dealing wih (mis)communcation

When Hameed and I first move to our own flat we sat up our phone with the biggest company here in Australia. We did not do an research before we choose this company and although the guy I talk to when I signed up did list up all my benefits and things I could not do, I still have no idea what he said. Basically things like that make my head spin. I did manage to get him to confirm that I would get a working phone line and yes I would be able to call my mummy. I was happy.

A few months down the track we decided to get internet and it was just easiest to stick with this big company. We had phone and internet with them for about 2 years until one day about 1 year ago a guy knocked on our door. He introduced himself and said he was from another phonecompany and that he could offer us a better deal. My head started to spin before he had said two sentences, but Hameed sat down with him and actually manage to understand what this deal was all about. It turns out the guy was right. It was a better deal for us., it cost less and was better quality internet and I could still call my mummy. So we switched.

Now our old company did not give us much trouble for leaving them. They did send us a check for $ 9.90 which we were happy enough to cash. We never understood how we got in credit as we always just paid the amount they asked us for. Then a month later we got a 'bill'. I say 'bill' because it was not really a bill. It looked like a bill, but instead of saying how much we had to pay it said we had $19.40 credit. Again, not sure how this happen, but whatever. We did not think much about it really. I believe I at one stage thought we really had had 19.40 credit but minus fees and charges and stuff we ended up with the 9.90 we had got the check for.

For a year we got this' bill' every single month. It started to get annoying. I called - twice- asking them to stop it already. And both times the assured me that yes, our account was closed and yes they would not send anymore 'bills' - very sorry about that ma'am.

It did not stop. I sent an email asking them to just please tell me what to do to get it to stop. The problem is that these 'bills' contains personal information, which would make it easy for someone not so honest to make a new account in our name, so we can't just throw them in the bin. It did seem though that this email I sent might have been a break trough. I got a letter.

The letter said; very sorry ma'am (twice!) and then went on to explain that we were getting 'bills' because our account was in credit. To stop reciving this bills we just had to call them and ask for a check. Oki then. I guess I should not complain about people wanting to give me money although I still don't understand how we ended up in credit.

So I called and got it sorted out with this lady, who promised to send my money. She warned me though that the check would take about 6 weeks to come through so I would probably get another 'bill' in the mean time (don't ask me why they do this). When I pointed out that no one had ever told me before (remember this has been going on for a year) that I would need to call them to ask for a check she replied that it was 'generally understood'. Meaning that normal people (more smart once then us I guess) would see their bill with credit on and promptly call to ask for a check...

I know I am slow sometimes, but for a company that specialize in communication they are not very good at it. I really had expected more. I had expected that maybe one of those 2 people I talked to during the year when I asked them to stop. sending. me. bills. already. might had clued me in on this. Actually, I would expect them to send me a letter when we first canceled to say: 'hey you have credit, please call us so we can send you a check'. And maybe even add how we got a credit..

But maybe I am expecting to much. I guess I should just shut up and be happy they give me money.