As a nineteen-year-old, I have a simultaneous passive idealist yet pessimist perception of the world. The idea of passively entertaining this image of micro– and macro-social behaviors was, up until today, a very compatible one. Now it has thrown me into a bout of cognitive dissonance.
I pay bills. Not many. Not large relative to someone who is a credit card slave or to a couple who owns a house and has children. So, I am not complaining about the fact that I have bills, or that I pay them. In fact, I realize that I have bills because I entered into an agreement with some party such as the university for my tuition or a bank for my student loan or because I requested a service or purchased a good from somebody. Those bills are my bills.
We have an understanding that I don’t mind bills, I don’t complain about them, because they are mine — so what on Earth am I quibbling about?
The collective conscience of Americans, or American society, has a distinctive sense of anti-corporate, pro-Main Street ideals. We probably do not want to use anti-corporate, because that would sound harsh, and we love to foster what we call a “free market”. It’s just that general call-to-arms to protect that common man, or woman as the case may be. So it’s with pride that most of us “stick it to the man”.
Anyway, I have always been in tune with this sort of populist mindset, but when I’m paying bills, even if I disagree about how much the good or service is valued (because certainly some things are overvalued), it never crosses my mind to stick it to the man.
Well. The man, as we know him, has stuck it to me. Mobile phone carriers are well-known for the obfuscation of terms, conditions, what that one $3.53 charge was for, the increasingly difficult-to-understand customer service representatives, the bureaucracy intended to make solving an issue or complaint as miserably impossible as possible, from misleading words to outright lies, etc.
I started a family plan with two friends August 31, 2009. At the T-Mobile store, it was fast and simple to make that happen. After returning home and viewing my account online, it became evident that there were many inconsistencies: 144 minutes were already used on the plan, and the two cycles of service that I paid for (supposedly, for service until November 1) would actually end October 1. This would mean that I paid for two cycles, but received one cycle plus one day (August 31).
After an hour with a “Customer Care” representative, we were able to conclude that:
- Yes, we have no idea where those 144 minutes came from, and we can’t access our own records to check, but we’re still going to leave them used on your account.
- I asked, “Is it really true that I paid a full-cycle price for just one day (August 31) and then for the month of September?” The answer: “That’s correct. I’m very sorry.”
- Q: “Are you taking advantage of your subscribers?” A: “Damn straight!”
Okay, that last bullet point was made up, but the intentional hyperbole was not.
I have an ax to grind with T-Mobile, and I feel extremely sympathetic and concerned for the in-store sales representative who has to deal with me.