Two LME Scenarios Involving Retirees
Those who are involved in the industry often try to justify themselves with the rationalisation that they are merely satisfying a demand, but Buddhism teaches awareness of Wrong livelihood, the trade in things which will cause harm to other beings … From the Buddhist perspective, the trader is not immune from blame for the damage caused by these things.
–Bhikkhu P.A. Payutto
(Thailand)
The following scenarios are based on real-life events. Names of the retirees have been changed to protect the innocent.
Scenario #1:
A Miami resident named Evelyn decides her AT&T monthly bill is too costly. She calls AT&T to cancel her account, and then calls Supra Telecom to start a new account.
AT&T promptly cuts her service off, and Supra Telecom charged her a fee for reconnecting the line … MEANWHILE, two weeks later, Evelyn’s phone line STILL WASN’T WORKING! She was reduced to using a neighbor’s phone to attempt to resolve the issue with Supra Telecom.
MEANWHILE, Evelyn’s son (who was out of town on business) couldn’t get in touch with his mother. Worried, he asked his wife to find out what was going on. When she reported back, the son authorized a new cellphone be sent to his mother immediately.
MEANWHILE, Evelyn — having come from a generation that respects corporations — paid AT&T and Supra Telecom for phone service that she had not used FOR TWO WEEKS!
Evelyn is a retiree living on SSI and her husband’s (God rest his soul) paltry union benefits. She can’t drive. She can barely walk. She refuses to eat food from Meal on Wheels because she doesn’t eat red meat for health reasons. She has no savings — having come from a generation that believed the government Social Security plan and the Union her husband was part of would take care of them, due to their hard work.
MEANWHILE, AT&T and Supra Telecom, acting as modern day Scrooges without the ghost redemption, continue to squeeze Evelyn for every penny she has!
Scenario #2:
Patricia and Ronald live in a pleasant 55 and older community in Boynton Beach, living off their retirement pensions and a couple of condo rental properties.
Times have been tight lately, with the recent hurricanes followed by the housing market downturn. They’ve had to slash rental properties, while eating higher maintenance fees after the storms.
Patricia sees commercials for Vonage, and their $19.99 per month phone service. For weeks, she pesters Ronald about switching — after all, their current phone bill is over $70 a month. Ronald knows a little bit about computers, having learned how to operate them at his last job. He can check his email, and even navigate a travel site to order plane tickets. He suspects that Vonage will be trouble. After a few weeks, he gives up and agrees to try out their phone service.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Ronald is on the phone with his nephew, asking him if he has time to come over. The nephew, who had been out of town on business and was in the middle of packing stuff for an impending move, dropped what he was doing and came over.
FIVE HOUR LATER, the Vonage system was up and running.
All’s well that end’s well, right? Another happily ever after? You won’t say that after you read what the nephew went through to get the Vonage service running!
FIRST OF ALL, Ronald uses AOL dial-up internet access. When Ronald contacted Vonage originally, the sales representative informed him that AOL offers high-speed internet, and that she would contact AOL on his behalf to activate a DSL line.
Anyone from Generation-X with half a brain knows that’s a bogus claim, but Ronald comes from a generation where….
ANYWAY, when the nephew called AOL to follow-up, the call center guy from India whom we’ll call Mahatma informed him that AOL no longer OFFERS HIGH SPEED ACCESS, and that the offer was only in selected areas. Luckily, Mahatma had the numbers for Comcast and AT&T on his computer screen, and gave the numbers to the nephew.
The nephew decided to call Comcast, since the home owner’s association already had cable television in Ronald and Patricia’s home as part of their maintenance fees. Unfortunately, Comcast did not have Ronald and Patricia listed as the residents in their condo, requiring Ronald and the nephew to go to Kinko’s to fax PROOF that they were the living there.
After waiting an hour for a call back from Comcast (on the nephew’s cell phone, of course), they were informed that the account had been updated. This sales representative, who we’ll call Santos, was knowledgeable.
Santos: “The only way you can get the rental cable modem today is if you go down to the Comcast office.”
He provided directions, told us what to ask for, and when the office would close.
Ronald and the nephew went to the office, picked up the cable modem and free installation kit, went back to the condo, and had everything up and running within an hour.
Next, the nephew tried the Vonage equipment. At first, he could only get one phone to work. You see, the Vonage modem connects to a phone jack on the wall, and provides phone service to the entire residence. Unfortunately, the phone inside the room where the modem is doesn’t have anywhere to plug in! The nephew, after pondering the situation for a moment, asked Ronald for a splitter. He attached the splitter to the modem, attached wall phone jack and stray phone to the splitter, and Viola! All the phones in the house had a dial tone!
Ronald turned to his nephew and said, “I could not have done this without you.”
And that is precisely the problem.
Vonage made an offer to a retired couple without properly explaining the logistics of setting up the phone line. Heck, they sold Vonage service to people who didn’t have high speed internet access!
I’m not laying the blame on the Vonage sales rep solely (how that person sleeps at night, basically stealing money from unsuspecting elderly folks and giving it to her corporate masters, is beyond me). Vonage OBVIOUSLY condones promoting an offer that is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. All you have to do is watch a Vonage commercial, and you’ll see the evidence before you. They don’t stress the fact that you need a high-speed connection.
Another problem with Vonage: the sales reps should not be allowed to use throw away lines like, “We’ll call AOL to set-up high speed access for you.” That is a lie on two fronts. One, AOL doesn’t offer high speed access, and two, even if they did, I’m sure AOL would require the customer to call to set up the account.
The sales reps are encouraged to stuff say that, I’m sure, b/c the potential customer already has the service … they want to make the transition to Vonage SEEM as smooth as possible.
