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+--- Thread: Can you hear me now? (/thread-13123.html)
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- Zinner - 03-24-2005
Sorry in advance, this is not about wine.
However, we might all want to take another look at our phone bills and get rid of the nonsense charges...then we can add to our wine-buying budget.
Long ago I signed onto some MCI program that had a five buck minumum and for a while it worked. Then I got busy with other things and took my eye off the bill until I realized how high the bill was in a month when I was hardly ever at home. Looking closer I realized I had been charged over $14 for one 50 cent phone call!
Call to MCI to try to get the charges explained...
MCI hack: Oh, most of it is federal charges and tax.
Me: No, I don't think so. For example, what is this $3.99 billing option fee and who exactly gets that?
MCI hack: Well....MCI gets it...it's for having your long distance charges on your local bill.
Me: What! You're charging me four bucks just to bill me!
MCI hack: Oh... a lot of our customers like the convenience of having it all on one bill.
Me: Well, I didn't ask for that and I want you to stop it right now.
The conversation went on and deteriorated from there, but basically MCI has slowly crept up their minumum usage rate so now if you have this program, you pay about $7 whether you use it or not. Thus at least $11 of the $14 went to MCI and the federal tax hype was excuses and nonsense.
So I wondered how many of you guys still have land lines anyhow...or have you all gone strictly to cell phones. Are there any long distance providers with rates you consider fair?
As for me, MCI and I now have an understanding that if I don't make any calls, they don't charge a cent. And I'm shopping for a new long distance provider.
Can you hear me now, MCI?
- winoweenie - 03-24-2005
I got rid of my local carrier long ago and now use Net to Phone exclusively on long-distance. 3 peonies per minute ANTIME and the reception is 1st class. Use Cox cable for my local stuff. WW
- Kcwhippet - 03-24-2005
Our peonies won't be poking their little heads up over the snow for at least a month or so. Guess I can't take advantage of that offer.
- Thomas - 03-24-2005
Yes Zinner, you got yourself an education.
It won't get better either, since long distance is not as profitable as it once was.
Here, we are in a real bad situation. No major company handles local calls so we are forced get that from one local company--just one, no competition at all. What do you think that produces???
For long distance, I generally use my cell. 1500 minutes anywhere in the U.S. for two phones at flat $55 a month each phone, before taxes.
I've been keeping the MCI going just to have a long distance land line in case I need it. I'll be on the lookout for upward fee creep.
- wondersofwine - 03-24-2005
I still use AT&T for long distance (Sprint for local--no choice there). My long distance bill is usually $10 or less a month. My program is cheaper for calls on Sunday or after 7:00 PM and that's when I'm home to use the phone anyway. I don't make that many long distance calls--mostly to my sister or mother or to Raleigh. I have a cell phone but it's currently not activated. I would like a very basic subscription to cover emergency use only. I can't see paying $20 to $30 a month when I might go a whole month without using it once.
(I'm one of those who gets annoyed with cell phone users. I think I mentioned that during the Eagles concert a lady sitting near me was talking on her cell phone. Her husband was trying to contact a friend who was also at the concert but down in the floor seats. The guy on the floor at least had the sense to have his cell phone turned off.)
[This message has been edited by wondersofwine (edited 03-24-2005).]
- Thomas - 03-24-2005
WOW, how would like to be standing in the wine shop, on the sales floor, talking to a woman and, in mid sentence, be interrupted when she answers her cell phone?
One time, when vibrating phones just came into use, a woman did that to me. When she finished with the caller I said I hadn't even heard the phone ringer; wondered how she knew she had a call. She said my phone vibrates. It was a perfect opposrutnity for me to get even with her rudeness, and so I said, "gee, a vibrator phone--you must have a lot of fun just walking around receiving."
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 03-24-2005).]
- Botafogo - 03-24-2005
Now that everyone here has apparently been assimilated by The Borg and has a headset growing our of their ear, we often have MULTIPLE people engaged in conversations (about things you do not want to imagine) simultaneously as they walk around the store apparently talking to themselves. Lawyers discuss cases, agents argue about deals, mothers berate their kids, young ladies talk to their boyfriends about their husbands, you name it. Drives me CRAZY.....
- Georgie - 03-24-2005
Speaking of cell phone abuse...here's the worst case I've experienced first hand...Picture this...it's almost the end of a 2 1/2 hour Bach St. John's Passion concert. Christ has breathed his last and has been laid in the tomb. We sing a GORGEOUS chorale entitled, "Rest well, Sleep well." It's a mournful lullaby to Christ with very moving words. It's slow, melodic, beautiful enough to make you cry. We had just finished it...the conductor's arms hadn't dropped..the beauty of it just hanging in the stillness for two seconds, when deedle-dee-deedle-dee-deedle-dee-dee...a cell phone rings. and rings... and rings.... The conductor just dropped his arms and waited, because there's still a beautiful closing chorale yet to go. Not only did the woman not turn it off...she answered it and started talking! Two people jumped out of their seats and went over to her and got her to leave....a man had loudly yelled, "Get off the phone!" at her before they could get her out of there. Whole mood, whole spirit of the thing destroyed. Eleven weeks of gruelling rehearsals down the tubes. Unbelievable.
- TheEngineer - 03-24-2005
Airlines will soon allow cell phone calls while in flight (I was told). Despite being a HEAVY cell phone user, I am not sure that even I like this. I'm all for restaurants that collect your cell phone and call you if you have a call.
In the TIGHT confines of a plane, I currently do two things well...(1) work (its incredible how much can be done out of the office without interruptions) and (2) sleep . that last thing I need is for anyone to be talking the entire four hours of the flight regardless of whether it is business or person. It will be worse on evening transatlantic flights as those arrive in the early am with no oppportunity to recover sleep before you go into a meeting.
