From November, 2011 to February, 2012, AT&T demanded that Dave pay them for a service they had failed to provide.
They had promised to supply him with Uverse high-speed Internet–at 25 MBPs a second. Instead, he had gotten only 6 MBPs a second. And a big dot in the middle of his computer screen when watching YouTube videos.
Finally, an AT&T rep told him the blunt truth:
His geographical area was not yet supplied with fiber-optic cables that could provide high-speed Internet service.
Dave canceled Uverse–and began getting a series of bills from AT&T.
First one for more than $400.
Then a reduced bill for $260.
Then another for $140.
And still another for $126.95.
After getting a phone call from a collections agency, Dave asked me to intervene with AT&T on his behalf.
So I decided to go directly to the Office of the President.
Long ago I had learned a crucial truth:
The man at the top of an organization cannot fob you off with the excuse: “I can’t do it.” He can do anything he wants to do. And once he decides to do it, everyone below will fall into line.
I already had the phone number: (800) 848-4158.
I had gotten this via a google search under “AT&T Corporate Offices.” This gave me a link to “Corporate Governance”–which provides biographies of the executives who run the company.
And at the head stands Randall L. Stephenson–Chairman of the Board, CEO and President of AT&T Inc.
I didn’t expect to speak with him. One of his chief lieutenants would be enough–such as a woman I’ll call Margie.
First, I introduced myself and said I was authorized to act on Dave’s behalf. Then I handed the phone to Dave (who was sitting next to me) so he could confirm this.
I then briefly outlined the problems Dave had been having.
Margie–using Dave’s phone number–quickly accessed the computerized records documenting all I was telling her.
She said she would need three or four days to fully investigate the matter before getting back to me.
I said that, for me, the crux of the matter was this:
An AT&T rep had told Dave the company could not supply high-speed Internet to his geographical area because it had not yet laid fiber-optic cables there.
This meant:
1.There was a disconnect between what AT&T’s technicians knew they could offer–and what its customer service reps had been told;
2.Or, worse, the company had lied when it promised to provide Dave with a service it couldn’t deliver.
I said that Dave wanted to resolve this quietly and amicably. But, if necessary, he was prepared to do so through the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The PUC regulates phone companies at the State level. The FCC regulates them at the Federal level.
Just as I was about to hang up, I said I couldn’t understand why Dave should have kept getting billed, since he had been assured he wouldn’t be.
Margie said that the company felt he owed $150.00 for “breaking” the two-year contract he had signed.
I immediately noted that AT&T had not lived up to its end of the contract–that is, to provide the promised high-speed Internet service. As a result, they could not demand that Dave pay for something that had not been delivered.
Clearly, this set off alarm-bells for Margie.
When I asked her, “How soon can I expect to hear from you on your company’s investigation into this matter?” she said there was no need to conduct one.
In fact, she added, she was writing out a credit to Dave of $150.00 that very minute.
Previously, she had told me it would take three or four days.
Thus, Dave did not owe the company anything for his disappointing experiment with its Uverse service.
I felt certain that Dave’s experience with a rapacious AT&T was not an isolated case. Just as banks use every excuse to charge their customers for anything they can get away with, so do phone companies.
I knew that AT&T didn’t want the PUC and FCC to start asking: “Is ATt&T generally dunning customers for money they don’t owe?”
I believe the answer would have proven to be: “Yes.”
And I believe that Margie felt the same way.
So, when dealing with a predatory company like AT&T:
1.Keep all company correspondence.
2.Be prepared to clearly outline your problem.
3.Know which State/Federal agencies hold jurisdiction over the company.
4.Phone/write the company’s president. This shows that you’ve done your homework–and deserve to be taken seriously.
5.Remain calm and businesslike in your correspondence and/or conversations with company officials.
6.Don’t fear to say you’ll contact approrpriate government agencies if necessary.
7.If the company doesn’t resolve your problem, complain to those agencies, and/or
8.Consider hiring an attorney and filing a lawsuit.
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WONDER WOMAN: COARSENING THE CULTURE
In Business, Entertainment, Military, Social commentary on February 7, 2014 at 1:32 amOn November 7, 2013, American television culture took yet another step deeper into Toiletville.
