I do nothing and......

[Leon]

I had a guy call me yesterday saying he was with AT&T. He seemed like a very high pressure sales guy (unlike a real AT&T person). He said he would be able to get me a discount on my per minute cost for long distance. I told him I get unlimited long distance for free. He told me he could get me discounts on a per minute basis. I said "what the heck, are you really with AT&T?". He said some kind of crap like he was calling on their behalf....He could tell I knew the jig was up and he hung up. That was a weird one too. I am quite sure he was trying to slam me into another long distance service. What an idiot he was!! I laughed when he hung up.

[barrysloate]

Leon- what really galls me is that Judy and I have made numerous attempts to get onto no call lists, and have done whatever we have been instructed to do to get them to stop. And yet they still keep coming, usually several times a week. And I never even let these guys go into their spiels. Once I say "hello" and there is like a two second gap before I hear a response, I know right away it's bad news. I usually hang up within a few seconds. I don't even want to listen to what these creeps have to say. I just hate these calls.

[Tsaiko]

I think the cable rates must have gone up across the board. About four months ago I had renegotiated my overall plan, tv w/HBO/cable/phone, to about $112, then this month it's $129. I think I did get a rate increase notice, but ignored it.
It's amazing how they nickel and dime you, $5 for phone modem $5 for the cable modem and $5 to keep your number unlisted. I use Charter, who has the best cable speeds and reliability in my area, but the phone absolutely sucks.

As for the do not call list, I'm on it, but I still continue to get calls. Mostly from construction/remodeling companies asking if I need any work done. After repeatedly asking them to not call, they still did. Finally, I told them that I was thinking about doing some remodeling and asked them if they could come out and give me an estimate. They asked about what type of remodeling I was thinking about doing and I told them I really needed to put a new roof on my barn. When they asked me to verify my address, I gave them a Montana address. They said, "you're not at the California address xyz" and I said, no we just kept our CA phone number when we moved.

I'm not sure that was a permanent fix, but I haven't heard from them in over a month, which is unusual.

Here's another price anomaly I ran into just yesterday, which might provide a chuckle. I need surgery and I have no health insurance, so I'm negotiating with my doctor, who ended up giving me a real good deal. I wanted to go over the complete list of costs so I knew exactly what was what and one item was $100 for crutches. I told them I had a set of crutches and they said, "good, then you can deduct $40 from the bill." I didn't even ask.....

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by Tsaiko

one item was $100 for crutches. I told them I had a set of crutches and they said, "good, then you can deduct $40 from the bill." I didn't even ask.....

That's really f***ed up. And people wonder why the medical industry in this country is such a mess.

Anyways, does anyone else get the random calls, that when you answer it says "please hold for the next available representative", with absolutely no reference to what the call is about or what company it's from? I usually, just hang up, but I'm pretty sure automated calls like that are illegal now. I remember reading something a while back where a guy was having a heart attack, and for some reason the people couldn't get the call to disconnect due to a glitch in the automated system. Anyways, I believe the guy died, and as a result a law was made to keep this from happening again.

[barrysloate]

Tsaiko- that's really funny. They assessed you the "$60 for not using the crutches" charge. Seems normal to me.

[Leon]

Nice story Tsaiko. One of my best friends is self employed so has a very high (maybe 5k-10k) deductible on his health insurance. He needed a knee surgery and went to see the doctor. Doctor told him it would be about 10k. (This is in the last year btw.) My friend asked him, ok how much if I just pay with cash. The doctor said $2500. This is not an uncommon scene. Ask around and you will see this kind of situation. I propose we scrap medical insurance and our costs might go down 50 percent or more. Yes, I know the insurance lobbyists would never let that happen but it's a nice thought.

[barrysloate]

Leon- how I wish we could all afford to not have medical insurance. I guess the best remedy is to stay healthy.

[Tsaiko]

Originally Posted by Leon

Nice story Tsaiko. One of my best friends is self employed so has a very high (maybe 5k-10k) deductible on his health insurance. He needed a knee surgery and went to see the doctor. Doctor told him it would be about 10k. (This is in the last year btw.) My friend asked him, ok how much if I just pay with cash. The doctor said $2500. This is not an uncommon scene. Ask around and you will see this kind of situation. I propose we scrap medical insurance and our costs might go down 50 percent or more. Yes, I know the insurance lobbyists would never let that happen but it's a nice thought.

That's basically the same story as mine. I shopped around a lot for an MRI deal and ended up paying $770 for the MRI, including die pump and radiology read. At the same imaging center, I compared notes with another patient who had the exact same procedure with insurance. His bill indicated a total cost of $1500 with a 30% co-pay. I admit that the shopping process can be time consuming, but at my age I'd be spending about 8k a year with a 5k deductible, so that's 13k before insurance will pay anything. Nuts!!
I must get some sort of catastrophic policy, so I won't be wiped out if I have a major crisis, but for everything else, so far at least, I'm way, way ahead financially.
Personally I think it's wrong to make a profit from people being sick, but that's capitalism.

[teetwoohsix]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Leon- what really galls me is that Judy and I have made numerous attempts to get onto no call lists, and have done whatever we have been instructed to do to get them to stop. And yet they still keep coming, usually several times a week. And I never even let these guys go into their spiels. Once I say "hello" and there is like a two second gap before I hear a response, I know right away it's bad news. I usually hang up within a few seconds. I don't even want to listen to what these creeps have to say. I just hate these calls.

Barry- the reason you hear a two second gap is because some telemarketing companies (like collection agencies) use a dialer system-it dials about 100 #'s at a time, and the first one that picks up is what it puts up on the callers computer screen.......so while it is putting the information up on the screen, it takes a couple of seconds...........so the person who's calling has no idea who they are calling until the name & info pops up on the screen.

Also, I believe these companies sell information back and forth to each other- I get emails from places trying to sell things to me, and I suspect they get the information (maybe bought it?) from places I've "unsubscribed" from......real seedy stuff.

Sincerely, Clayton

[pgellis]

Leon's original post made me look at my telephone bill a little closer when it arrived in the mail yesterday.

I am charged $31.48 this past month for "Taxes, Fees & Other Charges"

Such things as:

Federal Excise Tax
VES MA State Tax
Mass. State & Local Tax
911/Disability Access Fee Charge
Verizon Property Tax Recovery Charge
VES Universal Service Fund Surcharge
Federal Universal Service Fee
Federal Subscriber Line


What an absolute joke!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by pgellis

Leon's original post made me look at my telephone bill a little closer when it arrived in the mail yesterday.

I am charged $31.48 this past month for "Taxes, Fees & Other Charges"

Such things as:

Federal Excise Tax
VES MA State Tax
Mass. State & Local Tax
911/Disability Access Fee Charge
Verizon Property Tax Recovery Charge
VES Universal Service Fund Surcharge
Federal Universal Service Fee
Federal Subscriber Line


What an absolute joke!

I especially like the "Verizon Property Tax Recovery Charge". If I am not mistaking, and I could be, they are being taxed so are charging you for it? That almost sounds illegal but what do I know? I saw the same thing on my bill.....they all do it.

[teetwoohsix]

No problem Barry- one thing I did was buy a phone system that has a "call blocking feature".......so if the are dumb enough to call with their phone # displayed on the caller ID, I just block them. Some of them are slick though, they will call with an "unavailable" # or a "private" #. I think you can block those too, but my wife has relatives that call from blocked #'s, so she doesn't want me to block those

Clayton

[BBSD]

It was so funny when reading this post yesterday we get an a call from a TV Survey Co.

[barrysloate]

Clayton- I would definitely block the relatives.