a different and interesting story, but for another time and review.)
2) They continued to charge us long distance for several days after the switch to our new carrier had taken place.
3) They charge what they called a "Enhanced Local Calling" This was a charge I was totally unaware of. Here in Nebraska not everyone within the same area code is hooked up to the same local phone service. So, to call Omaha for example, even though it is in the same area code, we still have to dial '402' before the number. This is billed as a long distance call, which I find odd after growing up in Chicago where six area codes were all local calls, but that's fine. It is the way it has always been here. However, there are a few communities just outside Lincoln for which we do not need to dial the area code first to reach. I happen to have several good friends who live in these areas. Under Alient, the last company that controlled Lincoln's phone service, I never paid extra fees to call these areas. Now I pay $.06/minute. Which doesn't sound so bad except that Alltel doesn't tell anyone that unless they ask, and it is hidden under "Enhanced LOCAL Calling Usage" but is MORE expensive than it is for me to call my family back home in Chicago!
There are a few other charges, which were explained that I still need to do some research on, but I have found plenty to tick me off for the time being. Oh, and by the way, I forgot to throw in the fact that this summer, a few weeks before I moved in they shut off my girlfriends service completely. They had no explanation other than they made a mistake. She told them to hook it up immediatly. They told her someone would be out by the end of the day to do it. After she sat at home until 5 o'clock that evening she called them to let them know, no one fixed it. She was told that business hours were over and no one could fix it until the next day. So she had a total of over 24 hours with no service, no explanation and no apology.
The bottom line is Alltel is terrible. The take blatant advantage of their monopoly and treat customers like absolute garbage. It is an atrocity that a company like this is even allowed to profit.
I hate cell phones beyond belief. I have sworn I would never own one, but Alltel is pushing me closer and closer to the edge...By this time next month I might be writing a review for my new cell phone.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): TOO MUCH
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Epinions.com ID:
hiphop101
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Member: Tyler
Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Reviews written: 63
Trusted by: 12 members
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