why does it take the phone company 2 months to figure out how to use a credit card no

[ElFenix]

wtf? this isn't 1960.

 

[highland145]

ATT?

 

[ElFenix]

ATT?

yup

 

[highland145]

yup

Assuming cell, I'll be glad to bust on my friend. She's neck deep in the 911/emergency response crap mandated by your favorite Uncle.

Sorry, ElF.

 

[TwiceOver]

My utilities company wants $9.95 per payment if made online. Or I can mail them an IOU from my bank for free.

 

[ShawnD1]

wtf? this isn't 1960.

Why does it sound like everything in the US is horribly broken? Canada is virtually a third world country when it comes to infrastructure, and even Canada is years ahead of the US. We have tons of people on this forum saying areas in major US cities only have 1 internet provider or 1 non-satellite TV provider. In Canada, companies are required by law to share infrastructure. All of the phone infrastructure in my city is owned by one company and the cable infrastructure is all owned by another company, but there are lots of different internet providers to deal with. When it comes to cell phone providers, service in the US is so horrendous that companies advertise fewer dropped calls and better coverage. I have never experienced a dropped call in Canada nor have I ever seen any part of a city that has no cell phone coverage. Again, the companies are required to share infrastructure, so all of the cell providers have complete coverage of the entire city and surrounding areas.

Shit like not being able to use credit cards doesn't happen as often in Canada because there is competition on everything. Even if a company owns the grid, they can't afford to fuck around like that because some other company that isn't run by idiots will gain market share.

 

[Crono]

Why does it sound like everything in the US is horribly broken? Canada is virtually a third world country when it comes to infrastructure, and even Canada is years ahead of the US. We have tons of people on this forum saying areas in major US cities only have 1 internet provider or 1 non-satellite TV provider. In Canada, companies are required by law to share infrastructure. All of the phone infrastructure in my city is owned by one company and the cable infrastructure is all owned by another company, but there are lots of different internet providers to deal with. When it comes to cell phone providers, service in the US is so horrendous that companies advertise fewer dropped calls and better coverage. I have never experienced a dropped call in Canada nor have I ever seen any part of a city that has no cell phone coverage. Again, the companies are required to share infrastructure, so all of the cell providers have complete coverage of the entire city and surrounding areas.

Shit like not being able to use credit cards doesn't happen as often in Canada because there is competition on everything. Even if a company owns the grid, they can't afford to fuck around like that because some other company that isn't run by idiots will gain market share.

You would think there would be a lot of competition in a large capitalist nation like the United States, but we have a few big companies with implicit or explicit agreements with each other to do squat.

Even developing countries have better competitive telecom markets (even with rampant corruption) because at least they have dozens of local companies flurrying and fighting for customers in smaller regions.

 

[ElFenix]

Why does it sound like everything in the US is horribly broken? Canada is virtually a third world country when it comes to infrastructure, and even Canada is years ahead of the US. We have tons of people on this forum saying areas in major US cities only have 1 internet provider or 1 non-satellite TV provider. In Canada, companies are required by law to share infrastructure. All of the phone infrastructure in my city is owned by one company and the cable infrastructure is all owned by another company, but there are lots of different internet providers to deal with. When it comes to cell phone providers, service in the US is so horrendous that companies advertise fewer dropped calls and better coverage. I have never experienced a dropped call in Canada nor have I ever seen any part of a city that has no cell phone coverage. Again, the companies are required to share infrastructure, so all of the cell providers have complete coverage of the entire city and surrounding areas.

Shit like not being able to use credit cards doesn't happen as often in Canada because there is competition on everything. Even if a company owns the grid, they can't afford to fuck around like that because some other company that isn't run by idiots will gain market share.

because the US telecom industry is completely fucked and anti-consumer.


the major law regulating the telecom industry ended up not promoting competition at all and didn't foresee that competition would come not from telephone companies against telephone companies, but from cable companies vs. wireline companies vs. wireless companies (though the second is basically a subset of the third at this point).

 

[Scouzer]

Why does it sound like everything in the US is horribly broken? Canada is virtually a third world country when it comes to infrastructure, and even Canada is years ahead of the US. We have tons of people on this forum saying areas in major US cities only have 1 internet provider or 1 non-satellite TV provider. In Canada, companies are required by law to share infrastructure. All of the phone infrastructure in my city is owned by one company and the cable infrastructure is all owned by another company, but there are lots of different internet providers to deal with. When it comes to cell phone providers, service in the US is so horrendous that companies advertise fewer dropped calls and better coverage. I have never experienced a dropped call in Canada nor have I ever seen any part of a city that has no cell phone coverage. Again, the companies are required to share infrastructure, so all of the cell providers have complete coverage of the entire city and surrounding areas.

