natenaaron Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Move over. I'm bellying up to the curmudgeon bar for a healthy round of remember when. remember when, if you had a phone issue you called the phone company and they helped? With the state of the world today and the rapidly declining number of landlines it is getting harder and harder to get help when you need it. Every summer during hard rains our phone goes out. This year it happened just last week. Big rain and phone goes out. Our local phone place has been bought and sold so many times....well...I would get banned for saying it. I called the company who handles the phone lines and because I did not have an account with them they did not know what to do. I pointed out nicely at first that they were responsible for the lint to the business and I was responsible for it after that. They said I did not have an account. I asked for a local repair number to call. I did not have an account so no number. I tried to call my long distance provider to get the calls forwarded. After a LOOOONNNNGGGGG time on hold I was transferred to the wireless section. Guess what happened. SInce I did not have a wireless account with them they could not help. I kept saying transfer me to the business section or give me the number. The transfered me to business billing, which is different from business customer service. When I finally got transfered to business customer service they were closed for the weekend. Yesterday I could get a hold of anyone. I guess their weekends are long at AT&T land. Today I have spent several hours trying to get this fixed. Customers are angry and all I want to do is talk to a human who can forward my calls. The last human I talked to after being transferred to the residential section, said I needed to use the land line to set up the forward. After explaining calmly that the landline was dead, they told me to call the people who owned the lines. After explaining calmy to this person that I would love to but I could not get a phone number for them. I was told that they just realized I did not have a residential account with them that I would have to call the business section. I have no idea how many times I told her it was a business phone. I was transferred to the business section that was Remember when you called one number, talked to a nice person who helped? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Our land line went dead Friday. Called the land line provider and after several minutes, I got a live person who wanted every type information imaginable, and then some, just to prove I was me. I ask for a supervisor and none were available. Ended up just requesting that a trouble report be filed with MY phone number, MY name, and MY address. Monday I returned the call and had a second trouble ticket filed. We will try to have that fixed Wednesday. Tuesday night still a dead phone line. We will see what tomorrow brings. Cell phones are sometimes a good thing, when they work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Is your phone main aerial or underground? If it's underground, there should be a number on the phone pedestals you see along the roadside. That number should get you to whoever is responsible for maintaining the U/G cables. I'm not saying they'll respond quickly, but if you tell them that there's a damaged line that gets drenched every time there's a hard rain (indicating that water is getting in the system), they'll usually send someone out to double-check everything in that area. At the very least, they'll be able to tell you if the problem is in the main or in the house line coming from the pedestal. Most problems occur in the service line because it's shallow and easy to damage, or in the connections at the house junction or pedestal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 A lot of companies have got the brite idea that combining sales and costomers service is a good idea, so sales reps tend to send you some where else so they can get on to a call that may make them a spiff. This seems to be ramped in the phone industry. ATT tried it and went back to having seperate departments. I find that Google is good at finding corporate office numbers, I have resorted to calling an executive before. Amazing how fast you get a call back when you call some VP (works even better with Goverment offices, lol). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 A conversation from about 1985: Me (calling from work): "My home phone is dead." Rep: "Are you calling from that phone?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notownkid Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 36 minutes ago, JHCC said: A conversation from about 1985: You get the same results today. Usually you get asked if you checked your phones inside the house or business, I had a Tech show me how to open the box ad plug in a wired phone at the entrance and if no tone it's on their side that usually changes the conversation direction. Or you get the warning that if it's inside the building there will be this large fee, "No you charge me for inside wiring every month" conversation changes again. We had the after rain or snow event for a number of yrs. but static on line for days, they said they checked and found nothing wrong over and over they checked. One day one of the repair guys was driving by, slammed on the brakes backed up and looked at the pole closest to our house, set up his ladder went up spent about 10 min. then came to the door, "fixed the complaint you have had forever" connection where your line leaves the cable was upside down allowing moisture to get it. I said but they checked it over and over his reply "must not have been in brail". Had a friend who got sick of problems with the lines and the first snow of the year threw a rope over the line coming to his house and pulled it down with his PU when they repaired it they had to put new line in from the pole all his problems went away. Amazing. Hard to get good repair service when you are talking to India or somewhere equally off the grid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 I had them back charge