Should I sue, could I sue?

Hmm...I wonder if that call was recorded? I would contact an attorney if I were you. Initial consultations are usually free.

 

thats all you yanks want to do is sue somebody no wonder the world is in a mess

 

Steve - the problem is you are trying to recapture speculative profits, not actual lost business (crappy way of doing it, but you have no absolute proof of loss of business unless someone testifies that they were goign to do business with you but won't given that your line was disconnected). Hard to say.

Question is, is it worth it to them? In principal, I say yes. Practically, very tough to say. My guess is you spend way more than you'll ever get.

That said, if you can have an attorney draft a brief and send it to their general counsel, you're likely to get a lot more than $50.

BTW - even if the call is recorded (it is), they'll never give it up unless it serves them. Welcome to the best legal system money can buy.

--Dan

Steve - it's a litigious society. The politicians and lawmakers are to blame. Oh wait, they're lawyers who have created a system AROUND them. At this point, there really is nothing that can be done. You wanna make cheap knocks at a country, I've got one right back: what the HELL good is the pound? There is no reason in the world it is worth 50% of what it carries in the markets. The country produces nothing, is no longer a capital center, nor is it creating intellectual capital, and the industrial revolution ended more than 50 years ago. When the UK finally succumbs to the Euro, the pound will be so devalued that someone in knightsbridge might realize crumpets aren't worth the $10 you pay. Soros had it right.

 

Touche!

 

F those big company bastards-So sick of seeing these big companies get away with murder---Sue those bastards---at least draft a letter and send and make them understand you are not going to take this bull$hit.

 

I would say stop wasting your time. If you can get 2k - 4k jobs a day why are you worried about your phone being cut off for a few hours. It sucks and we have all been through it. Take the 50 bucks and get on with your life.

just my 7 cents

 

Someone made a mistake, it's fixed now, big deal. Move on.

How long have you been paying for features you never used, and why?

 

I'll be damned if I wasn't going to have Steve reinsulate my 60 unit apartment complex to R38!

I had all of my heatstricken tenants sitting around my desk as I called him on my speakerphone but LO AND BEHOLD, I couldn't reach him!

NOW THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY!

 

Steve, I've dealt with similar issues with the phone company, web hosting companies and even SBC and TimeWarner on our lines. Problem comes down to: there's no policy on incompetence on their side. That being said, if you light the fire and file, don't expect to have consistent phone service, if any at all. They'll take time to fix it, maybe get to it in a week or two. Phone companies have layers and layers and layers of management, politics, those who they are loyal to and those who they are not: you.

Just be forwarned for the worst possible scenario - losing your phone service completely.

 

Trust me on this one, if you do, you'll have two trucks sitting there doing nothing. I'm willing to wager on it and the phone company will win. It will be worth it for them to shell out $50 for entertainment purposes from a customer who complains about their service - incompetent or not.

 

Steve - somehow I don't think that they're going to cut you off the way people say. Have your counsel draft a simple one or two page brief explaining what happened, and asking SBC or whomever if the policy of offeirng $50 is considered good faith, and what they feel is appropriate action.

More likely than not, the b|tch will get reprimanded, you might get on the good side of SBC (or rather, they'll feel mildly threatened to treat you well), and they should appreciate that you've asked for their advice rather than seek litigation.

All in all, it should end well and I would be highly suspect if your phone services got shut off. The companies are far too large and bureaucratic to have that happen. Plus if it happened a second time, I would *record* the call and explain very clearly to the next person you takled to exactly what transpired and why your service was shut off again. Then you may have legal grounds.

--Dan

 

Worse yet, you hired someone else in his place and the whole THING is all mucked up!

--Dan

 

If its anything like the cell phone companies, you cannot sue but must go to arbitartion. Good luck with that. This is usually somewhere in the fine print, when you sign up for the service. You basically agree not to sue as a condition of the service....

