Rants

I have been a mildly disgruntled Tracfone customer for a couple of years now. Donna and I are limited cell phone users and they are a very cheap, for us, alternative. We bought a second phone from them at the end of last October and it didn’t work for the first week. Seemed dead, but miraculously it started working.

This last Saturday it just as miraculously stopped working. No signal. Same symptoms as when we first got it. I called customer service and was told to take the phone to another city and see if I get any signal. I took that sucker all the way to Norway and still got nothing. To make things more interesting I have an identical phone, that was sent to me back in October, that I had never opened up. I charged it’s battery and it has been showing no signal right along with the current phone where ever we have gone for the last couple of days.

I was tempted to just buy another Tracfone, get it up and running and then transfer my 54 minutes of time over to the new phone. But I decided to not to throw any more good money after bad. Narrowed down my choices to two providers and came with in a hair of pulling the trigger on a Boost Mobile phone, but in the end elected to get a Cingular GoPhone with the pay as you go option.

MLB.com – For the heck of it this morning I tried the 1-800 number for customer service. Instead of the busy signal I have gotten the last dozen times or so, it rang. They must have added more incoming lines, but they didn’t add anyone to answer the phone. Because I have a speaker phone at work I decided to just let it ride and see how it would take to get a human. I turned off my music and listened to their classical on hold stuff. Ten minutes into waiting my wife showed up for our morning break. I left the phone alone and we went for our two laps of the parking lot. Fifteen minutes later when I returned the classical music was still playing. I went about my usual business, not worrying about waiting by the phone. Fifty-five minutes into the wait the music inexplicably changed from classical to classic rock. Finally, at one hour and fifteen minutes, Shay asked how she could help me. She did confirm that on the 6th my request for cancellation was honored. I was then informed that it takes 7-10 working days to get the refund credited back to my card and if I don’t see it by, say, the 20th I should call back.

Allstate – When last we left it, I was waiting for Allstate to call me and tell me everything was worked out, so I could go get the car fixed. Flush with my success with MLB.com I decided to call the 1-800 claims center and see what was up. What do you know, it was all settled and I could pick my body shop. Just when were they going to call me?

Everyday since our little fender bender on March 31, I have been on the phone with Allstate Insurance who covers the woman who smacked my trunk lid. Sometimes twice a day and a couple a times more than twice. But not today.

If they were hoping that I might develop amnesia, forgetting about my claim, from beating my head against the obstacles they have thrown at me, they were almost right.

At first they refused to do anything without getting the accident report from their agent. South Carolina law says that you have 15 days to turn in the report to your insurance company, so you can guess when the person at fault will be turning it in. After 4 days I finally got them to agree to accept my copy if it was faxed from my agent to theirs and then their agent would fax it to them. When they got it last Wednesday they said that because they hadn’t actually talked to the driver yet, a manager had to OK it to assign liability and that might take up to 3 days!

In this time I have called the 1-800 number for Allstate Claims about 8 times and had spoken to 8 different people with varying hoops to jump through or bits of advice, including one kindly southern old lady who suggested that I make the claim against my insurance and let the 2 companies fight it out. Right!?! I had also spoken to the local agent who insured the vehicle several times and they have been as nice as they can be, but keep running into the same walls as me. They have tried to contact the insured on several occasion and keep getting a busy signal or no answer. The Allstate Claims office had gotten the same non-responsiveness. They had even sent a letter to them, but nothing yet.

Thursday, 6 days after the event, the driver turns in the accident report. But claiming time constraints cannot talk to the claims office. Finally on Friday the local agent gets the driver on the phone and connects them to the claims office. When I contact the claims office it turns out that talking to the driver was not entirely enough. She is not specifically mentioned on the insurance, so now the insured (mom or dad) has to be contacted to be sure she had permission to drive the car. Jeez, if not, that is a whole ‘nother department and the 10th different person I have spoken to at 1-800 claims office says that might take weeks.

Over the weekend we make no progress contacting the insured and even take a step back when the “manager” determines that he needs a real accident report, not just the basic exchange of information form that got filled out at the time of the incident. I kindly explain to the customer service rep, which I know will do no good, that is all they are going to get because both vehicles were drivable and no one was injured.

Yesterday, Monday, day 10, we have a breakthrough, my pestering the local agent gets them to try the insured again, after all, how much manpower is Allstate going to commit to the job of contacting them anyway? The local folks get the insured hooked up with the 1-800 claims people. When she hangs up with them she calls me and says it looks good I should be hearing from the claims people later that day or tomorrow (which is today.)

So I don’t try and call them today for fear of tying up my phone and Allstate not being able to get through to me. So far, silence from the Good Hands people. I guess I’ll call tomorrow and see what the Excuse Du Jour is.

After rereading the blurb from the email:

MLB.com will honor any refund request for a seasonal subscription made within 10 days of the purchase for the current season or at any time before the subsequent season begins.

I haven’t missed my opportunity to get a refund, now is the time. My credit card was charged on Monday, so I have until the 13th to request my money back.

They’ve got it covered though, take the phone off the hook. I tried calling them 4 separate times today and all I got was a busy signal. I’m sure the phone is not off the hook, but their lines are overloaded by folks like me trying to get their money back.

Now I’m not so sure I want it back. While listening to tonight’s broadcast it was fine up until the 6th inning or so, then it started to break up. At the half inning I shut down the player, cleared IE’s cache, closed and restarted the browser, restarted the player and it has been fine ever since. Once is just anecdotal evidence, more experimentation is required.