| [Mr. Whoever], Bugfuck, GA April 12, 2004
We recently received your letter regarding your experience with Crappy Cellphone Company (CCC), and we want to thank you for a most entertaining missive. It is our goal here at CCC to “milk ‘em & bilk ‘em” for as much as we can, and your letter went a long way towards reassuring us that we’re adhering to our mission statement. Also, it was good for more than a few laughs around the executive water cooler, believe you me!
Of course your reception is crappy! You live in fucking Georgia, for chrissake! Do you honestly think we’re going to spend the money to build any towers outside of Atlanta? Beyond that, your closest nodes are in Houston and Philadelphia. If those ol’ Soviet satellites aren’t aligned right, hey, you’re fucked, buddy!
How do we run a business this way? It’s easy, lemme tell ya! There’s what, four, five major cellular players these days, right? Do you know how many people own cell phones in America? 139 million. Divided five ways, that’s still 27 million customers per company, times an average of 75 dollars per month! And with those two-year contracts, that’s a guaranteed $24,300,000,000 a year.
Thems a lot of zeroes, Bucky.
By the time a customer is ready to dump CCC for company XYZ, there’s four customers from XYZ sick of them and ready to switch to us.
It’s a sure thing.
You want out of your contract? No problemo! But you will have to pay the $200 penalty, per the service contract that you signed! A rebate on the service you’ve paid for? I don’t think so! You got the service, you paid for it. (Hey, if you paid for service you weren’t getting, more fool you. But that’s water under the bridge, now, isn’t it?)
Now, about your letter.
“I asked him about coverage and quality of service and he said that because the phone could take advantage of the three-way network . . .”
I can’t believe you didn’t pick up on this one. “Three-way network?” That’s you, the person you’re calling, and us. We tape everything. Customers are hesitant to cancel contracts when you’ve got the scoop on their little indiscretions. By the way, how is your “Little Chocolate Mama”?
“that I could expect 100% coverage statewide and the digital quality would be better than that of the competitors on their networks.”
You misheard that one. He said the quality would be better than that of the competitors on our networks. That’s because our competitors aren’t allowed to use our networks. Duh.
“I asked him if I could have a "couple of days for a trial period", he refused and said they're not allowed to do that.”
Again, ‘duh’.
“I was told that the problems were probably due to the network change over and should clear up soon.”
‘Network Changeover’ We love that one. It’s like a bottle of waterline or a can of Roast-a-Roma. What a maroon.
“Called the local [Crappy Cellphone Company] number on several occasions to question them about the service problems. No answers on any of the lines dialed.”
It’s strictly against policy to answer the phone here at CCC. You people are such whiners. It’s really just a waste of our time. And yours.
“I thought the original earbud that I purchased was one of the cause of the poor quality of service so I purchased an upgraded model.”
Sometimes they just fall into your lap.
“I mentioned to the sales rep at the time that I was having problems with reception and service quality. I was told I must have been in a dead spot.”
Yeah, odds were pretty good on that one. See the above comments about Georgia.
“No difference in service.”
Ditto.
“Please note that I did not exercise the $100 rebate because of the problems I have been having with the phone. I thought if I had problems, then having the $100 rebate paid to me would complicate fixing the problems.”
Sir, believe me: You could have had Melvin Belli himself complete that refund and it couldn’t have complicated matters any more. We have a crack team of attorneys whose sole job is to ensure that we never need account for losses due to “rebates.” I suppose you kept all three copies of your original stamped sales receipts, right? Thought so.
“During the three-way conversation, I was asked to come into the company store to have my phone looked at. The technician said he was sure the problems I were experiencing were related to the unit and not the network. In another effort of goodwill I came into the company store and allowed the technician to test my phone.”
It’s my understanding that the store manager lost a $50 high/low on that one.
“He couldn't determine what the problem was so he wrote an order for a new phone because the old one was "beyond repair". When I turned in the order to the sales rep at the front desk he gave me a new phone without any of the packaging.”
That would be because the ‘new’ phone was your old one given the once-over with Windex.
“Before we hung up I asked for Melinda for her direct phone number to call her if I had any problems. She gave me [555-555-5222 extension 5555]. I repeated the number back to her: [5-5-5-5-5-5-5-2-2-2]? She verified that was the number. The next week when I called the number it had been disconnected.”
Would it surprise you that 555-555-5333 ext. 5555 is my number also? And it’s the number of every executive here at CCC. See my above comment about whiny customers.
“February 5th - 6th, 2003 - I used the phone ([sing-song]) on several occasions. [Crappy Cellphone Company] service dropped out on at least 3 occasions that I documented. The service failed twice at my office on [Poverty] Avenue and once in my neighborhood (North [Ghetto] Circle) on my ride home. I decided that I would keep the phone, and try and live with the service until it improves.”
Our company shrink found it interesting that after two months of abuse you are so obsessed that you’re ‘documenting’ phone calls, yet almost simultaneously you cave in and “try to live with the service”. He suggested more double-blind rat studies.
“Sheila said that [Cletus] said I needed to provide all packaging for the [wamma-lamma-ding-dong phone] in order to exchange phones. Not ever receiving the packaging on the exchanged [wamma-lamma-ding-dong phone], and throwing away the original packaging of the phone I bought on December 21st, I knew this was going to be one more hurdle in trying to get my problems taken care of. I left the company store angry and wishing more than ever I had never left Cingular.”
Cletus actually made that one up on the spot after observing you trash the original packing materials while leaving the store on Jan. 24th. He got a promotion.
In conclusion, Mr Whoever, we’ll be happy to let you out of your two-year contract, provided you pay the penalty fee. If you aren’t willing to pay it voluntarily, we still have your AMEX account number, and your wife probably wouldn’t be amused to see all those 900 numbers showing up on the final statement.
On behalf of Melissa, Cletus, and the rest of us here at CCC, we’d like to thank you for an amusing several months. We look forward to abusing you under the guise of a ‘competing’ provider.
Sincerely,
Mr. Big Bidness, President
cc: [Crappy Cellphone Company] |