Look into that before you waste time and energy - I went through ths with T-mobile (Absolutely the worst company I have ever dealt with...DO NOT GET T-MOBILE!!!!)

 

I used to work at a cell phone company doing tech support (note to anyone who reads this...worst job ever) and believe it or not, this kind of thing is very common. Our contracts were written so that a customer could not recieve compensation for lost wages due to loss of service. Customers were entitled to a refund on their monthly bill for the time that their service was out. So say your bill is $100 a month and your service was out for 2 hours. We were then required to refund a grand total of 14 cents for the time. I found that generally most customer service reps would refund the entire month and give a month of free service when it was the fault of the company. However, one curse word directed towards the csr would result in all niceties being thrown out the window and the customer being given a refund of 14 cents.

So there is some leeway, $50 is probably the best you can expect unless your contract allows you to go to arbitration. It sucks big time, phone companies treat customers like crap and unfortunately there isn't much that a customer can do about it.

 

I got sick of SBC because what started out as a $35/month bill in reality would cost over $70/month with "extras" and taxes.
I attempted several times to get the bill reduced, costs down. They didn't give a s**t. My solution? www.vonage.com Ever since, SBC has been calling daily, trying to get our service back, offering all kinds of deals. I finally had to ask them to knock it off.

 

You're in CA, the small claims limit is $5k.

File small claims, it costs you $22. Have them served by the sherrif.

They'll probally pay, as it's cheaper for them to do so then fight it.

 

Why even bother?

 

First I think you did get screwed in terms of the quality of service. What I'm having trouble figuring out is when the phone company ever was liable for poor service.

Take an exapmple, if the phone company had a total outage for 1 hour (which has happened), is it liable for the economic loss of the region that occured during that 1 hour? Another example, if instead of $2-4K, let's say that you're an agent for first tier sports stars and the loss of phone service for an hour resulted in a one of them signing a $50M deal with another agent. Is the phone company liable for $50M for a service that they collect $50 a month?

Again, not trying to put you down, but I've just never heard that a utility offered service on other than a "best efforts" basis and that your recourse was refund of the service fees and shopping your business elsewhere.

 

I got sick of SBC because what started out as a $35/month bill in reality would cost over $70/month with "extras" and taxes.
I attempted several times to get the bill reduced, costs down. They didn't give a s**t. My solution? www.vonage.com Ever since, SBC has been calling daily, trying to get our service back, offering all kinds of deals. I finally had to ask them to knock it off.

Two weeks ago I called Verizon to inquire about getting FIOS installed in my home. Verizon likes to use your number to look you up in their database, but I use Vonage, so they can never find me. I do find it slighly arrogant they think everyone uses them. Anyway, out of sheer fun, I give the csr the Vonage number and silently laugh as she hemms and haws trying to find me. She finally gives up and says, "I cannot find you number in our database, sir. Are you sure that's right?"

I say, yeah, but I'm with Vonage.

She comes back with, "wow so is that why I hear all that clicking in the background? It's really noisy, can you hear that? It's terrible."

I'm like, " sounds crystal clear to me"

She says, "Oh no...there's a loud clicking...it's really terrible. Wow that Vonage is really bad."

I hit her back with, "well it's crystal clear on my end, so it must be your crappy Verizon lines making all the noise."

The above conversation makes me think these companies are beginning to feel the pinch from the broadband providers. I've never had a complaint about line quality until I got a Verizon csr on the phone. I've had Vonage for nearly a year now and also keep a fax line with them. I've had really no real issues with them. I routinely make hour long calls to New Zealand for less than $3.

RMX

 

RMX- How do you like the fax line, and does it go to a real fax machine or electronic?

 

Goes to a real fax. Works pretty okay for me.

RMX

 

Thats our only recourse with stupid people, but in particular IRRESPONSIBLE COMPANIES with stupid employees.

There is a big difference.

If you fail to see that, please take a stack of 2,500 quid, send it in the mail, and when it doesn't arrive at your intended destination, come back to this thread.