Their Em-barq Is Worse Than Their Em-bite

I got a call on my cell. My girlfriend's mother had left a message. She had been trying to call our home all day, she said, but she was getting a recording that told her our line had been disconnected.

Funny, I thought. Our daughter had said something about the school principal trying to call us about some schoolyard gossip that had involved her, but the principal had complained that our number had been disconnected. (Good riddance!) I had checked the phone then and, sure enough, there had been a dial tone.

So I checked again. It still had a dial tone. I dialed the modem, but got a busy. I dialed my girlfriend's parents in New Jersey and got an error recording. I dialed my grandfather at his cell, and viola! I got through.

So I could get through to cell networks but not to land-lines, local or long distance. I tried dialing Sprint/Embarq's customer service number, 1-800-whatever, and got another error. I dialed it without the 1. Bingo!

When I got a live representative, I asked if there were problems in my area. "Are you referring to the fact that your account was suspended?" she asked. Oops. I typically wait until the last few days to make a payment, just because their service sucks so much out in the woods but I pay regular rates like everyone else. They had moved up the due date, randomly, just for that month as far as anyone knew. So they had cut me off from land-lines, but presumably I could still call cell phones and 800 numbers, which the representative also couldn't explain.

"Fine," I said. "Is there a fee?" Yes, there was. A $30 fee would be added to my next bill. They could tie up several hundred dollars of my cash, on hold over the weekend at my bank, because an Embarq computer glitch had billed me a half-dozen times one month, but they wanted $30 the first time they cut me off for non-payment. She was sorry, she said. Did I still want to get reconnected? Naturally.

So she clickety-clacked on her keyboard at her end, and I muttered about their lousy service on my end. "It should be back on within four hours. Probably sooner, but I have to say four hours, just in case." Right. Like the technicians who estimate 48 hours in addressing a complete service outage and show up five days later. She asked if she could help with anything else. As a matter of fact, ...

I wanted to know who was responsible for authorizing a credit to my account in the amount of the reconnection fee. She would have to look at my account, she said. They keep notes. I have called more than two dozen times over the last three years, not counting the times when my phone connection died for less than a few hours. She took awhile. She said she could authorize the credit herself.

Oh, goody. You're authorized to not screw me, at least while I'm talking to you in person and begging to not get screwed. What service!

Me: 1
Embarf: 12,337