Verizon is Evil!!!!

We have fiber optics to our house and have had (until last night) Verizon cable television and telephone service. David (hubby) has a separate commercial business account for our internet so he can run his server and other sorts of high powered networking stuff. The internet costs us 99.00 per month. The TV and telephone were bundled together and cost (or at least that is what I thought) about the same amount. This was fine although we had gotten into the bad habit of watching TV too much. As we do when money gets a little tight around here we took an examine of our bank statement (yes were are poor money managers and do not pay close enough attention on a regular basis). Well the television and phone account tripled this fall for no apparent reason. When I called to find out what was going on I was told that all bundled accounts expire every year and it is up to the customer to pay attention and renegotiate their contract so that they can rebundle the service. I had according to the Verizon people been switched, without consulting me, into an ala carte plan. As my
Aussie friends say...FARK that!!! You know darn good and well that the system is set up for the many people like me who are too busy making the money to pay attention and remember every year to renegotiate!!!

I canceled my service immediately and told them they were dishonest and I would no longer do business with them. We cut the phone back to minimum service (there is no other land line game in town but also not regulated-thank you Ronald Reagan). When David got home from work I told him what I had done and he was also appalled by their business practices. He said the commercial internet had not changed since we got it (perhaps they take better care of their business customers than they do their residential??). David also had some ideas as to how we could cut out our land line. I suggested going cell only but instead he has found Vonage and we are dumping Verizon for their internet based system. We are not sure if we will be able to access a new internet provider (the only other company is comcast who is equally evil and will not do static IP addresses).

I hate companies (and we have run across a few lately). Who take advantage of people with hidden fees and expiration dates. We recently paid off a couple of no interest (yeah right!!!) loans that we took out as we were working on the house.
One was for carpeting the company said no interest but did not say you had to pay 39 dollars a month to keep the 0% rate and that it would go to 39% interest if you did not. They also did not say that you would never be able to get anyone on a phone. The other was also a 0% interest loan that supposedly was no pay and went to 25% interest if it was not paid off in a year. What these people did not tell you was that you would also be charged a pay off fee of 50.00 per month. Well guess what that amount worked out to?? about the same as the 25% interest!! Jerks. So we paid both of these loans off and are wiser consumers.

I never was much of a loan user until this money pit of home fix it began. I now realize that I was better off avoiding it. David and I after these eye opening experiences have learned that if we want a loan there is no free ride. If we get a loan it will be through our credit union and nowhere else.

Hope you all have a debt free Christmas :) and watch your bank statements. Apparently there are no honest non-loophole businesses out there anymore.