It was the Two and Half Men episode, “Justice in Star-Spangled Hot Pants.” And it starred Lynda Carter as the target of a crush that was both infantile and obscene.
Carter, of course, is the singer/actress best-known for her role as Wonder Woman (1975-1979).
And watching this episode of Men, it was hard to tell where the real-life Carter left off and the fictional character she was playing took over.
Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman
Here, in brief, was the plotline:
Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) learns that his roommate, Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher) knows Lynda Carter.
Having an enormous crush on Carter from his years of watching her as Wonder Woman, Alan asks Walden to set him up on a date with her.
Against his better judgment, Walden agrees to invite her to the house for dinner.
Now, if Carter had been playing a fictional character, there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with this premise.
Nobody, for example, would have mistaken Laurence Olivier for Richard III.
But she wasn’t. She was playing herself.
And, in her real-life self, she’s 62. An admittedly good-looking 62, but, even so, a woman about 40 years older than the character (Alan) who wants to meet her.
And not simply meet her. Bone her.
Bone her? Yes–that’s exactly what he says when Walden initially turns down his request to introduce him to her: “Now I’ll never get to bone Lynda Carter.”
And since Carter was playing herself, it’s useful to recall that she is, in real-life, a married woman (since 1984 to attorney Robert Altman).
And the show achieves an even lower level of crassness when Walden says Alan is so desperate to meet Carter that he’d skulk around in the bushes in front of her house.
“Wow, Lynda Carter’s bush,” says Alan, practically salivating over the contemplation of a 62-year-old woman’s vagina.
But males aren’t the only gender who get to descend to new depths of bad taste in this episode. There’s the character of Jenny (Amber Tamblyn), the lesbian sister of the departed character Charlie (Charlie Sheen).
Again, the show’s writers simply couldn’t resist the temptation to mix real-life with fantasy.
Jenny is, at first, not even aware who Lynda Carter is until Alan, shocked, clues her in on the infantile series she’s best-known for.
And, after meeting Carter, Jenny remain unimpressed. There’s an edginess in her voice as she comes face-to-face with the actress who’s well-known for supporting gay and lesbian rights.
“I understand you’re into cuffs,” she tells Carter–a reference to the “magic bracelets” worn by her character, Wonder Woman.
But it’s also a double entendre, conjuring up the image of Carter (perhaps in her Wonder Woman outfit) staked out on a bed in a bondage fantasy.
For all of Alan’s over-the-top infatuation with Carter, it’s not him that she’s interested in. It’s his buddy, Walden (Ashton Kutcher).
Lynda Carter and Ashton Kutcher
And to prove it, she gives him a real smackeroo of a kiss.
Which may well have conjured up, for him, real-life memories of his May-December marriage to the actress Demi Moore.
Kutcher was 27 when he tied the knot with Moore in 2005. Moore, by contrast, was 42.
The marriage ended in 2013, amid tabloid reports that Kutcher had cheated on her with Sara Leal, a 22-year-old San Diego-based administrative assistant.
Kutcher, born in 1978, was still rolling around in his cradle while Carter–born in 1951–was wrapping up her third and final season as Wonder Woman.
So, for Kutcher, maybe it was a case of deja vu all over again.
On Veterans Day from 2001 to 2004, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) aired the 1998 Steven Spielberg World War II classic, Saving Private Ryan, uncut and with limited commercial interruptions.
Both the grity, realistic battle scenes and profanity were left intact.
Storming the beach at Normandy in Saving Private Ryan
But in 2004, its airing was marked by pre-emptions by 65 ABC affiliates.
The reason: The backlash over Super Bowl XXXVIII’s halftime show controversy (starring the infamous bared breast of Janet Jackson).
The affiliates—28% of the network—did not clear the available timeslot for the film.
And this was even after the Walt Disney Company–which owns ABC–offered to pay all fines for language to the FCC.
No complaints, however, were lodged with the FCC.
It speaks volumes to the priorities–and values–of American television when a film honoring the wartime sacrifices of American soldiers is banned from network TV.
And it speaks volumes as well to the priorities–and values–of American television when a casually juvenile and crudity-laced series like Two and a Half Men becomes CBS’ biggest cash cow.
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