Petco no more

Today I attempted to return kitty litter to Petco and was disappointed that they wouldn't accept it because it had been more than 30 days.

While back I bought some expensive kitty litter made out of corn that is flushable. I have been trying to come up with a method to eliminate plastic bags (from stores) in my home. Mostly I use them to throw away the kitty litter. But with this corn type you can flush it down the toilet. The price for a 30 lb bag was $46, which is personally just outrageous. But, I thought I would give it a try and see what happens.

Let's just say it wasn't accepted by my cats. Instead of using the litter box, they used the floor. Totally disgusting. And this was after I attempted to wean them off of the regular kitty litter by mixing the two together.

At first the answer at Petco was no returns accepted after 30 days. I tried to explain to them that this good earth friendly kitty litter lasts a long time and it took quite awhile to wean the cats off of the old stuff before using it alone. Nope, nothing from the store manager. She called the district manager and he said they'd refund half my money. Well, that'd be fine if I had used half of the product. But considering I hadn't used very much at all I thought that was a bad deal.

My next attempt is to contact the manufacturer and let them know that my cats were dissatisfied with the product. Which is true. And thus so was I because I had to keep cleaning up the mess.

Home Depot's Green Attempt

In this morning's home depot advertisement they stated they were giving away free reusable bags this morning and quantities were limited. You see stuff like this every year around Earth Day, a company's attempt to look "green" without actually implementing any sustaining changes.

I went to Home Depot this morning and found out that they only had 150 bags to give away and they were given away as you checked out. So one person theoretically could have left with 10 bags. 150 bags barely counts as trying to be "green".

Home Warranty (Beware)

Dear National Home Protection & Nationwide Home Warranty,

I found your company's website to be very misleading. In your contract terms it says that each item is limited to $1500 to repair/replace. However on this page of your website your company provides the estimated cost to fix things if you don't' have a warranty, but state if you had a NHP plan you simply pay the annual contract price and the per visit trade service fee which is listed as $60.

That's what is misleading. Where some repairs could cost $4000 to $7000 your only going to cover $1500 and the homeowner has to cover the difference. Other warranty companies pay for the full cost of the repair and don't cost much more than you for the annual warranty plan.

Very disappointed in your company for mis-representing this information.

Sincerely,
A frustrated homeowner

Has Target lost their mind?

Here is Target's reply to my friend's incident I reported recently. They want you to jump through hoops to return a 1 year old's birthday gift.

Love Lost (Target)

This is from a friend.

Dear Target,

I don't even know how to do this. I know that breaking up via blog is so childish, but I feel like our latest spat was also childish (on your part), and I'm pretty peeved right now. My little Claire got the cutest bathing suit for her birthday, but I'm afraid it won't fit her in a few months when we're actually able to swim outside. I don't have the receipt, as it was a gift, and apparently you no longer give gift receipts with every purchase. But I thought I could at least EXCHANGE it for the next size up. I mean, it has the TAG on it still, which is CLEARLY marked Circo (a brand carried exclusively by you), and it has never been worn. The nice lady at customer service looked me up in your computer system using my driver's license, and noted that I had already used my 2 (TWO!) non-receipt returns/exchanges for the year. I quickly did the math, and came up with the fact that it is still January of this year, and I am pretty certain that I have not returned anything yet in 2008. She pointed to her paper where she had written down two dates:

1. 1/08/07
2. 6/24/07

She pointed at the last date and said that she would be glad to accept my return after June 24th of THIS YEAR. So it's not a calendar year thing, nor is it even a within-12-months thing, or I would have been able to return this bathing suit because today is later than January 8th. This makes no sense to me.

So. I called my friend Rae, who gave us the darling bathing suit in lime green and white stripes with the cutest ruffle you ever have seen, and asked her if she had by any chance kept that darned receipt. Maybe it was the tone in my voice, but she started in on a rant. "Oh I KNOW! It is so annoying that they won't let you exchange anything without your license, and you only get 2 per year! I once had to give them my license for a Match Box car return!" She told me she does still have the receipt, because she was concerned that maybe we would need to exchange the gifts, and then she launched into her experience trying to get a gift receipt from said store which does not accept returns without a receipt. She had already been cashed out, and when she looked at her receipt, she noticed there was no gift portion on it. She asked the checker if she could have a gift receipt and he said it was too late! "Just give them the actual receipt." This is not an acceptable answer, Target.