me for my repeated calls about dead lines, and drop outs on the computer which used those same phone lines. and of course the line works when they get here and test it. yadda yadda, so they bill me for wasting their time, when "Obviously its my inside problem: not theirs. Finally they get Fiber optics here, and I find out from the man installing the new lines that the old phone trunk had over 15 splices in the 100 yard section near my house, so many in fact it has had a do not repair order for many years, rather they needed to replace that section, also when they hooked me up they found all my jacks have a home run of cat 6 wiring there are no splices at all inside, every jack goes directly to the wiring block, there was no way for any inside problem to kill the entire house at the same time. They dropped the bill for $600 when I called and fed them their own information and asked about filing fraud charges against the repairman that tried to bill me before Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Complaints to the FCC and the state's Utilities Commission are tracked here in the USA. (I used to work for Bell Labs...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackdawg Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 We have not even bothered having a handset connected to our landline for the last 2 or 3 years. Service and quality was so bad. Wife, myself and kids all have mobiles, so no need for it. If it wasn't for the need for the internet connection I wouldn't have a landline at all. Our service is woeful, all the call centres go overseas to people whom english is definitely not their first language (or 3rd or 4th.....) our DSL is barely faster than the old dial up modems. Although having the number does come in handy for all those places that insist on you providing a valid phone number - it will never get answered, but it is a valid number! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natenaaron Posted September 28, 2016 Author Share Posted September 28, 2016 10 hours ago, VaughnT said: Is your phone main aerial or underground? If it's underground, there should be a number on the phone pedestals you see along the roadside. That number should get you to whoever is responsible for maintaining the U/G cables. I'm not saying they'll respond quickly, but if you tell them that there's a damaged line that gets drenched every time there's a hard rain (indicating that water is getting in the system), they'll usually send someone out to double-check everything in that area. At the very least, they'll be able to tell you if the problem is in the main or in the house line coming from the pedestal. Most problems occur in the service line because it's shallow and easy to damage, or in the connections at the house junction or pedestal. Underground and that tag is so warn and faded there is no reading it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted September 29, 2016 Share Posted September 29, 2016 2 hours ago, natenaaron said: Underground and that tag is so warn and faded there is no reading it. Look for other pedestals around. The chances are good that you're not on the borderline between two phone companies, so the pedestals on the next street over should be for the same company. Companies generally use the same style of ped unless it's been a few decades and a new style is in vogue. If you see another that looks just like yours, the chances are really good that it's the same phone company. And, yes, I spent far too long as a utilities locator! Ugh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natenaaron Posted September 29, 2016 Author Share Posted September 29, 2016 Honestly never crossed my mind to look for others. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted September 29, 2016 Share Posted September 29, 2016 Update. Wednesday afternoon the phone is working again. Some furry critter chewed about 20 inches of the phone cable a couple of poles down the road. Cable patched, phone working again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natenaaron Posted September 30, 2016 Author Share Posted September 30, 2016 Wednesday afternoon and the 5 pedestals I have found have no contact information. Several days of internet speed checks for an average and my internet is good for VOIP. Not perfect but it will be better than this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstar.esq Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 nateaaron, I work for an electrical contractor. We had a job a few years back where we needed to add on to a commercial service on a large strip mall. We notified all the tenants of the mall, as well as the landlord several days in advance so the shut down wouldn't hurt anyone's business. Everyone responded that our scheduled shut down would be OK. We shut everything down, and were working by generator powered light for about three hours when a rust bucket station wagon comes roaring into the parking lot behind us. The extremely agitated driver was the local tech support for some kind of wireless internet provider. He was furious that his "tower" had been shut off leaving him and his many customers without internet service. We apologized and asked him which tenant service he was connected to so we could see about putting his equipment on our generator power. All of a sudden his attitude changes and it's no big deal, he can afford to wait, thanks and bye. He jumped back into his rattle trap and was gone. The next morning we expected to hear some complaints from our client, not a word. When we asked the landlord about it, they said there shouldn't be any kind of broadcast towers in (or on) their buildings at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 The tale of the power thief... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLAG Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Charles, That is why we have capital punishment for miscreants like that. Yessiree a good fine should put an end to such anti social behavior. Punishing ones capital: works, SLAG. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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