April, 2008

I am still having problems with Bell Sympatico messing up my monthly invoice. Their customer service representatives are telling me one thing and doing something else. They are not following through with what they are saying and I have to sit and wait on the phone while they correct their mistakes.

If you can recall from last month, I wrote a rant about how they outsourced their call centers to India. By outsourcing to India, their Canadian call center is only open until 7:00 PM and it hard to get a hold of someone if you work late. They have it set up so that if you call from an area that’s in the Eastern Standard time zone, you won’t get in. I’m sure that they have customers out in British Columbia and if those customers call at 7:00 PM EST, someone will answer their call. Why can’t that same someone answer calls from the rest of Canada?

The beef that I have with them this month is the fact that they’re charging me fees that are supposed to be waived. I did not agree to the contract that they put me on so everything that was initiated is considered void. But since I was removed from that contract, they decided to penalize me for it. That wasn’t a good move. I had to call them up and ask them to fix the problem and if they didn’t fix it, I would have canceled my service with them.

If you take a look under the “Adjustments” section of the invoice, you can see that there‘s no credit for $55 for the modem upgrade. The fee consisted of two charges. One charge was for shipping and the second charge was for the upgrade. Because I convince them that the contract was void, they agreed to credit me back the $55 for the upgrade. There’s a credit for $8.86 for something but I have no idea what it’s for. Maybe they’re crediting me back the $55 in installments?

Just below the adjustment section is a section for “Other charges” where they charged me $100 for “Early Termination.” I don’t know why they are charging me that since I am still with them. I never asked them to cancel my service but after seeing that charge, I was seriously thinking about canceling. If they were going to charge me a fee when I haven’t canceled yet, I might as well cancel and save myself the headaches of having to deal with these mistakes.

It wasn’t hard to get them to credit me back the $100 because the representative that I spoke with was smart enough to look over the notes from the previous representative that I’ve spoke with. That’s what every representative should be doing when they get a call regarding past calls. Sometimes, I have to tell them to look there but they should be looking there without me telling them, to familiarize themselves with my account. It doesn’t take that long and I wouldn’t mind holding while they get up-to-date.

After all the necessary credits were applied to my account, I had an outstanding balance of $129.26 which is still pretty high for two month’s worth of internet service. But I paid $146.37 for last month’s invoice which I should have only paid $91.37 which should leave the balance at $37.89 but since I paid the full amount, I should be left with a credit of $17.11.

No matter what ISP you go with, there’s going to be some bumpy roads along the way. So far, I have not been with an ISP that has not over charged me for something albeit I’ve only been with a couple. Bell Sympatico since they were the first to be available in my area so I went with them. But since the ISP market has expanded, I am considering other companies. If I was still at my parent’s house, I probably don’t need to pay for internet since the city is offering it for free.

For the last few weeks I have calling the city’s forestry department to request that someone come over to my house and look at a tree. This tree is pretty harmless except for the fact that it’s growing near a gas line. It has been three weeks and no one has even returned my call. The danger isn’t major right not but eventually the tree will rupture the line.

My girlfriend’s father asked me to cut down this tree but after I took a look at it, the tree is too high for me to cut down. I would need a sixteen foot ladder to get me up high enough and start cutting it down from the top. If I start right from the bottom, the tree will fall and might land on top of someone’s car roof. The tree is on city property so it’s their responsibility to take it down. The city likes to take their time when it comes to things of low importance. It’s low priority because no money is being made by this. If money was involved, it’s a whole other matter.

My neighbour who lives directly behind me had a visit from a city employee in a matter of hours but that was because they were charging him for something. Another neighbour had called to complain about the garbage at the back of his house so someone from the city came and left him a notice to get it cleaned up. The visit from the city employee caused a chain reaction which leads the employee to check out other things around the house. Upon further inspection they noticed that the wall surrounding the backyard was cracked and needs to be replaced. They gave him a deadline of May 5th. If he did not have it fixed by then he’ll be charged a fine.

As far as I know, a dirty backyard is nothing compared to a possible gas leak. My neighbour’s backyard was dirty because he was doing some spring cleaning. It’s common sense. And the neighbhour that complained didn’t even care to ask him about it. She saw that he was there cleaning up but apparently he was cleaning up too slowly. It’s hard to clean up fast when you’re over fifty years old with a bad back. He’s doing what he can with the clean up in his condition and he doesn’t need any disturbance form the city. But charging him a fine means income for the city and cutting down my tree means no income. Which one would the city take priority over?

The first time that I called, a lady that was on the phone said that someone would call me back. I don’t know why she didn’t book an appointment for me since I was calling the correct department. I waited a week and called back again and this time she said the same thing. Someone just wasn’t right here. It was taking far too long to get a tree looked at. I wasn’t asking them to cut it down, I was asking for someone to come and take a look. I’m not even that far from City Hall so I don’t see why it would take so long. All it took from the other neighbour was a complaint and someone was over right away. Couldn’t that person take a look at the tree while they were looking at my neighbour’s backyard?

This is the start of the third week and I still haven’t heard back from them so I sent them an email. This way, I’ll have a record that I’ve sent something to them and nothing is being done. If it continues like this, I’ll have to contact someone higher up. I may be one person in a population of half a million but from what I can see, the city hasn’t done much for me lately. I work for a living, I pay taxes and I don’t cause any trouble. I’m helping the city by paying my taxes so the least they could do is send someone over to my house to take a look at a couple of trees.

Can anyone explain to me the reason why the price of gas has gone up to almost $1.15/L? As far as I can tell, there isn’t any need for the price to go up so high since oil companies are making record profit. I don’t think that the demand for gas is more than it was last year. With all these different types of renewable energy showing up, I can’t see why the price of gas is sky rocketing.

Everyone who drives a car are complaining that the price is going way too high but not too many people are doing anything about it. I drive to work but I only live minutes away. It takes me about five minutes to get from my house to my workplace. I only drive because it’s too cold to walk. If the weather was nicer, I’d walk to work because it only takes me fifteen minutes. I don’t want to support the oil companies any more than I have to so I’m cutting back when I can.

From what I can tell, there is no shortage in oil. The oil companies are testing everyone to see how much people are willing to spend for gas. I hear people complain about the prices of gas as it goes up but that doesn’t stop them from filling up. Every litre of gas that goes into the tank is just another litre of gas. The price could go as high as $1.50/L and people will still be pumping gas.

I hear that people will have to give up their car if the price keeps going up but somehow I find that hard to believe. Transportation is a necessity in this day and age and without, you waste a lot of time travelling. Public transportation is crap and takes forever. When I was in college, it took me an hour to get to school if I took the bus but if I drove, it would only take me fifteen minutes.

At the time, I would spend $60-$70 per month for a bus pass but I always wasted forty hours a month on walking to the bus stop and waiting for the bus. With a car, I’d be wasting money on gas and insurance but I’d at least save myself the time and headaches. I think it’s worth it to have a car rather than taking public transportation.

But even public transportation is affects by the price of gas. I don’t think that it should but every company is out to make a profit so they have to raise prices. Since the day that I first started taking the bus to now, bus fare has risen from $1.25 to $2.45 but the bus drivers are doing the same job and driving the same buses. If they want to save some money, maybe they shouldn’t put so many damn bus stops all over the place. They have bus stops on almost every block.

Prices are going up but nothing has changed. The process of refining oil shouldn’t have changed and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of it either. It’s all a game. Just think about it, when the Canadian dollar rose to almost $1.10 US, the price of gas didn’t go down at all, did it?. Instead, the price of gas went up. How is that possible?