Now. If you are going to require a receipt for such silly things as EXCHANGES for the EXACT SAME ITEM, and people without their receipt may only have 2 of these exchanges per non-calendar year, PERHAPS you should include a GIFT RECEIPT on EVERY SINGLE DAMN PURCHASE.

I do love you, Target. You have fun things. Your prices are reasonable. You are so close by. Your stores make me happy, and even my oldest daughter loves to go to "the big red ball store". But I think we may need to take a break for awhile, and hope that each other's absence will repair the damage that has been done. Perhaps you should seek therapy. Until then, I will have to drive all the way to the BX, or even to *gah* WalMart. Please make a change for the better.

Sincerely,

The owner of a very cute too-small child's bathing suit

AT&T's proposed filtering policy is bad news

AT&T’s big plan, which CEO Randall Stephenson shared this week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, is to monitor traffic over its online network in what he claims is an effort to stamp out theft of copyrighted material. He failed to mention that such a plan is also unethical, impractical, insane, and given the CEO’s explanation, probably more than a little dishonest.

“Do you guys want AT&T to read your e-mails?” Johnson asked the Thompson audience, when he should’ve been talking about gadgets. “Do you want AT&T to like, open up your instant message conversation and look and see if you maybe said something that they didn’t like or maybe the government didn’t like? Yeah? No. I don’t think anybody wants that.” A chorus of “Noooos!” echoed from the audience before producers shut him down.

Ulta - So much for help

The other day I went into an ULTA store to pick up some hair products. I asked one of the ladies for help in locating a specific hair product and she told me they were all too busy to help me. I couldn't believe that was the response I received. I then got in line at the register to ask for help and was told there was one girl working the floor to answer questions. Since the one girl was busy helping a customer I tried to wait around to get her attention next, but after 10-15 minutes I gave up and went home. So much for customer service.

HP - What a surprise!

I called HP today because as I've been slowly getting my new laptop up and running with my software I've come to learn (as I've been told) that most of my software and hardware is not compatible with Microsoft Vista. I've contacted the various makers of the software/hardware to see if they have drivers and upgraded utilities so that the versions I have would work with Vista, however, no such luck. So this means, I need to replace my software at a cost of hundreds of dollars.

After talking with two different case managers (apparently the one who handled my situation is no longer working there) I was kindly told that no, when I agreed to the replacement laptop that meant I realized that my software wouldn't work with it. But, the told me, as a gesture of HP's goodwill in recognizing the difficulty I've had with getting my laptop replaced they would offer me an extended warranty. Turns out...they gave me a 4 year warranty such that if anything happens, they will fix the laptop. Not bad, not bad at all.

HP Printer Driver Resolution for Vista OS

Since I received my new laptop loaded with Vista I (of course like everyone else) am having difficulty loading the correct drivers (if they even exist) for my printers and other external devices to work with the laptop.

HP's website gave the incorrect information for what driver to load for my specific printer. I tried it two different times. I scoured the web looking for someone who had a solution, but they were quite difficult resolutions requiring a second computer running XP. I finally decided to contact HP's printer group to ask for help and they responded in about 6 hours with a solution that worked. Why the correct information isn't on their website is beyond me.

For those of you trying to install print drivers for HP Photosmart 7350 on Vista, here's the solution:

1. Click Start, Control Panel, Hardware and sounds
2. Click on Printers
3. Click on Add a Printer
4. Click Next button.
5. Click to select the option "Local Printer Attached to this computer"
6. Click Next.
7. On the Port window select Dot4, click Next button.
8. On the Manufacture & Model page,select the HP and select the Deskjet 990c from the List.
Click on the Next
9. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the installation.

After installing the driver, now download and install the HP Photosmart Essentials software from the below HP website: HP Photosmart Essential FREE Download for Windows Vista O.S

HP finally delivers

After 7 weeks of waiting, the HP replacement laptop finally arrived yesterday. A true miracle has occurred. The laptop has lots of upgraded features, plus they threw in an air/car adapter. Even though resolution did finally occur with HP, I still rate them as poor in customer service because it should not have taken 7 weeks to resolve my situation. And it shouldn't have taken over 3 weeks to get to talk to someone in the U.S.

