Just a strange thing. Fairpoint, our phone and internet provider, had sent me and thousands of other customers a brochure offering to save me $20 a month for a year. I figured it was not worth my time because I was already getting one of their best deals. I could use up to 150 minutes a month long distance. No additional charge for local. There was call waiting and voice mail. It was bundled with internet access. What more could you ask from a provider that has no competition in our area. They are in the driver's seat on this. No Verizon tower near enough for wireless, and no internet without Fairpoint either. I decided to waste my time and a call one more time. "Hey, ya never know!" as the lottery ad touts.
Come to find out, they don't even offer the plan I was on any more. I had what I had, yet they were not selling it any more. But surely, if I exceeded my 150 minutes, I would be nicked for .10 a minute over that. Yet, they were not going to simply change me to a new plan unless I called them first. Just keep paying the old price, and the old penalty.
So the new plan is $20 less, unlimited long distance (almost everything is long distance from here.) After a year, the price goes up $10. If I quit them, the only provider of service here, before the year is up, I have to pay them $99.
Funny, of all the useless calls I get from all sorts of nutty companies, one from Fairpoint would have been most welcome. And I urge all of you to check out the phone plans that were good five years ago to make sure they are still the deal they appeared to be then. No one is watching out for you except yourself. Caveat emptor!
1 comment:
I hear you - Verizon has done similar things to me. Back when I dated Cathy I was paying all kinds of long distance fees every time she called me or I called her. I called them to see if there was a cheaper plan I could switch to - no. I was ready to switch to TMobile and walked into the verizon place and told them I planned to switch - all of a sudden they had
an answer to the problem - add her to my friends and family plan by signing a piece of paper with her number on it. All of our calls were free from then on. But yeah, they don't tell you that stuff up front; they let you keep paying them for as long as they think they can get away with it. I guess all of these phone companies have a similar business model in that regard.
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