So the previous owners of my house, being the generous, thoughtful people that they are, had their father’s cable bill forwarded to their address, for purposes that I assume involved paying the bill for him. This cable bill has been arriving monthly at my house for the past year and a half since the previous owner’s departure. Every month I write “Return to Sender, Not at this Address” on the outside of the envelope, but the cable company has yet to catch on to the trend.
This month I received an envelope with large, red letters on the outside that read “WARNING: YOUR CABLE BILL IS PAST DUE. PLEASE RESPOND IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID AN INTERRUPTION IN YOUR SERVICE.” Although my head told me that I should respond to this envelope in the same manner that I’d responded to all the others, my heart told me it was wrong to deprive an elderly man of his high-definition premium cable package, so I decided to contact the cable company by phone and alert them that the bill would not be paid until they sent it to the correct address.
Finding a phone number to dispute the receipt of cable bills was a difficult task. I spoke to 7 automated receptionists before I was finally given a long-distance number for a call center in Phoenix. It was before 9 p.m. and I hated to waste the cell phone minutes, but I decided to take one for the team and placed the call.
After spending thirty-five minute on hold, I was connected with a customer service representative who very patiently listened to my recitation of the facts as I tried to explain that I was receiving a bill for cable service that was being provided at someone else’s address. At the end of my narrative, she informed me that while she regretted the situation, she couldn’t change the billing address on the account unless an authorized account holder contacted the company. I tried to explain that an authorized account holder would not be contacting the company because they were obviously unaware of the problem, but it was futile. She advised me to keep writing “Return to Sender” on the outside of the envelopes. Maybe I will just start writing the URL for this blog post on the outside of the envelopes.