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From: zellich@stl-07sima.army.mil (Rich Zellich)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re:Two Residential Phones; Same Address and 'Owner'; One Bill?
Message-ID: <14053@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 90 15:43:50 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 765, Message 5 of 9


When I moved from a condo in St. Louis to a house out in the 'burbs, I
"transferred" my existing account to a local-only number, and also had
a second line installed in the new location with Metro (toll-free
to/from St. Louis metro-area) service.

Initially, I received three transition bills - one for each of the new
lines, and one for the discontinued service.  The old-service bill was
because the service overlapped for about a week and the turn-off date
Southwestern Bell's computer had was two days after the billing cutoff
period, and they charged me for the entire month.

The three bills were extremely confusing and, during a long
conversation with Customer Service, I was told that I would continue
to get two bills, one for each new number, because they were different
prefixes/one was metro and the two prefixes had different billing
cutoff dates.  I protested this, telling the lady that it seemed wrong
since both prefixes were actually served by the same local plant
(metro or not, the Metro number is still a local prefix), but she
insisted they couldn't do it any other way as long as I had one local
and one Metro line.

So yesterday I get my first "regular" bill for the new location.  Lo
and behold, the credit for a partial month for the old service, the
local, and the Metro numbers are all on the same bill, with separate
detail breakout of each, and a polite little note is enclosed telling
me that my billing cutoff date is changed due to the move to a new CO!
Gee, just the way I thought it should work -- so much for Customer
"Service".

The only thing they still do wrong is that they lump all the charges
for the line into one "service" amount - a total of $28.75 for one
line with Metro service and TouchTone and one line with local-only
service and pulse-dial only.  I really think they should break out
each of the charges so I know I'm getting/paying for the features I
ordered.  I suspect this is done so nobody complains about the
TouchTone charge that would then be thrust under their noses month
after month.  They *do* break out a $1.10 charge that is supposed to
be for "extended area" service; when questioned, CS stated that this
was an extra charge added because they had widened the free-calling
service area for everybody ... but I'm already paying a $7.60 premium
for Metro service on that line myself ... and the "local" number is
*really* local - the most restricted free-calling area I've ever seen.

In arguing for a detail breakout of the basic "service" charge, I have
new experience: one item on the new bill was a credit for dropping the
second phone-book listing in my wife's maiden name.  At one time, we
were entitled to a second listing free, and took advantage of it;
some- where along the line, they started charging *monthly* for it,
and added $1.60/month to the "service" charge lump sum part of the
bill.  If I had known about it, I would have canceled the extra
listing two years ago, when we got married and her name was known to
have changed by one and all.

The above-mentioned $28.75 is another CS screwup.  When I ordered the
service, I was told it was $36.85 (including the $1.10 extended area
charge, which wasn't even mentioned) *plus* the $7 Federal End User
Common Line Charges, which would have added up to $43.85.  It turns
out to be only $28.75, plus $1.10, plus $7, for a *grand total* of
$36.85.

The full breakout turns out to be:

   Line 1 (listed)             -  $ 9.65
   Line 1 Federal End User...  -    3.50
   Line 2 (unlisted)           -    9.65  [no charge for not listing
   Line 2 Metro (wide-area)    -    7.60                       second line]
   Line 2 TouchTone            -    1.85
   Line 2 extended area charge -    1.10
   Line 2 Federal End User...  -    3.50
                                  ------
                                  $36.85
   (plus miscellaneous taxes, of course)