so this is how it went yesterday paying my cable bill:
Sunday, i went on line to pay my bill. when i clicked "pay now" my whole screen goes blank. Shit! did my payment go through? Don't click again, can't afford to pay twice. Solution..wait til monday morning and see what happened.
Monday: call charter..listen to nice robot lady for 10 years, minutes. finally agent says "call bank". call bank (slightly faster than cable company), they say call cable company. listen to nice robot lady another ten years (i mean decades), then agent says "no payment made, please try again"
go on line push "pay now"..you won't believe this part....another blank screen. now i know it isn't me or my computer because i also paid at&t and pp&l on sunday with no problems. call friggin cable company AGAIN!!! here is how it went this time
Robot lady: welcome to charter communications
ME: no response
Robot lady: briefly telling me what you are calling about
ME: billing
ROBOT lady: let me give you some choices, internet..telephone..tech support..billing
ME: B.I.L.L.I.N.G
Robot lady: Billing, i can help you with that. let me look up your account. Your amount due is $200.00. would you like to pay $200.00.
Me: NO ...(keep in mind here i am only trying to find out if i just paid 200 or not)
Robot lady: the minimum amount to pay for uninterrupted service (who the hell are they kidding...charter doesn't care about uninterrupted service, trust me, it happens here all the time). is $140. would you like to pay $140?
Me: NO
Robot lady: what amount would you like to pay?
Me: (silence)
Robot lady: What amount would you like to pay ? (it may be my imagination here..but she sounded like she was getting kind of snotty with me)
Me: silence
Robot lady: Please use the buttons on your telephone to indicate the amount you wish to pay. (ok, now I KNOW she is getting down right nasty...her tone is inferring that i probably had my pet monkey call in the first place cause no way am i smart enough to dial a phone number).
me:(thinking now i can ask for a real person) "an agent"
robot lady: the amount you wish to pay is $800.00. Is this correct?
Me: *&%#@^& NO. (then i was afraid to say anything else, figuring the robotic demoness would take "representative or human" and rhyme it with bazillion.
but eventually i managed to pay $200. a real person came on and had me clear my cookies and blah blah blah (but that wasn't it, because like i said my other bills went through just fine). what a day...and all so i can keep internet and blog.