My Evil Answering Machine!

I had an interesting morning. I was woke up by Insight calling to tell me that even though my balance is ZERO they won't hook up the cable again until we pay for our "first month in advance" and pay it COD as in hand cash to the install guy, and me telling them no way no how am I paying them a month in advance when I have been a customer for 2 years.

I ended up getting to a supervisor and when I explained the whole **Situation** the call ended with our cable being hooked up this morning without having to pay the month in advance. Which was nice. The cable lady was nice, and logical, except for this comment, which was full of hookey and I told her so much:

Cable Lady: "we tried calling you several times and never reached anyone."

MJJ "we work full time, so we are not home during the day. But we never received a single message on our answering machine..."

Cable Lady: "well, you have to understand that our automated system called you."

MJJ: "well your automated system never left a message."

Cable Lady: "the answering system that you have at your house wouldn't let our automated system leave a message. Our system only works if the 'equiptment' in your home allows it to."

MJJ: "I understand that your automated system was not functioning correctly, but that is really not my problem. I was not notified. Via telephone, email, or postal service mail."

Have these companies ever heard of a good ol fashioned person picking up the phone and calling? An Automated system calling my house over and over between 10am and 4pm while I am not home and NOT leaving me a message does not constitute "notification" of a problem on my account. They also have my mailing address and my email address, but I wasn't notified by either of those. Let me guess "my PO box wouldn't allow their mail to be delivered" or maybe "my email blocked all their messages?"

The kicker to me is that all other people have no problems leaving us a message. When the doctor's office calls using their automated system to leave us an appointment reminder, that works just fine. When JC Penney calls to let us know a catalog item is in, that works. When Sears calls to confirm an appointment for delivery of our replacement freezer (from when ours went bad under warranty) their automated system worked just fine. So blaming a problem with your automated system on my answering machine, just doesn't fly with me.

And before there was a "do not call list" we received plenty of answering machine messages from telemarketers, and were notified of many watches and fabulous vacation packages that we had won. Amazing how their automated systems were able to get our answering machine to work, but when Insight's automated system calls, my answering machine went all evil and prevented them from leaving a message. Amazing. Get your own evil monkey answering machine.