So I am paying my bills right? And I’ve got one in the stack that is a big fat mistake. When we moved in June, Alltel screwed up the market change on our account big time. A couple months later I got an eight hundred dollar bill and my brain promptly blew up all over the ceiling. I called them, we talked through everything and I was assured everything is fine. So today, as I’m going through the remnants of bills to pay, I find a collection notice (WTF?)from an AllTel account. I’ve had no disruption of service and remember back in September everything was supposed to be A-OK.

I called AllTel. “Ma’am I don’t know how you didn’t get a bill”
Me: “I didn’t bet a bill for this amount because I PAID IT.”
AT: “We have no record of that”
Me: “Then why did I not get a bill after that last call in September when I was assured the bill was a-ok and I didn’t owe you anything beyond my regular monthly payments on my current account?”
AT: “I DON’T. KNOW.”
Me: “So what do we do?”
AT: “You need to pay the bill”
Me: “I already did”

And then my po-dunk bank pisses me off because I’m trying to pull up transactions online and can only get them from the middle of January 2008 to present no matter how hard I try. (Said bank already pisses me off because they’re not Quicken 2005 compatible with transaction downloads. I mean – what’s the rush? It’s 2008!)

AT: “I have no record of payment.”
Me: “And thanks to my hick bank, I can’t prove anything either. But I paid the bill, Alltel took my money and assured me everything was fine.”
AT: “Well, I can find no record of that.”
Me: “So what we have here is a situation where I can’t prove I paid this amount and you can’t prove that I didn’t”.
AT: “Yes Ma’am”
Me: “So I have to pay this bill”
AT: “Yes Ma’am”
Me: “So because your customer service people in (the shithole town I live in) can’t process a simple market change correctly I’m out another $165? And this is despite the fact that you can’t really prove I didn’t already pay it?”
AT: “Yes ma’am. I’m sorry ma’am”
Me: “Yes, I will bet you are because right before you came on the line, I agreed to take a customer satisfaction survey and I will be looking forward to that call within the next two hours. You have a great day.”

Fuck you.