The Last Straw
Not so long ago I wrote about my travails with AT&T and Verizon and the extremely annoying process of trying to cancel services I do not use and have not used for a while. I termed it a death throw for these telecom behemoths when they must resort to unscrupulous tactics to try to drain the last few drops out of the cow they have been milking dry. I thought that was the end of the saga, but alas, there is yet another chapter that has transpired that makes me furious that these large companies can get away with tactics that no Better Business Bureau in the land would allow a small operator to skip away from.
When I finished my cancellation process with all its attendant calls and emails and store visit, I did so in mid-month. I did not bother to try to argue for past reparations for services never rendered, but since I was cancelling in the middle of the current billing cycle and had payed monthly in advance, as has become there habit, I did insist on getting compensation for the portion of the month that I would not be on the books with an open account. I got zero pushback from the cancellation specialist (just the fact that they have a special cancellation department with a separate line and a raft of very specific procedures should tell you a lot about where these companies are headed with their bread and butter business). I just assumed they would credit the amount back to my credit card that they had on file through their autopay system, and, to be honest, I didn’t bother to ask how I would be getting it.
I don’t remember exactly when I filed my cancellation (I could look it up, but I’ve already invested way too much time with these people on this process, so let’s just say several months ago). I have now received from both AT&T and Verizon a refund debit card for $27 and $33 respectively. The first unusual thing was that the AT&T card was in the name of my sister-in-law, who was managing the property for me way back when I set up the DirectTV account that became an AT&T account. She never paid any of the bills and it was my credit card on file for the autopay…and they recognized me as the account owner when it came to cancellation (which in itself is a big and important step), but they issued the refund card in her name. When we met for dinner this past weekend, I gave her the card as partial payment for our portion of the check and joked that it was useless to me since it was in her name. We laughed about it, but thought little more about it.
The Verizon refund card has been sitting on my desk for several weeks and I thought to look at it in case it had a time limit. Sure enough, it was only valid until September, so I decided that I had better make some use of it sooner rather than later. I took the time to read the standard card document to which the card was glued. It said I could use the card as a debit card or even convert it to cash by having the balance transferred to my checking account or have an actual paper check cut and sent to me. It all seemed fairly civilized and all I had to do was activate the card. They gave me a standard 800 number to call for the activation, but also clearly preferred that I go to their website to handle the activation and any other transactions I wanted to do with the card. I took the path of least resistance and called the 800 number as we all have done thousands of times when we get a new credit or debit card in the mail. We know how that works, there are prompts and you put in the numbers and it gives you the thumbs up that your card is activated.
The first time I called it went through a menu that allowed me to choose my language of preference with the options being English, Spanish and French (this must be used for Canadians, I figured). Once I selected English, it told me to input my card number and press #. Halfway through that process the phone line disconnected. I thought perhaps I had pushed a key by mistake. I tried again, this time noting that the introductory tri-lingual menu option takes thirteen seconds to work its way through until you can select your language and continue. I carefully put in the account number on the card plus #, whereupon it asked me for the CCV code on the back. As I was turning the card over, the phone disconnected again. I did this another ten or so times with the same result only with the disconnection occurring at random spots during the process, never with any explanation. They did start each call telling me that this call might be recorded for quality assurance purposes (that took three seconds to say). I then decided that they really wanted me to go online to do this, so I went online and they actually had a click-through for card activation, which took me to a page that asked for my account number and CCV number. I put those in carefully again and clicked return only to have the system tell me that it didn’t recognize my digits. Now, this was not a Verizon website, but rather some place called North Lane, which I presumed was a credit and debit card processor. They even had me specifically in the area of their site that handled Verizon Refunds specifically. After multiple failed attempts to input the number I had been given on my refund card, I noticed that they were pitching me to download their app. Aha, that’s what they really wanted, the ability to sell me something else.
I downloaded the indicated app, which was called Bakkt, which struck me as a strange, almost Eastern European sounding name like Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. I downloaded it and it prompted me to set up an account. I started to do that, got my name and address in there when they said their service was only available to U.S. citizens and legal residents, whereupon they asked for my social security number. I have never seen such a request or such a stipulation and I sure as hell wasn’t putting my social security number into some unfamiliar app called Bakkt. I immediately deleted the app just in case that might help from further infection. I decided to take another route.
The card transmittal letter and the website both mention a customer service telephone number. I tried the first one to North Lane and got the same disconnect treatment. Then I went to the big guns and decided to call the Verizon customer service number. Strangely enough, the exact same thing happened multiple times. The calls would go through just fine, I would start to answer the menu prompts and it would disconnect me. Now it was fight or flight time.
I chose flight and just did what they apparently wanted and expected me to do at some point, I tossed the card and the transmittal letter in the trash. If Bakkt had simply offered me a free donation to Ukraine, I would have gladly ticked that box and been done with this 30 minutes sooner. Instead, I took a moment to text my sister-in-law saying that if she had any trouble with her $27 debit card, just tell me and I would replace it with cash. This experience has proven to me that these big lumbering telecoms truly are at death’s door if they have to resort to scamming people out of their refund money, no matter how small it may be. The last straw was that Verizon still sends me the occasional email inviting me back for more fun and games. Thank you, but NFW.