Every bill is incorrect

Seniors, let me suggest that you assume every bill you get from medical services to your cable bill is incorrect. If you make this assumption, you will be right most of the time. There is a mistake somewhere.

Consider this: my Time Warner bill increased from $170 to $230 per month. I called them of course. After identifying myself, and describing the problem in excruciating detail, the TW person told me I was being double billed and that I needed to talk to someone in customer service. I said, “I thought I was talking to customer service since I called the customer service number on the back of the bill.” I was wrong. The real customer service does not put their phone number anywhere.

I was switched to the real customer service. After being placed on hold and assured repeatedly how important I was, a person answered. Of course I had to identify myself again, this time with my phone number, home address, complete name and finally my social security number. And then I was asked to describe my problem again. After which, I was assured there was no double billing and whoever told me that was wrong.

I won’t bore you with all the sordid details, but I noticed on the bottom of the bill there was a charge labeled, Office Only Service Charge. “What is this charge I asked?” The TW employee replied, “When they make a change to your bill, they charge you for making the change.” To wit, I replied, “In other words, when TW increased my bill unilaterally and with no notice to me, TW had the arrogance to charge me an additional $1.99 for making the change.” The TW employee admitted the stupidity of the charge and took it off my bill. Small victories are still important.

I then asked, “Am I being charged another $1.99 for the changes to the current bill?” The agent quickly replied, “No, I have deleted that charge too.” Notice that if I had not asked, they would have charged me $1.99 for correcting the errors to the current bill. Go figure. It is the old Catch 22. If we make an error, we charge you $1.99 to correct the error, which is an error, which when that error is corrected we charge you another $1.99. And so on. It is Catch 22!

I examined the bill in detail and there were other small errors or increases. A dollar here, $.90 there and eventually we found the discrepancies.

Oh, and one more important thing you should remember. Companies are forming customer retention departments. If possible, talk to the customer retention department. They are actually empowered to do something to keep your business. The normal customer service department has limited abilities to modify your bill. The last time I talked to the customer retention department, they gave me free phone service for 6 months to discourage me from switching to AT&T. However, they forgot to tell me it was only for 6 months so I guess I will have to call them back tomorrow. AT&T is looking pretty good today.

Assume all bills are incorrect and you will be right most of the time.