I had a double experience today that just left me shaking my head. It comes under the category of “did they really think that would work?”
1). First off my dealings with Comcast – my internet/phone/cable TV provider. On December 12th I called to have HDTV installed and to get their ‘triple play’ bundle that included phone/internet/TV. The actual installation didn’t happen until January 5. My bill reflected a credit on my old service from 12/16 – 2/6 and payment for my new service for the same period. Hmmmm…. I thought. Why would I be charged for something I didn’t have installed? The conversation went like this:
Me: Why are you charging me for service from 12/16 when I didn’t get installed until 1/6?
Her: We turned your HDTV service on you just couldn’t get anything in HD. You had those extra channels, though
Me: Well- I didn’t know that and I couldn’t use the HD so why would I pay for it?
Her: Ma’am – you had it. You just couldn’t get the HDTV channels until they did the install. But you had those extra channels
Me/Her… 3 or 4 more times of me explaining that having extra stuff come through the wire without me knowing it and without me being able to use it didn’t constitute ‘having it’ and her contradicting me and with me getting more frustrated. Then a light went off when I noticed the term ‘bundled’ in the higher charge.
Me: Well – you are charging me for a phone/TV/internet bundle but I didn’t get your phone service until the installer came out.
Her: Just a moment ma’am while I check on something…….5 minutes go by….. Ma’am – I’m going to issue you a credit for $77 to cover the time when you were not receiving those services.
Me: Thanks so much for taking care of that!
I ask you – on what planet is it okay to charge for something you have yet to deliver? How much bank must they make on this crap? Their system is set to start charging as soon as a work order goes in even though it is well known that it can take weeks to actually install the service. Maddening. But I solved the problem so I moved on to:
2). Kaiser Bill for my son’s health insurance. I went on-line in December to try to get him insurance. I filled out all of the forms including giving them my ATM account information. I finally was notified about 2 weeks ago that he was approved and insured. Today I got a bill that showed they had charged me for 1 month and another charge for 2 months retroactive. Huh? How can they charge for 2 months retroactive when they didn’t approve anything until 2 weeks ago? So I have my son call them and she explains that they bill 3 months at a time. Okay fine but why are you billing me for 2 months when I had no coverage? “Oh – no problem, sir. When would you like us to change the start date to?” SERIOUSLY??!! This was optional!?? Sweet baby Jeebus who thinks this stuff up? So we change it to start Feb 1 and she tells me I will get a new bill for Feb/March/April. So then I ask about the money that’s already been paid and she says, “Oh yes – I see that you paid that already so we will apply that to February” Awesome! But really – WTF??
3). In other news – let’s talk about training. Yesterday and earlier today I was at that point where my training plan was really bugging me and wearing me out. I was asking the questions we all ask at one point or another – Why? Why do I do this? Who do I think I’m kidding? What is the point??!!! Saturday the Good Doctor and I went for a ride on a route that is hilly and full of rollers and by the time we got to the top of a place called The Three Bears I thought I might die. When TGD got there (and I’m so kicking his ass on the bike these days!) I said, “God that was HARD! That makes climbing Diablo look easy” and he told me I was nuts. It wasn’t hard at all and it was nothing compared to climbing the mountain. You be the judge:
Ride up Mt. Diablo to Top
Three Bears from Reliez Valley Rd.
Note – the scale is quite different – Mt. Diablo goes up to 3500 ft and the 3 Bears is only 900 ft.
I think I was just tired – fatigued.
I had Monday off and yesterday I did 90 minutes in the trainer. This morning I swam but it was an easy workout. Tonight I ran with my race club – one guy in particular. I knew I was going at a really good clip for me and I was chatting. After about a mile I started to fall off the pace but I kept going as hard as I could manage without feeling like I was killing myself. My splits:
7:52, 8:45, 8:47, 8:34, 8:33 (last half mile)
So maybe the person who first got the idea that training hard would make you faster was on to something because that is my previous 5K race pace, not my ‘going for a run’ pace. I’m running a 5K Sunday. I hope it is somebody’s idea for me to PR. I think it might be mine.
21st-century-mom.com 
As Frank Shorter once said “Run hard enough so you feel like you are going to puke”. That was his training suggestion! Worked for him!
And we train because we have to deal with the # 1 and #2 situations in our lives! (Good enough reason I guess…’cause maybe if you weren’t mellowed out from all your workouts you would have KILLED this idiots on the other end of the phone conversations!)
Great splits! I need to run with you!!!
Sub 27:00 5k this weekend for you…I can almost put $ on it!
Wow. I like those business models. Provide service that you aren’t really providing but still charge for it.
Thems smart pipl.
Nice splits! You’ll totally PR this weekend!
those are some smokin’ hot splits, Mom.
LOOK AT THOSE NUMBERS!!!! whoa!! i’m banking on a PR on sunday, by a lot!
and to answer your question….on Planet Comcast. I hear if you twitter bad things about them (=the way they treat customers), they tend to take notice quickly. heh.
Insurance is the land where madness was invented. Seriously. The weird crap we went through to replace our miserable, expensive COBRA coverage with somewhat less expensive and miserable coverage was…epic.
But yes, we did get to choose our starting date, and could have chosen one BEFORE our approval came through. But ooooooh no, we just paid the $1,000,000,000 for one (1) month of COBRA…{grumble, grouse, kvetch…}
Your tri prowess gives me hope. I, uh, well, I did twenty minutes on my stairs yesterday…actual stairs, not a Stairmaster…because I am cheap…
It’s Comcraptastic!
My current peeve is my auto/home insurance, who insists on taking out two months worth the first month and when it renews… but doesn’t tell you this on the phone. Instead, you get a notice in the mail 15 days before they take out the cash without explaining why they’re doing what they’re doing. Add to that policy changes and you end up with conflicting pieces of paper mailed to you, guessing which one was generated first.
End result: every day, you get a new piece of mail, and every day you call to find out what today’s letter really means.
And this is an improvement over my previous carrier. I hate AAA with the intensity of a thousand suns.
Oh man, Comcast is the WORST with their ridiculous billing and ‘charges’ for things that you have no idea what you’re getting charged for. Glad you got everything credited and taken care of though!!!
keep em honest! this works for COMCAST and training
i think we need to record these. i wouldn’t use them in court, but a little youtube action would be great, esp with those captions you can use. shame them.
i am not into shaming, but that comcast thing is ritickleous.
kaiser. german for king. kings. kings get rich by keeping the plebes po and confuzzed.