Qwest-Citi redux

A while ago I recounted why I fired Qwest as a landline telecommunications provider. (If you don’t want to read the post, it’s because of their bait-&-switch practices, which no one there gave a toss about until I told them I was cutting the line. At that point I was handed off to a special rep who tried like crazy to keep me as a “valued customer”—trying everything except giving me the services I’d ordered at the price I’d been quoted.)

After that call, I received the final extortionate bill (for nothing but phone service—no Internet—$65) & paid it. So imagine my surprise to receive a bill for $0.55 a couple of days ago, for “long distance”.

Naturally I called to ask why I was being billed for less than a dollar of long distance “service”, after I’d paid the final bill. I was connected to someone named Rhonda (which may, of course, be simply a nom-d'abuse for work purposes)—let me just say this about Rhonda: she should not be in a customer-facing position. & she definitely was not interested in trying to convert me back to customerhood by demonstrating her commitment to customer satisfaction.

Speaking as though to a cretin, she tried telling me the L-D service is paid "in arrears", & that $0.55 was for the final day, the day I cut off service. I said I'd received & paid the final bill, so I didn’t understand what this was about. After a few go arounds where she kept repeating that it’s because you pay “in arrears”, she finally really sullenly said she'd "zero it out", which took her about five minutes to do.

But at least it cost them about $10 to try to get $.55 out of me.

BTW—in that January post I also discussed telling CitiCard to take a hike after repeatedly applying my electronic payments late & charging me those extortionate fees & interest they so love to collect (especially since I “zero out” my bill each month).

Imagine my surprise to find that I’m now getting those “come join us” credit card offers from none other than CitiCard. Evidently they haven’t discovered the concept of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, where that account manager (who also tried like mad to keep me as a valued customer when I cancelled) might have entered a notation that I’d been quite explicit about my intention to never use their products again.

I find it interesting to discover again & again that businesses seem to think we the consumer public haven’t caught on that very, very few of them are not in fact offering unique products or services, & that we really can go to a competitor when they start treating us like serfs with bank accounts.

Hello, folks—that’s a basic tenet of capitalism. Which you on the federal bailout program might have forgot. But trust me—ain’t none of you irreplaceable.

You might want to think about that before you piss off those customers who can still afford to buy your offerings.