Dec 5 - happy birthday !

What a day ! Unbelievable !

I set a personal record for a 200k, finishing in 7:35. The wind, which was supposed to be ESE, was probably more SE which helped a great deal. I also opted to simply ride US 1, no scenic route at all, so the 200k was exactly that. The actual rolling time was about 1/2 hour less, including the mid-point Control stop, McD's for a diet coke in Titusville and a couple of 2-minute stops by the side of the road. By the way, those weren't call of nature stops, they were take-a-deep-breath, guzzle-lots-of-water stops.

Before leaving on the ride, I'd been looking at my Verizon bill which is always a mess of taxes and surcharges and more taxes. The extra line, which I'd had since getting the Blackberry, costing way more than the extra $10 per month. I had it in my head that it was costing double that as I made a note to myself to call Verizon once I got home.

So ... since I was home in record time, ride over at 2:35, after cleaning up and eating/drinking, I got on the phone. I thought that this was going to be a quick call.

THREE HOURS LATER, I got satisfaction, of a sort. I wish that there was some system whereby the half-dozen people that I'd spoken to in getting there could know that yes, there is a way of doing this.

So here's the story ...

When I got the smartphone, I could either cancel the existing contract and pay a penalty or, as I was convinced by the agent in the Verizon store, carry the existing phone for "a few months" (I should have made a record of that conversation !) at $10 per month until the contract was over. Strictly speaking, that was true. Had I put the new telephone number on the Blackberry, the existing LG phone could have been cancelled 3 months later without penalty. However, they swapped numbers on the phones, so the new number was on the LG phone and the Smartphone carried my old number.

Going into this conversation, I knew that both the Blackberry and Sandy's LG phone were out of contract. The only contract still running was on my old LG phone. I hadn't really thought of it that way, but that turned out to be a BIG DEAL.

Escalation after escalation assured me that there was nothing that they could do. The contract on the old LG phone could not be broken. They could not swap numbers. Yes, I could cancel the two phones out of contract but they were not able to move numbers around in the in-force contract. No way.

WAIT, I said over and over and over as this went on ... you are telling me that I could walk into an AT&T store, move Sandy's number to a phone there, then walk back into Verizon and move the Sandy's number back onto her phone, replacing the number in the in-force contract, but you can't just do it without me going to AT&T ????

The first level escalation assured me that once a number was transferred out of Verizon that it couldn't be transferred back. Well, I was sure that couldn't be true. The next level escalation admitted that I could do it -- perhaps it might take longer than "5 minutes" but it can be done. However, they couldn't do it without porting the number back and forth.

Wait, says I ... the number port is a techie thing, the number switch in the contract is administrative, why can't you just "pretend" that I've gone to AT&T. Can't be done, said three levels. Well, since I can just move my business to AT&T at this point, just "forgive" the $190 cancellation fee then ... we won't do that, said two levels.

I was told over and over and over that I signed a contract that couldn't be broken, that I wasn't "listening", that I'd already been told all the options available to me. They told me that I could "upgrade" that line to a home phone (the nerve, trying to sell me something !!!), that they would happily cancel Sandy's line but she'd get a new phone number (the already running contract). Grrrrr.

While I was waiting a supervisor callback, I got into a live chat with AT&T. It seems that they now have a plan that covers calls made to as well as from, Canada. It was because they didn't have a plan, that we were grandfathered into an old plan, that we left AT&T in October of 2009. Anyway, their prices are the same as Verizon, in fact I could get a cheaper data plan with them than what I'm paying Verizon. If Rogers ever does build that cell tower at Lost Channel, guess where I'm going ...

So on the phone with the supervisor in the "loyalty" department, having been told over and over again that this was impossible without visiting AT&T (or perhaps Vonage, as I was checking online), I asked for yet another escalation. I am the escalation he said. Give me a supervisor. I am the supervisor, he said. Give me your supervisor, I countered ... and was then put on hold ... for a half hour. I was about to give up, we were all sitting around waiting to go to dinner.

He came back on the phone; I was expecting him to either say that no one was available or that he was about to hand me off. Instead he said that he found out that the Business Dept does this, and it had been done. In the meantime, I'd found out that I was paying $18.34 for that $10 line, not $13.something as I'd been assured by one level escalation, etc. etc. etc. No matter.

As we found out when we were at dinner, neither LG phone worked at that point. When we got back, I was on the phone again with Verizon and customer service happily fixed that problem. From their "new" point of view, I only had two lines, the two 610 area codes. The 386 area code line had disappeared. The "business department" had seen to that.

Will all these people fight so hard the next time ? Probably. Even the last guy will probably fight, since that's what he's been told to do. The earlier ones will fight because they still don't think that it can be done. I should have taken all their names so that I could call back, ask for them and point out that it had been done. No, they would all think that it was something special, not authorized, not Standard Operating Procedure. Sigh. I'll bet that the case notes don't even reflect that this was SOP. Sigh.

Logic does not prevail when dealing with these people. Even when I offered to put both phones under contract so that I could cancel the one, it didn't matter. I was locked into that telephone number, unless some other number was ported over from another carrier. Anyway, I guess that I won that battle, but it was so time and energy consuming that it doesn't even feel like a win.

Sandy and Marda were in and out during the day, just heading out when I got home. We went back to the same restaurant that we'd visited with Patti and Norm and I had my lamb shank again. It was wonderful but with more fat this time. This time it was typical lamb shank. Last time there was no fat, which is not typical. Sandy had shrimp; Marda had Lane Snapper. Both were happy with their dinners.

Today ... Marda heads home. Tim Troy, the plaster guy, is supposed to show up this morning to do his thing on our polka dot walls. I believe that's supposed to take him two days, and then I have painting to do before we leave for the great white north.

Onward !