Laptop Update # gazillion

Well, 6 weeks and counting and my laptop is still dead. HP said they were going to order a new laptop to replace it, but that seems to be a point of confusion. Personally, I'd rather just have a new hard drive to put in my laptop because I'm not ready to deal with Windows Vista. The lady who's been assigned my case at HP keeps calling me to ask if I have received the hard drive (which is the confusion because she's the one who said she was going to order a laptop instead). In her voice mails she says if she doesn't hear from me then she will assume I received it. I leave her a voice mail every day telling her I haven't received anything in the mail and ask her to call me so we can discuss the next step and she must not get them because she repeats the same voice mail the next day.

Frustration. 6 weeks is unacceptable for replacing a hard drive under warranty.

But, we might finally be getting somewhere. I was able to get in touch with the person at HP today and she was shocked to find I hadn't received the hard drive. When she checked the status of the order she realized it was still pending delivery. Of course it is, she ordered the exact same hard drive from Comp USA that HP doesn't even have in stock and is on back order.

However, with that said she did finally give up on the hard drive and custom ordered me a new laptop (with a few snazzy upgrades) and hopefully it will arrive by the end of the month. I'm keeping my fingers crossed every which way they can be because I really miss having a computer at home.

Another laptop update...

After numerous phone calls to HP (and being on the phone for over 1.5 hours each time) I have yet to receive my hard drive. Another delivery date has come and gone. It's absolutely ridicoulous the way they have their system set up. I don't understand why no one can explain to me why they can't ship a replacement hard drive for my computer.

I finally was able to get transferred to the complaint department in the U.S. which really helped (they were no longer reading from a script for one). Supposedly they are building me a new laptop and it will be here in 2-3 weeks. Since it has now been a month since my laptop hard drive failed, it's too bad they couldn't have done that first. I'd be up and running again!

HP - will they come through?

Almost 3 weeks ago my HP laptop's hard drive failed. Luckily (or not) it is under warranty. At first HP told me I'd have the replacement hard drive within 3-4 days. Those days came and went. When I called HP, they said it was backordered and I'd have it in 3 business days. Yeah, that didn't happen either. Now it's been 2.5 weeks and I can't get anyone at HP to tell me what is going on. Why don't I have a hard drive by now? When will it come? No one knows. Yesterday I was on the phone for 1.5 hours trying to talk to someone, I was transferred 4 times. They say it takes 24-48 hrs to send a request (and receive an answer) about the status of my "order". Why does it take so long in this day and age?

AT&T: Will it ever end?

I logged into one of my AT&T/Yahoo email accounts this morning and saw my list of email in the portal, but when I clicked on inbox, all of my mail disappeared. Yes, all of it. ARGHHH!!!

I was on the phone with AT&T for over an hour as they had me do stupid stuff that had no bearing on recovering the email. I was passed off from Level 1 to Level II, then told that a yahoo engineer would be in touch with me in 24 to 48 hours and that they are very busy and it could take quite some time.

I was informed that I do not pay for the email service, it's a free courtesy of ordering DSL. This was said in response to asking for a credit since this was my home business email account and they just lost my messages. I'm most worried about the new ones that were in the inbox that I hadn't read or downloaded yet.

This is the very first instance I've experienced where the inbox just disappeared. I find it very interesting that they can't just pull the emails from a server. I would assume they back up their data. We will just have to wait and see what happens with the yahoo people. Ugh.

But, I do have some good news. After months of trying to sort out the $10 DSL mess, the lady in the business office I was transferred to was able to credit my account $19.99 (the last bit required to make up for the difference between $10 and $14.99 DSL over the course of a year. And - she even credited my account $10 for the email snafu that has occurred. I guess it takes losing all of your mail to get some response. I'm thankful for the response, just missing my email, and not quite trusting the service anymore.

Delta - failure to disclose

When the grandfather of my friend's husband died just recently they were quickly figuring out how to fly (without spending their daughter's college tuition money) from Washington D.C. to Austin, TX for the funeral. The first thing they did was check various airlines for bereavement fares.

Southwest - "We treat everyone equally. All last minute tickets are sold at last minute prices."

Delta - "We don't sell bereavement fares. Then, why do you have on your website to call this number to ask about bereavement fares?"

