Today's Mood Is...

Yes, it is time for another one of those blogs railing about poor customer service. Oh, the originality........

So last week Wifey and I decided to switch our phone service from Cavalier to Vonage. We figured we would take advantage of our DSL to add free long distance and the like. Everything was going swimmingly until Tuesday when our Internets suddenly stopped working.

Well, you friendly, neighborhood BSR called Cavalier's award winning customer service (if they gave out awards for Maximum Shitty-osity!) and proceeded to get the run around for almost 3 hours on Wednesday. After MUCH hand ringing and hair pulling and muttering under my breath while on hold, I got someone to ACTUALLY LOOK at the problem, and they said "Oh, wait. We screwed up. We will have this fixed by tomorrow. Here's a reference number for the repair (or as they call it "trouble") ticket. Finally, problem solved...

Until about 3 hours later when we got a call back saying that the problem is not only not solved, but that there is a brand new problem and that we will be without Internets services for about 2 weeks.

That would be more than a little inconvenient. But since our phone service would now be dependant on having the Internets, this makes it a big inconvenience.

I hung up the phone and played some Playstation 2 (Spider-Man Friend or Foe is excellent for beating up imaginary creatures) and then went to bed. Both Wifey and I decided after sleeping on it that (after exploring the other options, and decided that we would call Cavalier back and see if this could be rectified..........

More wrangling (this time on my cell phone because the phone had been switched to my non-working service due to Cavalier's incompetence) and I am told again that the mistake is Cavalier's and it will be repaired post haste and let me transfer you to technical support sir.

That is when I got cut off / hung up on.

I took that as a bad omen, but took a moment to collect myself and called back again.

NOW is where it gets fun.

I talk to technical support and give them the trouble ticket number. The guy puts me on hold and pulls it up. After a moment, he comes back and tells me "Well sir, here is the problem. Cavalier does not offer stand alone DSL in your area"

"But I have had DSL for 3 years at this address. You mean to tell me that I can have DSL with a phone, but not without? Why is that?"

"Because we don't offer stand alone DSL in your area"

...I won't go into detail as to how long this Bizarro-world "Who's on First" conversation went back and forth. Leave it at I apologized in advance to the nice man on the other line and proceeded to go off on a diatribe of vitriol worthy of H.L. Mencken himself as to what level of incompetence that the company as a whole must celebrate in order for it to take 2 days and 12 hours of conversation for someone to realize this vital little piece of information.

To sum up (since I have to get home for a service call and need to leave), the house will be switching to DirecTV and Verizon DSL as of this afternoon.

I hate to suddenly leave it at that, but I have to run to make sure I am home for the beginning of the switch-over.

BSR