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Jason English
This Whole Internet Fad Might Stick Around
by Jason English - February 8, 2007 - 10:12 AM

1994_internet.jpg

My cell phone provider tacked on an extra $630 to this month’s bill. I spent over five hours arguing with their customer service department on Friday night, getting nowhere very slow (documented in a running diary here). I went to sleep a defeated, much poorer man.

But after getting a few messages from a few empathetic strangers, I decided to escalate my case. I found the email address of the company’s CEO and fired off a missive. He – or at least someone from his office, using his email account – wrote me back hours later, promising to make things right. The following day, I spoke with the Executive Services VIP Analyst, who erased the charges in just six minutes.

This was one of those “wow” moments for me, where I wondered how I could have survived the analog age. I’d have probably paid the $630 and carried a grudge to my grave. Though I guess there wouldn’t have been cell phone companies to screw me back then.

I know it’s cliche to say, “The internet is changing everything we do.” But does anyone have a similar tale of a similar moment? Brag with me about your successes.

July 25, 1994 Time cover found at grow-a-brain.

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Comments (6)

  1. In 1997, I notified my local ISP that I was moving within a month and asked that they cancel my service immediately.

    I received a bill at the end of the month for the entire month. I called and spoke to someone who told me they’d take care of it and that I only had to pay for the service up to the day I canceled the service.

    A month later, I received another bill for a full month. I called someone and they assured me it would be taken care of.

    A month later, I received a third bill, this one with the accumulated “unpaid” charges for the previous two months. I went to the ISP’s website and got the address of every staff member I could find (about 6 people in this small company). Then I wrote to them all, explained the entire story and told them that if I received another bill, I would:

    1) Send as much e-mail as possible, every day, to my old account which they were still maintaining.

    2) E-mail every current user of the ISP whose address I could find and tell them my story.

    3) Call the news stations and newspapers in that town and let them know what I had to go through to unsubscribe.

    I never got a reply, but I never got another bill.

    posted by Bryan on 2-8-2007 at 10:44 am

  2. Celine canceled here concert after sitting in the Colosseum for over an hour. I used this thing called the internet to track down the correct contact info (and sent dozens of emails to different people to find the right one) who provided tickets very close and a free says.

    posted by wader on 2-8-2007 at 11:34 am

  3. BTW, have you ever posted on http://www.planetfeedback.com ?
    They actually do get the companies there to read the complaint letters.
    Just try to ignore the idiots there who post complaints comments if you misspell a word or don’t use enough punctuation, etc.

    (posted this in the wrong place earlier) Oy!

    posted by Sheldon Siegel on 2-8-2007 at 12:44 pm

  4. Jason!!!! Wow, what an amazing story. I have a similar one dealing with the DMV (otherwise known as Dumb Motherbleeping Vermins). Next time I’m in NYC, I’ll tell you the whole megillah over several kegs… I so feel for you on this!

    posted by David on 2-8-2007 at 7:02 pm

  5. After an AWFUL AWFUL stay in a hotel in Kenya and many promises from the managers to refund us, they never did (after many phone calls and emails)

    Anyhow, via a site I found the CEOs email, sent him a mail attaching all the previous mails from his staff promising me the sun moon and stars, he then promised me a refund, 4 weeks went by and no money, so I published a VERY bad hotel review on a lesser known site, sent them the link and threatened to put this review on a VERY well known hotel review site,,,,, no joking, 2 days later there was €600 in my account and a voucher for 1 weeks stay in any of their hotels, SUCCESS!!!!

    posted by Garth on 2-9-2007 at 4:21 pm

  6. in the late 1990s i was a disillusioned unix person and thought i should do something proactive about the inevitable ascent of ms-windows.

    so, i emailed bill gates at microsoft, suggesting my unix/x-windows and business background would be useful to m’soft as ms-windows became a more credible alternative. naive and pointless to email bill directly? yes, you’d think so, but …

    several weeks later i received an email from one of his aides inviting me over for an interview (a series of as it transpired) in redmond. i was based in england. crikey, i thought.

    won’t bore you with the details but had a great trip/experience. no, we didn’t agree a suitable role but it did make me think about the power of the internet … ps, i never got to speak with/meet bill, sadly.

    all in all a cool anecdote i think, and to this day somewhat surreal experience/memory.

    posted by carl rahn griffith on 2-12-2007 at 7:42 pm

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