The Rest Of the Story

 If you have been keeping up with my saga on stress I will now bring you up to date.  You may recall that I had been charged for a bill that belonged to another customer of Dish Network.   Unraveling this error turned out to be more time consuming and frustrating than I imaged it would.  After I faxed my response letter back I heard nothing more so I called them again.  This time I got an investigator who assured me that my case would stay open and get priority attention.  I don't know if he was incompetent, lazy, or just didn't give a fig, but nothing had been done.

More Stress:

After waiting for days I called customer care (?) again and got a representative that treated me like the village idiot.  I went through my long tale of woe and told her that I had been assured that the case would be reopened and put on priority by the last person I talked to.  Nothing had been done.  She told me I had to send another letter to reopen the case explaining why I did not think this was my obligation.   Tearing my hair out clump by clump I explained very patiently that they already had a letter with all that information that had been faxed to them days ago.    You could almost hear her sigh as she told me that this was the way it worked.  I had to send another letter and to expect it to take 10 to 14 days to get there.  I argued that this was completely unnecessary as it was just duplicating what they already had.  She insisted and, giving up in defeat because I was too tired to argue further I said, "All right I'll send another stupid lettter."   I asked her if I could fax it and she gave me a new fax number.  

Busy Work:

I wrote the whole scenario over once more and sent it to my friend over the Internet so he could fax it on his machine.  I wasn't thinking very clearly and after I sent it I realized that it had not been signed because it was all done in the computer.  I Emailed my friend and told him I would print a copy,  sign it, scan the signed copy and send it to him the next day.

Additional Stress:

The next morning I booted up my computer, got to the desk top, clicked on an icon and everything disappeared.  I had a major computer crash.  I booted up in 4 different options and was only able to get as far as "please wait".   This was in 'system restore' because nothing else got my desktop back.  I would be waiting until hell freezes over because that's as far as I can get.  My guru tells me my hard drive has crashed.  Do I opt for a new computer or a new hard drive?  Decisions, decisions.

Customer Care person #4.

I finally did what I should have done in the beginning.  I called and told the new girl that I wanted her to pull up my account and then connect me to a supervisor.  She wanted to know why.  By this time I had my story memorized and didn't even need to have Cliff notes written in my palm.  (I would apologize to Sarah Palin, but she doesn't deserve it.)  After I explained that I had talked to three investigators about this and gotten three different stories I wanted someone who knew what they were doing (Am I a mama grizzly?).

The Senior supervisor came on and I repeated my litany and told her that if the first investigator had bothered to look at the papers he would have noticed that the name, address, and zip code on the papers provided by Dish to prove their assertion that the charge was valid were all for a different customer.  I should not have had to go through the stress I endured if he had done his job.  

Is it fraud?

I had, at long last, reached someone who listened to me and she said it sounded like fraud to her.  She asked me to please hold (again ) while she contacted someone in the fraud department.   Eventually I was put in touch with another investigator who assured me that he could, and would, handle my case in 2 business days.  At the end of the conversation he assured me I would not have to pay late charges if the amount was not paid by my due date.   Then he worried me again by saying it would be handled in FOUR business days.  What happened to TWO?  This was Thursday.  The charge is still on my Visa statement.  Guilty until proven innocent, I guess. 

Wise Decision:

After this is resolved, if it ever is, I am going to get a new credit card number and never allow automatic charges to my account again.  During this unpleasant experience I thought, "What if I had met the grim reaper before I insisted that someone in authority look at the error?   My kids would not have known it was not my obligation and would have paid it without question.  Dish would have gotten away with their scam error.

I am probably boring you with my long saga, but if, in telling it, I can prevent someone else from making the mistakes I made it will be worth it.