Rants

MLB.com – For the heck of it this morning I tried the 1-800 number for customer service. Instead of the busy signal I have gotten the last dozen times or so, it rang. They must have added more incoming lines, but they didn’t add anyone to answer the phone. Because I have a speaker phone at work I decided to just let it ride and see how it would take to get a human. I turned off my music and listened to their classical on hold stuff. Ten minutes into waiting my wife showed up for our morning break. I left the phone alone and we went for our two laps of the parking lot. Fifteen minutes later when I returned the classical music was still playing. I went about my usual business, not worrying about waiting by the phone. Fifty-five minutes into the wait the music inexplicably changed from classical to classic rock. Finally, at one hour and fifteen minutes, Shay asked how she could help me. She did confirm that on the 6th my request for cancellation was honored. I was then informed that it takes 7-10 working days to get the refund credited back to my card and if I don’t see it by, say, the 20th I should call back.

Allstate – When last we left it, I was waiting for Allstate to call me and tell me everything was worked out, so I could go get the car fixed. Flush with my success with MLB.com I decided to call the 1-800 claims center and see what was up. What do you know, it was all settled and I could pick my body shop. Just when were they going to call me?

Everyday since our little fender bender on March 31, I have been on the phone with Allstate Insurance who covers the woman who smacked my trunk lid. Sometimes twice a day and a couple a times more than twice. But not today.

If they were hoping that I might develop amnesia, forgetting about my claim, from beating my head against the obstacles they have thrown at me, they were almost right.

At first they refused to do anything without getting the accident report from their agent. South Carolina law says that you have 15 days to turn in the report to your insurance company, so you can guess when the person at fault will be turning it in. After 4 days I finally got them to agree to accept my copy if it was faxed from my agent to theirs and then their agent would fax it to them. When they got it last Wednesday they said that because they hadn’t actually talked to the driver yet, a manager had to OK it to assign liability and that might take up to 3 days!

In this time I have called the 1-800 number for Allstate Claims about 8 times and had spoken to 8 different people with varying hoops to jump through or bits of advice, including one kindly southern old lady who suggested that I make the claim against my insurance and let the 2 companies fight it out. Right!?! I had also spoken to the local agent who insured the vehicle several times and they have been as nice as they can be, but keep running into the same walls as me. They have tried to contact the insured on several occasion and keep getting a busy signal or no answer. The Allstate Claims office had gotten the same non-responsiveness. They had even sent a letter to them, but nothing yet.

Thursday, 6 days after the event, the driver turns in the accident report. But claiming time constraints cannot talk to the claims office. Finally on Friday the local agent gets the driver on the phone and connects them to the claims office. When I contact the claims office it turns out that talking to the driver was not entirely enough. She is not specifically mentioned on the insurance, so now the insured (mom or dad) has to be contacted to be sure she had permission to drive the car. Jeez, if not, that is a whole ‘nother department and the 10th different person I have spoken to at 1-800 claims office says that might take weeks.

Over the weekend we make no progress contacting the insured and even take a step back when the “manager” determines that he needs a real accident report, not just the basic exchange of information form that got filled out at the time of the incident. I kindly explain to the customer service rep, which I know will do no good, that is all they are going to get because both vehicles were drivable and no one was injured.

Yesterday, Monday, day 10, we have a breakthrough, my pestering the local agent gets them to try the insured again, after all, how much manpower is Allstate going to commit to the job of contacting them anyway? The local folks get the insured hooked up with the 1-800 claims people. When she hangs up with them she calls me and says it looks good I should be hearing from the claims people later that day or tomorrow (which is today.)

So I don’t try and call them today for fear of tying up my phone and Allstate not being able to get through to me. So far, silence from the Good Hands people. I guess I’ll call tomorrow and see what the Excuse Du Jour is.

After rereading the blurb from the email:

MLB.com will honor any refund request for a seasonal subscription made within 10 days of the purchase for the current season or at any time before the subsequent season begins.

I haven’t missed my opportunity to get a refund, now is the time. My credit card was charged on Monday, so I have until the 13th to request my money back.

They’ve got it covered though, take the phone off the hook. I tried calling them 4 separate times today and all I got was a busy signal. I’m sure the phone is not off the hook, but their lines are overloaded by folks like me trying to get their money back.

Now I’m not so sure I want it back. While listening to tonight’s broadcast it was fine up until the 6th inning or so, then it started to break up. At the half inning I shut down the player, cleared IE’s cache, closed and restarted the browser, restarted the player and it has been fine ever since. Once is just anecdotal evidence, more experimentation is required.

I pretty much ignore pre-season baseball, because well, it doesn’t count. Friday night I received an email from MLB.com reminding me that my Gameday Audio subscription was going to be automatically renewed. After last year’s experience I thought it might be a good idea to tun into the last preseason Red Sox game playing right then. Guess what? That’s right, the same issue I had with the WEEI broadcasts last year, annoying sound gaps, were present again. So I turned it off in disgust and fired off a reply to that email telling them that I wished to cancel my subscription.

MLB.com will honor any refund request for a seasonal subscription made within 10 days of the purchase for the current season or at any time before the subsequent season begins.

By Saturday afternoon I hadn’t received a reply to the email and time was running out. I dialed the 1-800 number in the email. After drilling down through the voice mail prompts to get where I needed to be, I was informed that I should call back during their normal working hours, Monday through Friday 9 AM to 8 PM and Saturday from 12 noon to 6 PM, then automatically disconnected. Wait a minute it is 4 PM eastern time, unless their phone support is in Hawaii, I was calling in their “normal working hours.” Very convenient, Sunday is the start of the season, so they have pretty much guaranteed that I won’t be able to get a refund.

While I read on one end of the couch, Donna was on the other watching TV. Mostly the reruns of yesterday’s World Ice Skating Championships, but during commercials and lapses in excitement she would surf the channels. At one point she nudged me to remove my headphones. CNN was doing an interview with someone involved with a new IMAX movie called Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France. Looks interesting, but it is not playing at any IMAX theater within 600 miles of us. Sigh.

After the movie segment we hopped to the other CNN where they were into something about the increasing number of major hurricanes. Seems it might be because since the 70’s the surface temperature of the oceans has risen 1 degree Celsius. Last winter was the warmest on record. Glaciers melting! Global Warming! The reporter pinned down one scientist to say that it is because of human actions that this happening. We are ruining the very environment we need to survive.

From there she jumped to Bravo where Real Housewives of Orange County was on. After watching a couple of minutes of this very weird show I came to the conclusion that if this is what life is all about, causing our own extinction via global warming can’t come soon enough.