I once sat beside a high ranking officer of a large company who discussed for an hour in intricate a problem that the company was having that could impact amongst other things, stock prices, a law suit, etc,.... How a high ranking officer could do that and not know the mistake is absolutely unbelievable.
- wondersofwine - 03-24-2005
Foodie and Roberto's comments about people seemingly talking to themselves in the shop reminds me of a time when I was in a ladies' restroom stall. The lady in the stall next to me said something like "What are you doing? Are you having a good time?" and I started answering her before her next comment clued me in that she was talking to someone else on the cell phone while doing her "business."
But Georgie, your story tops that by a mile. I suspect that they even announced before the performance that audience members should turn off their cell phones and pagers. They make that announcement now at the plays I attend at Cape Fear Regional Theater.
- Thomas - 03-24-2005
The answer is phone jammer technology. Some restaurants and some concert halls, I hear, have installed them.
I use the thing a lot, but I turn it off a lot too--at the proper time.
- Botafogo - 03-24-2005
This made my day a couple of months ago:
I am coming out of my morning coffee place in a nice residential neighborhood in Santa Monica and see a woman in a giant SUV yakking on her cell and not paying attention and she lurches forward (against a red light) and hits and knocks down a guy in the crosswalk who is maybe 50 years old and in very good physical shape. She gets out of the car and runs to see if he is OK, he grabs the cell phone out of her hand, throws it on the ground and STOMPS it into smithereens and then says to her, calmly: "I spend 8 years in Russian jail, KGB could not kill me, you think YOU can? Hah!" and walks away.
She almost crapped herself while several of us on the curb gave the guy a standing ovation. Thankfully, no one got all politically correct and called the cops as they would probably have arrested HIM for assault.
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 03-24-2005).]
- Zinner - 03-25-2005
Well, I feel much better now after rolling around laughing at the stories.
Please understand that even more than the rate hike, I am dumping MCI for two reasons:
1)the guy tried to lie and pass the blame for the bill off to federal fees and taxes when MCI is getting most of the hunk.
2)they started billing me for sending me a bill without asking how I wanted to receive the bill. They are charging poor unaware folks almost $48 a year just for sending the bill through a local company. That's ridiculous. Isn't it cheaper for them to do that than to have to send you a separate bill themselves?
I think that these companies have realized that a lot of people are leading busy lives and don't look closely at their bills each month. Often we just pay them and done with it. But corporate greed has gotten to the point that you wonder if they have somebody in house who just sits around and makes up the names of fees, so you can't tell what they're really charging for.
I am looking to dump Charter Cable for just that reason. Bunch of stuff on the bill that they can't explain. And don't even get me started on State Farm Insurance(a few notches lower than pond scum)...just do a search on the internet if you want to find out how bad they are. Hint.. they're often referred to as Snake Farm Insurance.
If enough people dump the bad companies, perhaps there can be some slow change to more honest and reasonable business practices.
I did a preliminary search about phone companies and the BillSaver website, for example, lists a company that charges only 99 cents partial usage fee and they'll drop that if you take your bill online. Apparently BillSaver developed the website to sort out the confusing phone stuff and then went on to rate other things as well.
As for the irritating cell phone users...do you know that they even have a name for the problem now? It's called "cell yell."
- winoweenie - 03-25-2005
I've seldopm carried my cell except when I'm on the road and maybe CB needs to contact me. Can't see anything that would be important enough for me to tote the sucker in town. CB knows my itenary and my voice answering machine can field business calls.WW
- wondersofwine - 03-25-2005
Good for you, WW.
- Thomas - 03-25-2005
WW, get the vibrating one--you might change your mind.
One more cell story: I'm walking along West 4th Street, across from Washington Square. It's a busy evening in December, many out shopping. Some young lady is in front of NYU talking on her cell so loud that you can hear her voice echoing off the buildings, and she is telling someone else not only what she did the night before but where she is at that very moment and where she is headed--and it all had to do with her sex life. All of a sudden a few of us realize she tells the person on the other end that she is standing on West 3rd Street. About four or five of us close to her (me included) yell into her phone "No she isn't, she's on West 4th Street," and I add, "with another guy."
- wineguruchgo - 03-25-2005
I have Pioneer Telephone and they charge me $.03 per minute. My long distance bill is never more than $10.00 per month. Sure it takes, literally, 2 more seconds to connect, but family members have never said anything about the quality of the phone call.
My home phone is unlimited local calling by SBC for $30.00 per month.
As for the cell bill - yes, most are gov't taxes. I recently saw it on World News Tonight or one of the shows where it's almost all state and federal taxes. When politicians come out and say "No More Taxes" they mean from the IRS. They are not, however, talking about cell phones, gasoline, liquor or cigarettes. Guess cellphones now are "sins" too!
Me - I use the phone for work because I am in outsides sales so it makes sense. Yet, when I am in an account I leave the phone in the car because I think to interrupt an appointment is telling the customer I'm standing before that the person on the other end is more important. Drives my bosses wild when they are trying to get a hold of me - but I'm not transporting vital organs here....it's only wine!
The phone is most always in the car and if I am somewhere in public (store or somewhere) I will generally try to find a corner where it's quiet so I'm not bothering anyone.
Some restaurants in NY are now making people go into phone booths to make/receive calls. That's nice.
- winoweenie - 03-25-2005
Foodie mine has the vibrating, singing, whistling and other methode of announcing itself that are annoying. I just don't feel I need to be accessable every minute of the day. WW
- Bucko - 03-25-2005
I'm not much for megalopolis, but hey, sometimes you have to bite the bullet.
We have Verizon wireless America's Choice plan -- no hassles.
- winoweenie - 03-26-2005
My cell carrier is Verizon also. Out here in the open spaces AT&T was useless outta' town. WW