ADT – a #businesstoavoid

I’m sick and tired of being pushed around by the phone and alarm companies, which I have been since I got home.

I wanted a better line. The phone company gave it to me, sort of. They also ran a new jack into my wall placed right in front of my phone book drawer in the kitchen, the one with all of my important information such as alarm passwords I should need. It is now hell to open the drawer.

Then they charged us twice the quoted price for their work and left me with a phone that didn’t ring at the receiver. No, oh no…it rang THROUGH the alarm box. ALL DAY LONG because for years now our number has been listed in the phone book as the number to our phone company, not to us.

I tried to get it fixed. They sent someone who complained very loudly the entire time that he didn’t know about alarm systems, was not trained to handle alarm systems, and left me with a mess.

Fine. Call the alarm company. They helped me to fix the box, but not before my husband shut off the phone line being as we’re pretty unhappy with the way we’ve been dicked around by the phone company. The lady was nice and was even willing to help me close my account if need be, but I chose not to because I thought all was well. Except the phone is down, so… I call back. To close the account for now.

See this house is riddled with phone line after phone line after phone line where various phone companies have come in and compounded on the mess every time something was installed. Rerun lines through already set paths? Not tangle things? Not create a mess that we, the customer, have to unravel each and every time? Forget about it. So our great and wonderful plan *was* to shut things off until my husband finally came home for good, which should be any week now we hope. (It’s in the VA’s hands.) Then we’re going to rip out all of the lines, get the 20+ year mess cleaned out, and run shiny new cables ourselves (he can do that). Then we were going to turn things back on.

But after being pushed around for the final time today, I can only say fuck it. Sure I’m going to have my shiny new lines. But if I can it *wont’* be with the companies that have pushed us around. Because not only would our phone/internet idiots not fix things right the first and second time they came, I’m not getting the speed I’m paying for. And the alarm people? Yeah. They want passwords from me from five damn years ago, which I don’t have anymore thanks to a certain housekeeper having just about everything shipped to me when I was in Louisiana. Including the contents of the phone book drawer. (I still remember how pissed I was when I found those articles in a box as I was unpacking.) If I don’t have the password, they tell me, how about names from my emergency contact list… which I wouldn’t have made except under duress because I don’t *have* anyone I can add to such a list so no, I’m not going to remember. Well then I have to find a fax machine (the closest I can use is over an hour away) to fax them a notice to a number I wasn’t going to get.

How about, I finally said as I’m quite fed up with this drama, I just stop paying the bill and you guys will cut me off eventually?

Not a wise choice, the person on the other end who very clearly was taking a “strong” stance against me, but I could also do it that way. But she’ll have it sent to collections.

So? I asked.

Seriously, I think that’s the stupidest threat you can try to levy against anyone. It will be sent to collections… and so?? First of all, okay so you send something to collections. Oh no. I pay it. Second of all, it doesn’t matter if I pay it to you or pay it to collections it still will get paid… except it’s a lose situation for YOU because you only get a partial cut of what I’m paying where I’m paying the same as I would pay before. Thirdly, I personally don’t give a fuck if you send it to collections or not because – this is important – I’m not allowed credit because I’m SELF-EMPLOYED.

That’s right. I’ve been refused credit again and again in the past seven years because I’m self-employed. This is the reason on all of my rejection letters. My income level does not matter. Proof I pay my bills does not matter. The fact that I’ve been paying the same credit cards monthly like clockwork for over ten years does not matter. So I’m just not sure how such a threat is supposed to sway me to want to do business with you?

Oh wait, ha ha, it doesn’t.

When I think of their services over the years, it’s not like it’s done me any good. The times the alarm needed to sound, a power outage stopped it. Or the call wasn’t made. The only times the cops have been alerted was when we did something accidentally. Yeah. Years of paying out for nothing. Thanks, but no thanks. We’ll find a better company (but not the one the dispatcher at our phone company apparently runs, as the service guy told me ADT customers are pushed around by the phone company on purpose to make us switch.).

And that was my adventure today with ADT, the alarm company, that now has a payment-less bill waiting to go out. The check I had written for it is shredded to pieces and rests in my wastebasket. And on the bill it says very clearly that I want the account closed. And if not paying the bill will get me what I want, then so be it. And they can forget about my business in the future.

When the account is finally closed, I’ll pay the bill. That simple.

It is a major point of irritation to me that in the name of safety and security I have to go through such actions. They verified who I was, I shouldn’t need this crap. This was the crap a certain bank gave me AFTER I’d went into their office to close my account before moving up here the first time. I had to go to Chicago, they told me, now that I had moved if I wanted the account closed… all because they didn’t follow through the first time. I had to allow the account to go into arrears, get closed, and then pay it out. That’s what I HAD to do because, in the name of security, they held my credit hostage.

Fuck this noise. FUCK IT! And if everyone else would say the same, this bullying would STOP.

#businesstoavoid

Seriously.