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Saturday, January 14, 2012

Business Tactics

There are a few things that are really bothering me lately about the business world.  One of them happens to be the change in our utilities (electricity to be exact) and choosing a different provider.  We have been getting the mailings for quite awhile, look at them and toss them, signaling we have made our choose.  Despite that we still get the phone calls explaining the deal to us.  Recently I received a call from a man who, after I said we didn't want to change, proceeded to raise his voice as he explained it and eventually asked me in a very derogatory tone why I didn't like to save money.  I retaliated and said I didn't like his tone and hung up on him.  I could tell by his voice that he thought I was some old senile lady with a hearing problem.  Yesterday, we also got a letter from a third party company wanting us to sign up for a membership to have outside electrical line work done for free.  This did not come directly from Penelec but had their name on it as they had their approval.  I call it deceptive advertising and also targeted to the elderly.  We're also fighting a battle with Verizon because of a charge that showed up on a bill a couple months ago for tech support that we didn't buy.  The first month my hubby called, got it straightened out and I paid the bill less that charge.  The second month the charge was still there so he called and I did the same.  Now this month the charge is gone but they showed an outstanding balance from the last bill.  Are these companies this desperate that they will try and bill you or talk us into something to make a buck  -  I suppose so.  In all fairness I need to talk about two things that happened just this year that restored my faith in the American people.  Over Christmas we gave both the mail lady and the paper carrier some money and candy for Christmas.  I recently received a thank you card from the mail lady that was stamped and sent US Postal.  What a gal!  Talk about honesty  -  she could have very easily slipped it in with the rest of the mail and no one would have said anything.  Another thing that just happened was about our lawn care service.  We discontinued it a couple years ago because of the water line going in but now we decided to get it again and sent in the prepay amount.  They call yesterday and said they were sending it back because supposedly we prepaid in 2009 for the 2010 season when we stopped so there was a credit.  He wasn't even going to worry about the difference in the amount and the fact that we were now getting 6 treatments instead of the usual 4.  I suppose in reality they got interest on that and it all works out but I can't even find my record of it and can't remember to boot.  Also, what a guy!  I hope this reflects how I do recognize exemplary behavior but don't cross me.

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