While we’re on the topic of high speed access: since Vonage’s business DEPENDS on high speed ISPs, wouldn’t you think the sale reps would have the names of the companies that offer those services on their computer screens, depending on the area? AND wouldn’t you think that the sales reps would be TRAINED to explain that the customer MUST set up high speed access prior to ordering Vonage?
I know Vonage is desperate, still recovering from their disastrous IPO and uncertain about their future … but come on! Misleading customers about how easy and cheap their service is doesn’t help the business, either!
One last thought — Motorola, the company that built the modem, should be ashamed of themselves. They should have a splitter built into the thing. Their design is idiotic.
The only good thing about Vonage for Ronald and Patricia, to be fair, is that they can make international calls to the old country. Of course, the nephew did not verify this claim, and neither did the writer of this article….
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The sad fact is that your two stories are 100% true, and happen to countless citizens in this country.
Many senior citizens come from an era where utility (phone, electric,-and add banks into this discussion, etc.) companies had this aura of being an Authority.
In this day and age, AT&T/Bellsouth/AOL/Vonage/
Sprint/FP&L/iPhone/Banks, etc. will
do anything and everything in their
power to add fees, get commitments,
and raise prices, and hide behind their “Terms of Service” agreements.
Bottom-line: This is not a solution, but the only way to fight back- 90 day pre-paid cell phone minutes for long distance calls and just Bellsouth local service, with no bells and whistles (around $20 bucks a month for a basic landline). [Or, just a cell phone and no landline.] Or if a relative happens to use internet, use instant messages and e-mail.
It is a nightmare anytime highspeed access or modems or AOL or Comcast have to get involved just to use a phone.
Tony, thanks for posting this; I hope people search and come across this and learn.
For those who do not know me, I don’t have a cellphone, and my landline does not have long-distance or call waiting.
Enough is enough with this cell phone society we live in, where everyone seems obligated to get the next upgraded “better” gadget and willingly shell out $100+ a month (and put your credit rating on the line if you can’t pay), not to mention ever member of the family has to have one.
I know it’s too late for most of you to escape; the convenience of having a cell, especially if you have kids at school or are on the road most of the time makes it very valuable at times. Heck, there is a social stigma if you DON’T have one. It’s just that I easily can turn back the clock to a time when everyone seemed to get along without them.
Besides…does anyone actually answer their cell phones or get their voice messages anymore?
This is a classic case of “Buyer Beware.”
While I feel for the “victimized” people who were “duped” into buying a service that they were unprepared for or ill informed about, I also understand that these same “Old World” people would not go into a hardware store and buy an item and then complain that they don’t know how to use it.
Case in point:
1) An elderly man, let’s say in his 70’s, walks into Ace Hardware to get a part for his toilet. In the plumbing aisle there are rows and rows or parts above and beyond the part he needs. Instead of getting the part he needs he opts for a part that will “upgrade” his system with a higher flushing capacity. There is no other documentation on the label saying what extra parts he may need, even though a Professional or a nearby clerk would be able to point out that along with his purchase he will have to buy $500 worth of other items to get said product to work. So, our ill-informed customer takes his purchase home and tries to install it himself. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that the item is defective or missing parts. He feels that an angry note to the company is in order as well as taking the item back to Ace Hardware and yelling at the clerk.
2) Age shouldn’t be that crutch being that there are plenty of elderly out there that do surf the internet (check out myspace), and conduct a daily correspondence via email and such. I know for many people who drive cars without routine maintenance and then complain how the car maker should be liable or recall the car due to it breaking down.
DUH! Forethought people. If you buy a product you should at least know enough about it to be able to install or use it. I’d like to get a Hemi engine for my car. But I’m not going to buy one because of the other modifications I’d need to get my car ready for it.
Buyer beware!!!
Never take for granted that you had the RIGHT to post this on your blog, Tony. Just like companies have the RIGHT to sell products that are not physically harmful. I thought you were a card-carrying Republican Libertarian, who was against government regulation. The more rights you’re willing to give up under the guise of “regulation” or “guidance”, the more you head towards Nazi Germany.
social communist red flag
Terms of services, written contracts, fine print, which include subcontracting, “buyer beware”- all part of capitalism and free society. I don’t see the problem.
No one is twisting these senior’s arms to buy cell phones with complicated plans. And why shouldn’t the Miami resident be charged for canceling and restarting? I’d have to read the original agreement. There may be a case, but fine print generally wins out. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Professor Gibbons, you are the definition of SKEWED. The companies involved also have the right to provide appropriate technical support for those who do not understand the newest technology, but who understand how to use a telephone.
Attorney — there’s the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. These companies abuse the spirit of the law when they treat the elderly in the manner I have described in the LME scenarios.
Kefka — the only reason to discuss toilets in this discussion is to push the flush handle on shoddy customer service.
Tony, I have to admit, I’ve never been called skewed before. A card carrying member of the ACLU? Yes. Someone who doesn’t want Big Government running our lives? Yes. Someone who is pro-choice, and pro-individualism? Yes? Skewed? No. That’s a first.
Just remember, the more you want to give up freedoms and capitalism under the guise of “regulation”, the more this country edges towards a national socialist regime.
If YOU are a private business owner, and YOU create a product, why should you be forced to incur the cost of technical support, and have that eat into your profits? What kind of sniveling idealistic “Utopian” society is that? Corporations and small business don’t have regulations like the federal government.
What if an idiot doesn’t know how to change his tire? Should he sue the car manufacturer?
We live in a (thank goodness) free society, where people have the right to look up free information, and businesses have the right to sell virtually any product they wish (within safe guidelines).
Yeah, Tony. Go back to Russia, you commie!