Finally, my friends decided to cash in credit card miles through American Express in order to get their airline tickets. The American Express lady was so nice that she even made the phone calls to various airlines to determine what flights were available for immediate departure to make it to the funeral. It turned out Delta had the best schedule that met their needs. One ironic thing though, delta refused to be tied into a conference call so the American Express lady was the go-between. She would talk to Delta, then repeat the information Delta said to my friends. Once the miles were transferred, my friends called Delta directly to process the transaction and were quite surprised when Delta told them there would be $200 in fees and a credit card was needed. They were not informed by Delta of the high cost in fees prior to transferring the miles over to Delta. And now, that the miles were transferred, there was nothing that could be done about that. Other airlines has fees that were much less than $200 to process late last minute frequent flyer travel.

After a much heated discussion, the ticket agent reduced the fees to $50 and my friends made it to the funeral.

Why? Why do companies insist on sticking it you without fully disclosing increased prices, fees, etc? I'm shocked that so many people are willing to put up with this and not take the time to fight against it.

Update: October 4, 2007

It turns out that Delta charged my friends the complete $200 and when they called to inquire about the full charge the lady refused to reduce it back to $50 even though the notes on the account said that $50 would be charged. My friend's husband promptly wrote a letter to Delta's management about the situation.

More AT&T Woes

Imagine my lack of surprise when I received a Disconnection Notice from AT&T today in the mail for failure to pay my bill last month. Considering that they forced me to give them a credit card to have on file to automatically charge my credit card each month (apparently being a Cingular customer for the past few years doesn't count as being an AT&T customer), and that I had confirmed with someone that my credit card was charged, that wasn't enough and they just had to send me the notice.

So I called the 1-800 number and explained the situation to the lady who was just as shocked as me for having received the notice. Especially since she could see that the bill was paid. She called the "disconnection people" and they said, "oh that was an error." Gee, thanks.

Meanwhile, I asked the lady helping me (who thought all of the issues were absolutely insane) if the credit had been applied to my account for the DSL issue. She looked and it hadn't been. Ugh! Can you feel my frustration? So she said she would put some notes in and transfer me to the right people and they would have to take care of the matter. Yeah, that didn't work. She transferred me to the technical issue resolution people who spent 30 minutes trying to transfer me to the billing department who then promptly hung up on me.

I so did not mean to waste an hour on the phone with AT&T tonight, but luckily some magazines came in the mail so I did some reading.

The saga continues...

Possible AT&T Solution

After two more phone calls to AT&T to try and get resolution I might actually be getting somewhere. I reached a person who was said it was ridiculous that I was having this much trouble getting a problem addressed, that she grabbed her manager as he walked by and took care of it right then and there. We will see on the next bill if it carries through and I certainly hope it does.

I am amazed that the two managers I spoke with were so rude about the situation and I am amazed that they threatened to pull the tapes but in the end would not do it.

I did contact a lawyer, like I said I would. Ummm, he never returned my phone call. I was told on the phone that I'd spend more money fighting it than I would get. I told the person that it was principle. The bait and switch move that AT&T did is NOT RIGHT. And who knows how many people they do this to. It's wrong. Shouldn't we stand up to the big companies? I think so. We should demand better service.

Free Pizza!

(Event occurred July 7)

Now this is an extreme example of good customer service. Back in July, a friend and I were out shopping and were starving. We decided to order the 3 pizzas at $5 a piece from Pizza Hut. We paid for our order...went shopping some more, picked up our pizzas, went home and realized we got all cheese pizzas which was not what we ordered. My friend went back to get the right pizzas and Pizza Hut not only made the right ones, but let us keep the old ones, and refunded all of our money! So my friend gave one of the cheese pizzas to our local homeless guy and the other ones went to her neighbor.

Why I regret getting AT&T DSL Service

It all started on June 19th....

I heard on the news that AT&T is offering $10 DSL to people now! It's such a secret that they aren't advertising it on their website.

But, never fear because I'm here! I've done the hard work of figuring out how to place an order. I even had to "chat" with an online rep because I spent 30 minutes looking myself and couldn't find it.

Start here.
Click on "See if you qualify" which is under the $14.99 basic plan. (It's written in blue and underlined. It's above the words, "learn more". Answer the following 2 questions and then enter your phone number for an availability check. If you don't have a phone number, you'll have to order phone service. Note: Within 6 months AT&T will offer DSL without requiring you to have phone service. But, heck, their cheapest phone service (25 calls per month) is only $7.00. The two together is still tons cheaper than my cable internet.

Finally on August 14th...(yes, it took that long to make up my mind to switch)

I was so excited to get my phone connected yesterday and the DSL set up today! Now, I just have to remember how to set up the wireless to work with the new DSL. That's a project for another day.