Shit like not being able to use credit cards doesn't happen as often in Canada because there is competition on everything. Even if a company owns the grid, they can't afford to fuck around like that because some other company that isn't run by idiots will gain market share.

I'm not sure if we live in the same Canada... your post almost sounds tongue in cheek. I hope it is.

 

[T9D]

Try getting Kaiser Permenente to just draw my freaking funds correctly for once. I can't tell you how many times I've been months behind because they constantly screw that up and can't use the card right.

Up until this year you couldn't even do payments online or change anything online with billing. In fact it was a totally different company. If you changed anything on your card information you had to flipping fax it.....FAX IT. And they never got that right.

 

[ShawnD1]

I'm not sure if we live in the same Canada... your post almost sounds tongue in cheek. I hope it is.

Nope, totally serious. You can check cell phone coverage maps here. There's even a provider called President's Choice Mobile. That's hilarious. For those who don't know, President's Choice is the store brand for a chain of grocery stores in Canada. That would be like getting your cell phone service through Whole Foods in the US. Whole Foods Mobile.
Of course President's Choice doesn't actually own any of the grid. As far as I know, most of the grid in Canada is owned by Bell, Telus, and Rogers. The local DSL infrastructure is all owned by Telus, but my internet is through Teksavvy, and it somehow costs less than if I went through Telus. How does that work? My cell phone provider is Bell, but the infrastructure is likely owned by Telus as well. None of the providers can talk about fewer dropped calls since they all use the same cell towers.

Joe Rogan said a few times on his podcast that there were about 3 cellular dead zones between his house and some place he regularly drove to. He had to switch providers just to avoid that crap, so he's basically locked into 1 provider who has coverage for that area, so he's forced to deal with any bullshit they try to pull. I can't remember which, but it was either AT&T or Verizon that had the dead zones, and the other one was acceptable.
I remember thinking that was really weird because I've never seen that in Canada, not even when I'm in the middle of nowhere. I get good cell reception at the lake where I camp every year.

 

[Farang]

Thought this was going to be about CenturyLink. Absolutely the worst billing system I've ever experienced. Took me 3 months to finally get automatic payment going. I won't go into every detail, but just an example of the stupidity, they ask you to login using the phone number for your account. Except it isn't the phone number for your account (I had given them my cell phone number). They assign you some arbitrary phone number. Why don't they just call that an account number then.

Any company doing recurring billing has no excuse why they can't set up automatic payment within a few clicks. If I had to call and pay every company that bills me it would take one day each month

 

[Leros]

I can't get Time Warner to send me a bill or let me use their online bill pay system.

About a year ago, they moved my account to a new billing system. In that move, they somehow screwed up my account and stopped sending me bills. Also, I can no longer sign into my online account. They refuse to help me with the online account unless I provide some sort of service number that is included in my physical bill. I spent a few hours talking to various customer service agents and eventually gave up.

I've got a good system though. Every two months they call me to inform me that my bill is overdue. I then call their pay by phone system which automatically knows who I am due to my phone number and pay with my credit card. Funny how their phone system lets me pay without having to provide some magic service number.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Nope, totally serious. You can check cell phone coverage maps here. There's even a provider called President's Choice Mobile. That's hilarious. For those who don't know, President's Choice is the store brand for a chain of grocery stores in Canada. That would be like getting your cell phone service through Whole Foods in the US. Whole Foods Mobile.
Of course President's Choice doesn't actually own any of the grid. As far as I know, most of the grid in Canada is owned by Bell, Telus, and Rogers. The local DSL infrastructure is all owned by Telus, but my internet is through Teksavvy, and it somehow costs less than if I went through Telus. How does that work? My cell phone provider is Bell, but the infrastructure is likely owned by Telus as well. None of the providers can talk about fewer dropped calls since they all use the same cell towers.

Joe Rogan said a few times on his podcast that there were about 3 cellular dead zones between his house and some place he regularly drove to. He had to switch providers just to avoid that crap, so he's basically locked into 1 provider who has coverage for that area, so he's forced to deal with any bullshit they try to pull. I can't remember which, but it was either AT&T or Verizon that had the dead zones, and the other one was acceptable.
I remember thinking that was really weird because I've never seen that in Canada, not even when I'm in the middle of nowhere. I get good cell reception at the lake where I camp every year.

Hahaha I never knew about President's Choice Mobile, that's funny. That's almost as funny as getting life insurance at Canadian Tire...no, really, they offer life insurance. :biggrin: