The Laughing Wolf

An Open Letter To MCI

I was a customer for several years, having gotten sucked in by a frequent flyer tie in. I stayed on for a good while, despite some issues that came up – such as the convenient issue with overseas dialing. Great for you, expensive for me, or it was until a customer service rep did the right thing with a couple of the calls.

I stayed on with you because you did not seem too bad and it was easy to do. Even when your corporation collapsed into a mire, I stayed on. Must have been those frequent flyer miles. They must have been real good.

Yet, the time came when I had enough. Not of poor service, because when I called customer service, I usually found reasonably helpful people and got things fixed. Not because of poor service in terms of not being able to make calls. No, the problem was much more insidious than that.

You see, I got tired of the telemarketers. The call that came late the evening, just at the edge of acceptable calling hours, was almost guaranteed to be you. The calls that came in droves while I was dealing with family medical issues and problems. The calls that would not stop.

“We’re sorry. That information wasn’t on our list” got to be real old, real fast. As was the pathetic excuse given that there were many different divisions, and many different lists, and that you were too uncoordinated, inefficient, and uncaring to have a universal do not call list. Heck, you even took a page from the sex offender manual and blamed the victim, or at least a couple of your callers did. “You agreed to this.” “Well, you didn’t rule it out, so you accepted these calls.”

I asked. I demanded. I pleaded. Take. Me. Off. No joy, the calls continued. They continued up until the day I said I was leaving. That I had had enough of the harassment, annoyance, and wasting of my time. That I was going to leave you. Funny how it all stopped right then, when you could not shut if off before, isn’t it?

I bet you thought I was bluffing that day, when I said I was leaving. You hear it a lot, I am sure. You probably thought that it was a bluff because I did not leave the next day. Well, you were wrong. I was leaving, I just took the time to do some research. I talked to friends, checked around, looked at ratings and evaluations, and I took my time.

Finally, the day came and I did leave. I had made you a promise, though I doubt you understood it. A threat I am sure you thought it, and a baseless one at that. After all, I didn’t leave the next day. Nope, indeed I did not. But I have left today.

Well, to be honest it was last week and I took great delight in removing the anti-slam protocols with the local phone provider. It was an even greater pleasure to tell them to switch me to my new provider, you know, the one who has blown you out of the water on almost every independent evaluation. Between them and a certain 10-10 number, I am beating the heck out of your rates. No more hassles, no more having to sign up for specialized overseas calling options, and – best of all – no more damned, triple-damned spam interrupting my meals, my home life, and intruding into delicate situations.

Since I did keep my promise, you may decide to start spamming me again. Think again. I signed up at that nice federal registry, and I will take great delight in turning you in to them with time, date, and any information I can get. To put icing on the cake, I am hereby notifying you that if you call me you will be in use of my professional time and that you will be billed for use of said time. I have a special rate for telemarketers of $250.00 per hour, with a three hour minimum. In other words, you will get a bill for $750.00, since any such call by you is acceptance of these publicly posted and e-mailed terms. Even if I can’t get you to pay, I can tie you up and cost you a lot more money than that. So, like I said, think again.

So, I now leave you for what appears to be better service and greener pastures. I hope that you, Danny, and all your practices enjoy each other. Especially since I know for a fact that I am not the only one to leave you for this reason. Enjoy.

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