But, I have to say, I'm quite disappointed in my phone service. There is so much static on the line I can't have a conversation with anyone. What a bummer.

So, of course I have no idea how to troubleshoot a phone issue. I started with the phone a friend let me borrow until I go buy my own phone. Picture this, it's a Minnie Mouse phone. Well, it's been 7 years since I've had my own land line!

I try a different DSL filter, a different jack, a different phone (another from my friend) and the noise is there every time. Then I go outsideto try the phone at the box junction to the house. I unplugged the line to the house, plugged it into the phone, and what do you know - it still has static. So the problem is outside of the house (thank goodness).

It took AT&T two trips to out here to resolve the problem. The first time they basically "dialed" down the static. The second time they had to lay a new phone line (it was buried about 5 days later) because the original line was frayed.

August 29th....

I'm not impressed. I'm extremely frustrated!

I called AT&T today 3 times and was disconnected the first 2 times and the third time I could not get through to a human being. I find this customer service experience to be unacceptable and reflect poorly on the AT&T brand name.

Earlier in August I decided to get rid of my cable internet (that I had since 2002) and go with AT&T and DSL. I ordered a phone line and DSL online ($10 a month for the DSL) and had trouble submitting the order. The website told me it was having technical difficulties and to call AT&T. I called AT&T and somebody completed the order fo me. They said they needed a credit card from me and that's why the online order didn't go through. I guess that's because I haven't been an AT&T customer since 2001 when I last had a landline. I made sure that the guy submitting the order verified that the phone was $15 a month and the DSL was $10 a month as that was the reason I was switching. I had heard on the news that AT&T wasn't advertising this $10/month special, but that it was there, just hidden in the background.

Today I received my first bill. I was charged $14.99. I called AT&T and was transferred 3 times as I had to explain the problem each and every time and everyone said they couldn't help me, they didn't have access to the online pricing. Then, the last time I was transferred they just hung up on me (accidentally I would assume). That call took 45 minutes. The next time I called, I explained the situation yet again and he said he couldn't help me and that no manager was available to help me. So he transferred me to a phone number and gave me the number. The number said it was NO LONGER IN SERVICE! And then it hung up on me. WHAT? You must be kidding. This call took 20 minutes. I called back again and after being on hold for 15 minutes I gave up. My shoulder hurt from holding the phone and there isn't a speaker phone on the phone I'm borrowing.

Next, I tried getting in touch with AT&T via their online email method. I had barely gotten 1/5 of the story down and it said I was out of characters. WHAT? How can I explain the problem with just 250 characters? You must be kidding.

So, I don't know how to resolve my problem. AT&T doesn't seem to know how to help me and can't transfer me to the right person. What do I do?

September 5th....

The nightmare continues. Why did I switch? Is saving money really worth it? And why do big companies think they can get away with crappy service? I just don't understand it.

So yesterday I call AT&T again and after another hour of being transferred around the country....and numerous people I finally had someone help me who was able to credit the account the difference for a year of $10 vs $14.99 DSL. Now, I don't know which is my favorite of the people I spoke with - it could be the lady in retention who couldn't help me because she only had access to California and Nevada accounts and then when she transferred me to the Texas retention people she sent me to someone who was definitely not able to help me. So he transferred me back to billing (which is where I start every 1 hour session with AT&T, and finally I got the nice lady who helped me.

But...today a manager called me (who returned my phone call from last Thursday). Umm, that was the longest 48 hours ever! And she was adamant that they could not honor the $10 DSL price because when the AT&T website tells you to call them when trying to place an order online it means you did not qualify for the online promotion. I explained to her that it was not clear at all and had I known that I would not have placed the order. Then she tried to tell me that the $10 DSL was for low-income people only. Then, she tried to tell me that you had to meet certain credit ratings to get the $10 DSL. And since I was told to call AT&T and I had to give AT&T a credit card in order to get an account that means I didn't meet the credit rating to get the $10 DSL. What? Are you kidding me? None of that is clear. First of all, the website said it ran into trouble and told me to call AT&T to finish my order. At no time did it specify I needed to give them a credit card, at no time did it tell me I couldn't get the $10 DSL. Then, when I called I explained to the guy what I wanted to order, he submitted it (after getting my credit card), and before he did that I made sure he ordered the right things. $10 DSL. Only reason why I was switching.

