March, 2008

I don’t understand why so many companies are outsourcing work to other countries just to save a few dollars. The people who handle our calls are not all competent enough to assistant us. They take too long to answer on simple questions. And the procedures that they have in place are somewhat redundant.

I received an invoice for $146.37 for a couple of month of internet service. Upon further inspection of the bill, I noticed that they were charging me for this month and next month. That seemed a little strange because I’ve already paid for this month. Right at the beginning of the invoice it says that I’ve already paid and they’ve received it. I should be paid up until March 22, 2008 but apparently they threw in another charge.

I don’t know what it is but with phone companies, they like to charge you for this month and the next month even though you haven’t done anything for next month. It’s like they know how much you’ll be using the internet next month before you even used it. I don’t think that it’s fair but that’s how they run their business so we can’t do anything to change that.

Normally I wouldn’t make a big deal out of an invoice but for this one, I have to say something. I’m only taking notice with this one because my coworker was speaking with Bell and they messed up his invoice as well. He was on the phone with someone for a good hour before hanging up and even then the issue wasn’t resolved.

I had to contact Bell a couple of months ago because they messed up on my bill. I was charged $130 for canceling my service prematurely. I wasn’t aware that I was on a contract so they resolved it in a timely manner and cleared the $100 early termination fee which left me with a bill of sixteen dollars and change. Those sixteen dollars shouldn’t be there in the first place but I don’t have time to dispute those charges.

It seems like Bell likes to send me invoices on a Friday so by the time I get the invoice, their offices are closed and I’d have to resort to chatting with someone on the internet who’s probably in India somewhere. Those guys can’t resolve everything so I’d have to wait until Monday to speak with someone in Canada.

Today, I had to speak with three different “agent” over online chat. And the chat was a cheap version of the AJAX shout box that I have. Before the chat starts, they tell me “In case we get disconnected, which rarely ever happens, is there a number that we can contact you at?” I give them my phone number but they never called me when I got disconnected. I was disconnected twice and both times I did not get a call back. And every time I initiate a chat, that’s the same thing they tell me. Sadly enough, I find it hard to believe that disconnection “rarely ever happens.” When I initiate the chat a third time, I didn’t bother giving them my information. Why bother since they’re not even going to call me.

All I wanted to know was why and how my service plan changed, why I was on a two year contract and why I was being charged so much. But every time I posed that question, they couldn’t provide and answer a requested that I send an email to assistance@sympatico.ca. Obviously, these guys aren’t able to help me as much as I thought.

From what they’ve told me, my account was accessed and changed on February 3, 2008 which was the time when I was in Hong Kong. The service was change from a regular DSL to a DSL Performance service which is about fifty dollars a month. When the service was upgrade, the modem was upgraded as well so an additional charge of fifty five dollars was applied for the upgrade and shipping of the month.

The only time that my account could have been changed was when my dad called in for Tech Support because the internet was down. The tech guy could have helped him with his connection problem but I don’t think he would have changed my account. I don’t think anyone has access to my account other than myself and I did not add an authorized user who can speak on my behalf.

I know that my dad’s name shows up on the phone bill but the internet bill is under my name. Even if he is the person who’s the number is registered to, the invoice is under my name so he shouldn’t have access to it unless I say so.

The person that I spoke with online didn’t have a clue as to why the changes were made to the account. From what he could tell, I was the one that upgraded the service. Any questions that I asked that he couldn’t answer, he would suggest that I send an email. I don’t want to send an email to someone when I’m already speaking with someone. I’m sure that the answers are available right in front of him if he looked hard enough. Every call gets recorded in some way so I’m sure that the previous person logged the important information.

Now, I have to wait until Monday to call and get in touch with someone in Canada to get this straightened out. I don’t want to be paying more than $50 a month for a performance internet service when a $30 package will be sufficient. I have a feeling that they will charge me for terminating the contact but it wasn’t me who agreed to the contract in the first place.

I think that these big companies should stop outsourcing their customer service to third world just so they can save a few dollars here and there. There are perfectly good people in Canada who are willing to do the same work. I know that they want to make profit and everything but outsourcing is causing a lot more problems than it’s fixing. I’m getting to the point where I’m going to cancel my service because the customer service sucks. Why should I support a company that doesn’t care about my needs?

Sometimes it’s alright to stop and yield others but other times they can just forget about it. I’m sure that there are benefits in giving others the right of way but that’s not always true. There are cases where it might hurt you more than the other person.

Drivers are crazy people who are in a rush to go everywhere. It doesn’t matter if they’re driving across the street to a Tim Horton’s or whether they’re driving an hour away to the next city. Where ever they go, they’re in a rush to get there as soon as possible.

But it’s not just the speedy drivers who are crazy. The slow drivers are just as crazy because they make the speedy drivers crazier than they already are. Slow drivers do things very slow in a fast paced environment. Take your sweet time merging onto the highway can get you into an accident.

When you’re driving and going places, you don’t want things in your way. In Canada, people like to idle and get in other people’s way. They don’t want things to be done on a timely manner. They want things done but they take their time in doing so but you can’t carry on until they get out of your way.

