When the Internet Umbilical is cut

It would be understandable if we were out to sea and we lost contact with land. That has happened before, many times. However, to have the Internet umbilical cut at home, when we are planning to go out to sea, that is a different thing.

It happened suddenly and without warning. It seemed the phone company had been double billing us for years and we didn’t know it. 

When we called to correct the overbilling, we were advised that the best way to correct the error was to upgrade our Internet service to the fastest and newest system available. 

We should have said, “No, I just want a rebate!” The old axiom, “Leave well enough alone, often does make sense.”

However, we were lulled into thinking that this new faster service would be our savior. A technician was scheduled to come to the house in two weeks everything would be made right.

What we didn’t know was that in the meantime, our Internet service would be  cut off completely; an eleven day wait.

We were stunned; and immediately called to correct the situation.

The problem with these big companies is that when it’s done it is hard to undo.

No amount of phone calls to higher levels of the system made any difference. We were at their mercy.

We were told that there was no way to reconnect our Internet without a serviceman coming to the house. However, they disconnected our service without coming to the house. Certainly they could reconnect it.

No! The technician had to come to the house between 8 to 5 on a certain day. We had to be there to wait for him.

He did come and spent three hours trying to reconnect us. To no avail. The weekend passed and the days stretched from one to the next. Business e-mails were missed.

There was no work, no writing from home. It all had to be done at the office.

We are a night writer, so it brought to a halt our most productive time.

We called every day. They were very nice, all 10 of them; because the office we called to complain, had layers of them, all waiting for complaints.

We knew we were not an exception. We were given a number and we would be flipped from one attendant to another. “This is complainer number 2,432 coming your way”.

We fumed. It did no good. We were nice. We apologized for being nasty earlier. We offered to forget the past double billing. 

JUST HOOK US BACK UP!

As of this writing we are still stilling with our Internet umbilical cut.