The manager was not helpful at all. Took the credit (from yesterday) away. Finally she said she would research the matter and pull the tapes from the conversation. Yes, please do I told her. I bet she thought I was lying and I would back off if she said that. Heck, I wish I had thought of it first. So - they will pull the tapes. They will hear me order the $10 DSL. They will confirm that he said nothing about $14.99 DSL.

But - then what? She already made it quite clear she couldn't honor the $10 DSL because it's an ONLINE promotion and they have no access and no capability to give it. She did offer to give me one month free. I told her no. After investing 5 hours on the phone chasing this issue down I'm not giving up that easily. No company should be able to get away with such poor customer service. It's horrible. The fact that it takes 20-30 minutes to reach a person is bad enough, the fact that you get transferred 3 times on average in one call just sucks, the fact that it takes a week to get a resolution is unacceptable, the fact a manager calls you a week later is pathetic, the fact that manager takes away your credit is unforgivable!

What is happening to customer service? Why do people put up with this crap?

September 7^th….

The manager at AT&T called me back late this afternoon and informed me she did her research and my original submittal online did not go through therefore I was not eligible for the $10 DSL. I asked her if she had pulled the tapes like she said she was going to do and she said she didn’t say that. Ok, so either I make stuff up, I don’t understand what they are saying, or they lie. She told me that the call placed for the order was not to her department/organization and those tapes could be in another state and she can’t pull them. I asked her who could pull them and she said only the manager of the original representative I spoke with. I asked for her manager to speak with me (of course it won’t be until Monday or Tuesday) now that it is late on a Friday.

So what is this? This is a bait and switch. You go online to order something, the website says it’s having technical difficulties, you call the number it tells you to call, the representative completes the order without telling you the prices are going up and not what you are verbalizing to him that you ordered, and then they charge you the higher price and refuse to honor the original price or credit the amount.

So, tonight I received a referral to a lawyer who specializes in Consumer Law and I’m going to do something about this situation. It’s wrong what AT&T is doing.

AT&T's Mistakes

Mistake #1: The manager says that when you receive the technical error page that it means you didn’t qualify for the special. How am I supposed to know that? It didn’t say that to me. It just said it ran into difficulties processing the order. It made it look like an error on AT&T’s side.

Mistake #2: The representative who finished my order did not tell me that I could not receive the $10 DSL pricing. In fact, I recall him reiterating it to me.

Mistake #3: It takes a week (3 phone calls each lasting 1 to 1.5 hours) to get to a person who can help me. No problem should take that long to find a representative to assist you. Most people would have given up after the first phone call.

Mistake #4: AT&T’s phone representatives don’t know how to transfer you to the right department. I was disconnected twice and transferred to a blatantly wrong department once. One disconnection occurred when the transferred me to a number that was no longer in service and the wrong department was when I was sent to ‘retention’ and the person could only access accounts in Nevada and California. Ummm, I don’t live in either of those states.

Mistake #5: Saying you are going to pull the tapes and don’t. Was it supposed to be a threat?

No, really, I do want to cancel my cable service!

(Event occurred in August 07)

I have Earthlink Cable Internet and have had it since 2002. I decided tonight to cancel it because I keep having billing issues with the cable provider. It used to be Time Warner Cable (TWC), but this past spring Comcast took over the market. Ever since I have moved, month after month, the billing has been screwed up. I call everytime and it takes on average 30-45 minutes to clear up. Once again this month by bill was far more than it should have been. I call comcast, they say call Earthlink. So I did, and they said they would fix it. I called Comcast back today (to actually disconnect my service) and first I asked them about my bill and f they fixed it. They didn't. Oh, they said. We are Comcast we don't have agreements in place with Earthlink to provide service, fix billing, or disconnect service. I told them that wasn't my problem. I have been with Earthlink through TWC for over 5 years. That was for them to figure out how to deal with it. So he eventually figured out how to cancel the account. But he didn't ask me when I wanted it to take affect. So we will see if he actually processed it for August 16th. If he didn't, I'll be without internet for a week. And yes, I was transferred and eventually got the billing straightened out.

So, that's 1/2 the story. When I called Earthlink (before calling Comcast) to cancel the service, they don't communicate with the cable company and they told me I had to call them to cancel the actual cable service while Earthlink is just canceling my email service. Ugh. Too much! Make it stop!