Taxi drivers do it all the time. They’ll purposely stop in the middle of the street to let their passengers get out of the vehicle. Sometimes I don’t mind it because it happens very quickly but other times they take their time. One time I had to wait because the taxi driver didn’t want to pull into the driver way to let out the customer. So I had to wait until they unloaded all of their groceries.

Taxi drivers are always in a rush to go somewhere so to save time they leave the car running. They can’t afford to shut off the engine for a few minutes. Other times, a taxi will hold up traffic because the passenger wants out right there and then. With only one lane, the taxi is holding up a whole bunch of cars to let the passenger out. It only takes a few seconds to pull to the side or maybe around the corner. I think that an obstruction of traffic is a federal offense punishable by fines.

Tax drivers aren’t the only one that holds up traffic by not pulling over. Every vehicle that carries a passenger is a potential threat. This morning, I drove by a car that appeared to be waiting for a passenger to get out. The door was wide open and I saw a leg stick out. I didn’t have much room to drive pass them so I slowed down almost to a stop. I stopped for a few seconds but the passenger didn’t budge. Their door remained opened and nobody was going anywhere.

I assumed that the driver would be kind enough to inch over to the right to let me pass but he didn’t move. I had to drive over the side walk to get pass them. I don’t know what happened to common courtesy anymore but no one wants to give the right of way. I think that’s one of the main reasons why they made it a law to yield to buses.

For buses, it’s hard for them to switch lanes when nobody will let them in. When you don’t yield to buses, you’re not holding up one person, you’re holding up everyone on that bus. All it takes is for one person to slow down to let the bus go and everyone will be happy.

But sometimes, it’s not good to slow down. When I have to turn onto a busy street, I usually always have to wait for that one car that’s moving really slowly. And for someone reason, they’re always driving onto the lane that I have to turn into. They drive so slow that the traffic behind them catches up to them which in turns means that I can’t turn. If they drove a bit faster, I would have been able to turn before the rest of the traffic catches up but that rarely happens. And it’s the same case when I try to cross the street. I can’t cross because this one car is moving to slow and by the time it passes, the traffic behind it are already speeding down the street.

I honestly don’t know how some of these drivers get their drivers license. Who in their right mind would pass them during their exam? If the speed limit is 50km/h, you should be driving roughly at that speed and not 10km/h slower. There are simple, straight forward rules to obey when you’re on the rule but if you don’t know them, you shouldn’t be driving in the first place.

I don’t like it when people call me just to ask for favours. I don’t mind doing favours for them but it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they called me to chat about things once in a while before asking me for the favour. I don’t appreciate it when people call me out of the blue and ask for a favour.

It’s hard to say no to family members but in certain cases, you have to know where to draw the line. When it comes to my parents, I can’t help it but to say yes to them but to other family members, I don’t have much of a choice. If it helps them out in anyway then I can think about it but sometimes you have to use your own judgment.

For a while now, my aunt has been calling me and asking me for money. The first time she called she told me that she needed money to pay for the car. I found out later that she got a new car and they have to make car payments. First of all, I don’t understand why they bother buying a car when they can’t even afford the monthly payments on it.

She said that she would pay me back at the end of the month so I agreed and took out some money. I was a bit hesitant at first because I didn’t have much money in my bank account to start off wit and she was asking for a thousand dollars at first. I thought that was way too much so I told her that I didn’t have that much money. All I could give her was five hundred because that’s the maximum that the bank will allow me to withdraw at one time. I told her that I also had rent to pay for but that didn’t seem to deter her. It pissed me off when she suggested that I lend her the money first before paying my rent. After she made that selfish comment I didn’t want to give her anything.

When I went to her house to give her the money she wasn’t home. I thought that she was at work so I sat down a waited for a bit. My grandma was home so I chatted with her for a bit and she told me that my aunt was at the casino. Once I heard that, I didn’t want to wait around any longer. I had a feeling that she wasn’t using my money to pay for the rent but my grandma and my cousins were living under the same room and I didn’t want to risk them getting kicked out. I doubt that they’d be evicted for missing one month’s rent but just to be on the safe said I tried to help. But in the end, she didn’t even need the money so I withdrew it for nothing.

The next time she called, I told her that I had no money. I had just gotten my bi-weekly pay and I need that for rent so there was no way I was going to lend her the money. This time, when she called, she didn’t even bother to ask how I was or anything. She didn’t even bother to make small talk. She cut right to the chase and asked me for money.

She first asked me for seven hundred dollars so I told her that I don’t have seven hundred dollars. Then she lowered the request and asked for four hundred dollars. Again, I told her that I didn’t have that either. And finally, she asked for two hundred dollars and that she’ll paid me at the end of the month. I told her that I had to pay for the rent and all I had left was fifty bucks. She said “Okay” and hung up the phone.

At that point, I became furious. The purpose of the call was to get money and since I didn’t have any she didn’t want anything to do with me. How rude is that? I’ve always been a good nephew and I’ve helped her out when I could but this was the last straw. I have my own money problems to worry about and I don’t want to involve myself with her financial dilemmas.

I shouldn’t be complaining about this stuff since I’m the one that’s getting myself in these sorts of positions. I can’t seem to say no when people ask me for help. A lot of people come to me for financial assistance but I’m not really the person to go coming to when they’re in need of money. I’m still trying to get my financial issues in order. I can’t be helping other people when I can’t even help myself.