Katy McKenna Raymond  
Personal blog of christian writer Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri

Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri


Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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You, Too, May Have Money Coming To You!

If you're at all like me, you try not to look too closely at your bills.

I don't mind opening them, or scanning them to make sure no one's charged tickets to Hawaii on my card or something, but the fine, fine print?

That's where, if you look hard enough, you'll see the screwball taxes on your cell phone, and the charges for services you thought you'd use and meant to cancel a long time ago.

And then there's my personal favorite, the so-called "special usage fee" of $2.95 or whatever. Oh, yeah. That one always makes me feel really special.

I don't know what I was thinking, but today, before I could stop myself, I opened an SBC phone bill and actually thumbed through it. Not just the page which shows the amount due, but the other pages, too.

The word "Yahoo" popped off the page, probably because I knew it had been untold ages since anyone in this house had used anything with that name. Maybe you Yahoo, but we don't.

Right there, in black and white, I was being charged $15.95/month for Yahoo Internet Dial-Up Services. Dial-up? Another red flag. Even I, as thoroughly un-tech as I am, know our Internet service arrives via satellite.

And, of course, once I located the itemized extortion, it became my moral obligation to deal with it. And that's why I try not to look. I've got about as many moral obligations as I can handle right now, and if I have to pay a little extra to avoid taking on another, sometimes it seems worth it. The hassle involved in making sure I'm not getting the screws put to me could turn into a part-time job--and who has the time for another one of those?

It took an hour and a half of runaround on the phone, speaking to the world's most unhelpful and uninformed employees (except for Tina, the one of ten who finally solved my problem, and who I praised to her manager), before I got to the bottom of it.

I've been being charged for SBC Yahoo dial-up Internet service since February, 2002, a service I've never used and did not request.

Check your bills, you guys! I've got a cool check for $500 bucks coming my way, or my name's not Kathleen Raymond.

Funny, I've had an SBC phone number since 1972, but nine out of ten SBC employees swear--when I claim they owe ME money--that they have no record of anyone with that name.....
Posted by Katy on 10/26/04 at 03:54 PM
Fallible Comments...
  1. reminds me of a joke i heard recently about God parting the red tape...i laughed myself silly over that one.

    justadjust.blogspot.com
    -----
    Posted by lisa  on  10/26/04  at  10:59 PM
  2. What I have always found to be most frustrating is how long it takes to get money back that a company owes you, but how adamant they are for you to pay them right away for something you owed but didn't know about. For an entire year KCPL was reading my meter wrong and then billed me all at once for the additional charges they had failed to bill me for during the year. When I called to tell them that I wouldn't be able to pay right away, they got all snippy with me. Pretty ridiculous.
    Posted by Mary  on  10/26/04  at  11:00 PM
  3. Had I not thrown SBC out the door months ago I'd go look...but then I'd also have to call them, and deal with their customer service people...

    I think I'd pay 500 dollars to avoid that again :)

    -M
    Posted by Michael Main  on  10/27/04  at  09:38 AM
  4. reminds me of a similar looking at my parents SBC bill many years ago - i realized they had been paying, since 1979!! for some insurance service to fix the lines inside the home, it was only a few dollars a month but they had been paying it for 15 years. my mom and dad said they never had ordered it, so i inquired who ordered the service, and MORE importantly, had we ever called to have anything fixed? they couldn't answer the first question, and they said "no" to the second question. when i was able to provide them a bill for work we DID have done to fix some water logged lines in the basement, it was proof to them we never ordered, never used, nor ever needed the service.

    my parents didn't pay a phone bill for years... seriously. i think the credit was for over $600.... keep them honest! jkc
    Posted by jason  on  10/27/04  at  10:57 AM
  5. Lisa--Send me that joke!!!

    Mary--Yeah, and that goes for the IRS, too. If they make a mistake and owe me, it takes the rest of my natural life to get my money. If I make a mistake and owe them, I get a letter saying, in essence, "PAY WITHIN THREE DAYS OR YOU'LL BE ROOMING WITH MARTHA STEWART." Where is the mercy?

    Jason--I'm impressed that you'd go to the trouble of helping your parents out like that. Red tape can make a crazy person out of a relatively sane one, and for you to take on the "system" of your own volition was truly kind. I helped a friend of mine navigate her husband's health insurance claims problems (a three year project, until his car wrect injuries resulted finally in his death) and I handled it OK, but I was a lot younger then.

    Now, they'd definitely have to up my meds to get me to do it.... :)
    Posted by katy  on  11/02/04  at  02:24 AM
  6. Michael--I remember you writing that, but I'd forgotten it was SBC!!! Truly, I think after we get the money owed us, we're going to switch to all cells. The whole land line thing is becoming more overlap than I need, and costing a lot more than it's worth.....
    Posted by katy  on  11/02/04  at  02:26 AM
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