Customer Care 101

It's time for us to receive our monthly electric bill.

We have two accounts, one for our household and the other for a small shop that Hubs uses to store "his stuff". For the two or three years that we've been with this electric provider, we have received two statements each month for each account.

The last statement we received for the shop was the first of June...the LAST one we've received. We've gotten our household bill as usual, but no bill for the shop. I let it go the first time, but when we didn't get a notice in July, we decided we'd better get this account straightened out and started calling. We never did get through to anyone...not even a recorded message. All circuits were always busy; try again in a few minutes.

O.K....I go online to look at our account summary. There it was...the last payment they had received, with a zero balance but no new entry. I finally found an e-mail address for contact and e-mailed them, explaining the situation. A couple of days later, I received a reply:

Thank you for the e-mail sent to ....... Customer Care on 7/7/08.
At this we show a 0.00 balance for account number xxxxxxxx.
If you have additional questions or concerns, please call us at ........

Well, this morning I decide to check our account status again. Guess what? A new entry has been made for this month with the usual minimum charge but the previous two months have been ignored. There's still a zero balance. If they're going to ignore it, so will I.

Crabby, it's because of situations such as this that I met prison teacher! LOL! (reference to a comment on previous post!)

I loved this story of Zero Debt. Any of you who have had situations with credit card companies or accounts of any kind might appreciate it.

In March 1992 a man living in Newton, near Boston, received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away.
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In April he received another and threw that one away, too. The following month the credit card company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them $0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to them, they said it was a computer error and told him they'd take care of it.
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The following month our hero decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament. However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in payment for his purchases, he found that his card had been cancelled.
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He called the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company only the previous day, the latest bill was yet another mistake. So he ignored it, and trusted that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out.
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The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt.
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Finally giving in he thought he would play the company at their own game and mailed them a check for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the credit card company nothing at all.
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A week later, the man's bank called him asking him what he was doing writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check processing software to fail. The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing the computer to crash.
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The following month the man received a letter from the credit card company claiming that his check had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a check by return of post they would be taking steps to recover the debt.
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The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead.
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Have a good day and blessings to your household!