No more land line

I finally had had enough of spam phone calls from Wells Fargo Home Insurance, AIG, Tele Performance, Card Services, Global Reach and Home Security Group and other related businesses that I decided to cancel our land line. We were averaging at least three calls from Wells Fargo alone each day, five from the others. No one calls us on that line anyway, as everyone has our cell phones.

I called Qwest to do the cancellation. Jennifer, my customer service rep, was aghast. "Why are you cancelling your phone line?"

Stupefied, I replied "Because we aren't using it anymore?"

"Oh (giggles), OK!"

She then began to do the usual Qwest tactic, telling me of all the other "cool" savings I could enjoy if I got DirectTV and my cellphone service on one bundled bill. I will bundle with Qwest next year, but for now Sprint is holding us hostage for another 16 months and a few days.

Jennifer wanted me to know that DirectTV had other options ideal for me, and asked if she could get the paperwork ready to get the TV hooked up.

"It's only going to take a few more minutes!" "Minutes" to Qwest is relative.

"We don't have TV right now, you know, all the channels are bullshit; too much reality TV. The only channel we really enjoy is PBS."

"Oh," she replied quietly She must have thought we live behind the moon. We don't really. But we do live in rural southeastern Arizona and if I play with my TV's rabbit ears I can get a Mexican station from Agua Prieta.

I didn't want to tell Jen that Kevin also likes the History aka Nazi Channel, Comedy Channel and I love my C-Span and newsy stuff. If I did, she would have kept me on the line another 30 minutes. My time was precious. I didn't want to waste any more time listening to upsales.

There were many three to five-minute down times where I was put on hold and forced to listen to a loud robo-ad about all the new features of Qwest. I'd take the phone away from my ear and place the speakerphone on and work on my email while waiting.

Confirmation to a new contract put me in touch with a third party, always an ominous sign. I had to give out all my personal information a second time, getting quite annoyed. Then I was placed on hold again, again forced to listen to loud robo-ads by Qwest.

Then I heard the line switch over yet again, but this time I got connected to another robot who then said "If you are calling to have Qwest take over your long distance service, please state 'yes!'"

WAITAMINUTE! That's not what I wanted. I wanted internet service only, not additional overpriced Qwest long distance. That's why we have long-distance anytime minutes with Sprint.

I replied with a loud "NO!"

"We seem to have a problem here" said the robot. "I'll connect you with a sales representative..."

So then I got reconnected back to a robo-ad, placed my ear set away from my face, placed the line on speakerphone yet again, and waited and played with my Facebook page. Another person came back on, and asked what was the problem. It had now been close to 40 minutes that I had been held hostage by Qwest. Now I was getting impatient with Qwest's ineptitude. By god I thought, it's really true that Qwest has poor customer relations.

"I just spent 40 minutes trying to get my phone disconnected for internet only. I don't want your long-distance!!!"

"Oh, Jen just typed in the wrong code for you, I'll take care of you." More waiting. More robo-ads.

Then I got connected to yet another robo-talk, this time to press either a "1" or a "2" but by the time I realized I was no longer listening to an ad and got back on the line, I was disconnected.

"Good-bye!" said the robot.

So now I don't even know what slick services Qwest has me signed up for. This is going to be interesting.