this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
22 points (100.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35719 readers
1400 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I've had my ISP account for nearly 3 years. Today, I got some funny new fees on my Internet bill. One was a "high speed network recovery fee" and the other was an "administrative fee" with my state in the name. I'm curious what more I could do to fight these stupid fees. Here's what I've done so far:

  • Used their live chat feature. I tried to argue the fees were illegal, but they insisted they were and immediately closed the chat. Whoops

  • Called them. They denied my request to remove the fees, even when I threatened to close my account (I'm moving soon, so I'm gonna have to close my account anyway LOL). They kept trying to distract me by questioning me about other ways to reduce my rate, like reducing my speed. Sounded like bullshit, so I hung up.

  • Did some research and found their corporate office in my city. I handwrote a letter about my dissatisfaction and my threat to close my account in August (which just so happens to be when I'm moving anyway). Sent it out in the mail this morning.

So, what did I do wrong? What can I do next? I know I'm going to have to close my account anyway, but I need to be prepared for when this happens with my new account. Spectrum will be the only provider in my area, so I will have a lot less bargaining power. That, and, it's Spectrum... Knowing how to deal with this sort of thing will be very useful for the future.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You did what is right. Now if you want to do what is wrong, you can withhold the payment of what you think is wrong to make a signal. Disclaimer. This is a legal grey zone and not advisable generally, but with your account needing to be closed it's a fun way to waste time. It's something I do professionally but I would not do it in private.

If your bill is $100 and the fee is $10 then you pay $90.

They'll send you reminders. Eventually they'll threaten with debt collection. Check your laws. If you have complaints and objecting the invoiced amount (you do) it will be illegal for them to pursue the amount until the dispute is resolved. It won't be. With a small amount like this they'll likely just keep sending reminders until their accountant steps in and tells them to write off old debt.

Keep in mind that you only withheld $10. They'll claim to be owed hundreds of reminder fees and interest. None of that is legal to collect by debt collection. Again check your local laws. You can always pay the $10 and say that their costs of collection is their fucking problem.

In the end, to them, it's not worth the cost of debt collection. It's not worth their effort to pursue it. It will disappear eventually.

Anyway. I do not recommend this, but I still do it every day as part of my job. We take shit from no one. They oblige as long as I keep cool, and keep sending them "I already disputed this/what are you even talking about/could you please specify the amount/please provide documentation/I need a full overview" mails.

I've been on the opposite side too in utility customer service and we'd write off small amounts like this daily.

It's usually not worth the stress privately to keep and open disputed balance, but it's possible.

Eventually if enough people complain about the fee, they'll have it fuck off.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is very insightful, thank you!