Sorry, Wrong Number

The criminal justice system in this country has it all wrong.  If you want to really punish someone, make them deal with a customer service rep. 

Oh, they seem to be helpful when you call (once you actually get a real, live person on the other end, you know, an hour and a half later), but it is really a diabolical plan to slowly drive people insane.

I imagine them carving notches in their headsets after "helping" some poor schlub.  "Ha! Got another one Frank.  That's 832 this week alone, and it's only Tuesday.  I am so going to beat your record of 2000!"

I, unfortunately, am just another notch.  And I didn't even know it this time for over a year.

It started out simply enough.  We were moving, so I filled out forms, checked boxes, notified friends, relatives, people I don't even like, but am somehow on their Christmas card list... I cancelled the power, gas, cable and phone.  I did it all.

The worst to deal with?  Gas and phone.  Why?  Because they actually had to come out to both the old  house and the new house.  Therefore, I had to be there between the hours of....Ah yes, I remember it well.

So I was shocked a few months ago when I got a letter from Verizon saying that I hadn't paid my phone bill in over a year, and they were going to discontinue service.  Concerned, I called them to find out what they were talking about since somebody named Verizon had been cashing my checks for the last twelve months.

"Oh no," said the guy who answered the phone after sixty-two hours of listening to a  pre-recorded message telling me how important my call was and that I would be helped shortly.  "Not your phone at your current address, your phone at your old address.

What?!!?  Wait.  So many issues with what you just said, I'm going to have to put you on hold while I try to keep my head from exploding.

After I counted to ten in three languages, meditated to center my chakras and gobbled handfuls of Advil, I felt a bit better prepared to deal with yet another customer service rep.  In retrospect, I probably just should have saved myself the aggravation and taken up skydiving...without a parachute.

Okay, so you are aware that we've moved, right?

Yes.

And you understand that moving means leaving one place and going to live in another, right?

Uh.  I guess.

And we switched all of our billing for our phone, cell phones, etc. to the new address, right?

Yeees.

So how is it possible that we are being billed for our old number?  And, by the way, since when do you let people go a full year without paying their bill?  And where were you sending those supposed bills for the last year since you clearly have our new address and the post office forwards mail from the old address for a full year?  Perhaps they were sent by carrierr pigeon and the birds kept getting eaten by the neighborhood cats before they could slip the bills into the mailbox?  Or maybe you sent them to our other old address where we lived fifteen years ago?

Um.  So you're saying you cancelled service at that address?

No, we're just really nice people and decided to pay the new owner's phone bill for a year.  We're also paying their gas, electric, cable and water bills too.  OF COURSE WE CANCELLED SERVICE!!!

Um.  Do you have an invoice number for that?

And that is the last thing I remember before seeing a light at the end of a tunnel and hearing a distant voice shouting, "Clear!"