Awwk! No Internet?

My husband and I decided to change internet providers after Old Provider decided we should be paying a lot more money each month for services we’d been using for fifteen years. Apparently we slipped through the cracks when one company bought another company and changed all the rates and schedules. Well, fine, but did they try to keep our business by offering us a sweetheart deal as a transition to full service. Nope, not during that first call.

My husband was most inconvenienced because he had to give up an e-mail address he’d had for all those years, but he went to work setting up a new account and getting all his mail and contacts transferred. Once that was done, and he’d had preliminary talks with the New Provider to verify their services and costs, he called Old Provider to discontinue service.

It took over an hour on the phone and extensive repetition of the word “No” to the new improved offers from Ricky in India to finally get free.

Then it was time for the call to New Provider to set up service. My husband spent nearly an hour on the phone with Young Lady H_ and when all was arranged, wrote down the contract’s confirmation number.

The next day, Friday, Young Fellow J_ from New Provider called and asked if we had been talking to Young Lady H_ and did we still want the service discussed. I said yes. He said H_ had to leave and that he’d call back in a few minutes from his work phone. A half-hour later, he called again to say it would be another hour or so. Two hours later, my husband called New Provider and talked to someone new, Young Lady C_, who said the original confirmation number was invalid because there were mistakes in it.

My husband went through the whole setup process again, discovering new costs and charges never mentioned in the past, but still more favorable than Old Provider. He was given a new confirmation number, and the promise of a confirmation e-mail which C_ was in the process of sending as they spoke.

As of Sunday afternoon, we had received no confirmation e-mail.

The thought of being without online access at home was pretty scary at first, but now I’m resigned to the situation and making the best of it. My Tuesday Chiseled in Rock post will explain why this adventure has turned into a blessing in disguise.