Property ManagementThe Grass Isn"t Always Greener With Another Phone Company
Deregulation is a wonderful thing. It allows competition to grow, but it can also mean unnecessary problems for hapless consumers who now have to sort through the offerings by multiple telephone service providers. If you are working out of your home as many REALTORS do, you may be tempted by the telephone solicitors to monkey with your phone service, too, and it could end up costing you. Let me share my experience with you where I learned that switching can be expensive.
When MCI Worldcom called me to solicit my business away from Southwestern Bell, they caught me at a good time. With three phone lines and no DSL in sight (service is not available in my area yet,) I was looking to find a way to reduce my home office costs and operate my phone lines and Internet access on three numbers or less.
I paid to have three phone lines installed a couple of years ago before the dual purpose phone lines were available in my area. I have Call Waiting and Call Notes, a messaging system, on the main home line and keep the other two lines hooked up to computers for internal faxes and Internet access. My access system seems archaic now, but that"s what I had set up until a better system comes along. I had already investigated two-plus lines, in which you can surf the Internet and take phone calls at the same time, but my little system with three phone lines was much, much cheaper and still is by about half.
The cheerful MCI Worldcom representative told me that I could cut my three phone bills by quite a bit if I would transfer my basic and long distance services to MCI. Although I can"t remember what she promised me in terms of savings, she did point out the basic rates were cheaper, which they are. I agreed to switch if it were no trouble to me and all the services would transfer seamlessly. If I had been smart, I would have demanded a line-by-line comparison of their fees so that I could compare the fees to what Southwestern Bell charges. If I had done that, I would never have made the switch.
The company transferred service with no trouble and at no activation fee, as I was promised. But all the services I had didn"t transfer, as I discovered too late.
Thinking the transfer would take about three days, I all of a sudden began to notice that we weren"t getting any phone messages. With a teenager in the house, there are always messages, and hey, I have a social life, too. Call Notes, Southwestern Bell"s remote answering service, has a telltale beep that alerts you that you have a phone message when you pick up the receiver, but day after day, there were never any beeps. Finally friends reached us and told us that they had tried to leave messages, etc, etc. I called MCI to find out why the Call Notes wasn"t working and found out that MCI doesn"t offer the service and never has. Of course I no longer had the name of the salesperson who had so blithely promised me that I would have Call Notes, and I felt foolish. It was my word against the company"s that I had been promised something that wasn"t delivered.
I was put through to the supervisor who finally knew what I was talking about, and he told me that Southwestern Bell promised MCI that the Call Notes services would transfer and didn"t make good on their promise. Now poor MCI has egg on its face because it would not be able to deliver messaging services to its new customers. If I still wanted the service, I would have to call Southwestern Bell and get the service put on the phone and that MCI would charge a $.90 forwarding fee to forward calls to the call notes service. Before I chose the forwarding service, I talked to another supervisor who informed me that Southwestern Bell was not cooperating with the forwarding service and that even if I signed up for both services it is unlikely that I would get them. I appreciated that little bit of honesty, but it left me stuck wondering whether I should go back to Southwestern Bell. Feeling very manipulated by both companies, I decided to let a few days go by.
Like the rest of the universe, I"m busy and it takes time and mental energy to see to these kinds of hassles. Then I got my first MCI bill. I quickly discovered that I hadn"t saved money at all. In fact, my MCI accounts were costing me more money than Southwestern Bell and for fewer services. Although the cost of local service is lower as the MCI salesperson had promised, the taxes and surcharges were considerably higher. These she didn"t mention, and at the time of the sales call, I didn"t think to ask about them. It never occurred to me that taxes and surcharges would change from service provider to provider. So let me tell you - they can, and they do. Although the taxes are the same by law, there were some junk surcharges that drove the bill higher. Only the local service with Southwestern Bell was more - at $10.40 per line. With MCI, it is $9.85, but with the surcharges, the costs are higher.
The supervisor said he couldn"t comment on why Southwestern Bell"s fees were lower. I offered to fax him both copies and show him the line-by-line comparison but he said that wouldn"t do any good. He simply could not change the charges. They are what they are.
I was so irritated with this bait and switch routine that I called Southwestern Bell and asked them what it would take to switch my service back. They hardly welcomed me back with open arms. Switching the phones would be $38.00 for the first line and $16.00 for the other lines apiece. They would waive the first fee if I agreed to answer seven questions. I said no, no, no, no, no, no and no without waiting to hear what the questions were.
So here I am with no messaging service, and taking a few more days to cool off before I eat crow and call Southwestern Bell to switch my services back. This exercise in consumer ignorance will end up costing me about $50 or more by the time I get the services switched back over. That"s an expensive lesson when you"re trying to save money.
So learn from my experience. If you are going to change your phone service, keep the following points in mind.
1. Don"t assume that either carrier is going to do you any favors. If one quotes lower phone rates, ask for a line-by-line list of fees and taxes. Phone salespeople are not allowed to discuss taxes and surcharges, explained the MCI supervisor, so doing a line-by-line comparison is going to be difficult. You"ll have to ask for a supervisor. Any fees you don"t understand, ask the supervisor to explain, because when you compare them to your current carrier, you may find junk fees that your old carrier doesn"t have.
2. Be sure you understand the billing rates and time periods of the billings. When MCI switched me over, they billed for the same period as Southwestern Bell, who already had a bill prepared for me. I was told to pay it twice, but the difference was reimbursed by Southwestern Bell. Although I wasn"t cheated, it was still a hassle to keep up with.
3. Ask what the re-activation fees are in case you want to switch back to your old service. If you find you aren"t happy with your new service, reactivation fees may keep you stuck there anyway.