Impenetrable Phone Trees

Some of these big telephone companies think they’re boss.  You’re at the mercy of them if you have a complaint.  For one thing, you cannot talk to a live person unless you are buying something from them either a product or a service.  When you call them, you always get a tape telling you to press 1, press 2, or press 3, etc.  You press any of these numbers and you get another tape.  Before I knew the situation with these phone companies, I stayed on the phone for a half an hour once and could not reach a live human being before I gave up.  When I had a question about a charge on my bill, I ended up not only paying for it but I enclosed a note telling them of my complaint to see if that would work.  Now I have a 29 cent credit on my account that keeps getting mailed to me as a reminder.  There is a credit on my account and is never wiped off because I don’t use my calling card much for long distance outside my home.  I don’t have a cell phone. Nevertheless, I had addressed the note to Dear Cyborg, something to that effect.  That is what must be in charge is the computer systems.  They are using this modern technology to block us out and to rip us off.  There are no protections for the consumer.  Congress needs to get on the stick and protect us from these types of predators as well.  Also, cell phone and internet companies like to charge fees for early cancellation.  They’ll sure make their money one way or the other.  There are so many things these days that border on outright crookedness if not crookedness.  But they figured out how to keep the crookedness legal in disguise.  It is through impenetrable phone trees.  If you can’t reach them, pardon my French, you’ll have to suck on it.  We need to get organized around this issue of no consumer protections.  I guess it’s not too far up on the agenda for the government to ever consider in a good economy or bad one.