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(Posted 4-7-99) MCI, I'm sure that most of you throughout the world have heard of this corporation. Just another one of those big corporate money machines that in my opinion doesn't give two hoots about the customer anymore. Here's my story about their so called "customer service." I was given two ten-minute MCI pre paid phone cards in early 1999. They were a gift and each were still wrapped in a clear plastic sleeve. The front of the cards were colorful with not too much text. The back side you couldn't see, as there was a slip of paper inside (the plastic sleeve) with a lot of writing on it (covering the card). From what could be read on the slip of paper, no expiration date was visible. One evening in early April I took the card out of the plastic sealed sleeve and dialed the 1-800 number on the back of the card. Following this, I entered the PIN. To my surprise the computerized recording informed me that the card had expired. I then called their customer service, where Diane gave me another phone number to call, as she couldn't locate any information on the card. So I dialed 1-800-396-2454 and eventually was put in touch with a supervisor called Ron. After explaining everything to him, all he could say in a rather cold hearted fashion was, "the card has expired, there's nothing that we can do and there is NO phone number that I can give you within the MCI corporation where anyone will be able to help you with this matter." He concluded his speech by saying that the person who gave me the card should have told me that the card expired. Wow, how kind and considerate the customer service is at MCI, I thought? (Yes, I'm being very sarcastic here!) Hello, smell the coffee, how could the person that bought the card for me tell me that the card would expire if you can't see anything that states anything of the sort to begin with? The following day I made some phone calls and got a number that related to MCI's phone card problems. I called 1-800-444-1616 and after entering any number and waiting, (a number had to be entered in order to continue) a recording finally came on the line. It stated the following; "In an ongoing effort to provide you with the best possible service your call may be taped for coaching and development of our associates." Oh how pleasant? Well, I'm sorry I don't want to be fucking wiretapped when I'm on the phone trying to resolve a problem. It's impersonal, rude and it should be an option whether one desires to be taped or not, shouldn't it? Isn't that a customer's right and for that matter anyone's right? This IS an invasion to your rights of privacy? So when customer service agent Beverly came on the line and I simply asked, "firstly can I be assured that I'm not being wiretapped, taped or monitored and if you can't, then can someone please call me back on a clear line," she responded with, "sorry sir, there is no way of telling, as I can't turn it off. And if you want someone to call you back this may take up to 24 hours." What a pile of shit? Is this what MCI refers to when it says, "In an ongoing effort to provide you with the BEST POSSIBLE SERVICE?" So here's MCI's options. You either get taped against your own will and there's nothing you can do about it, or if you request not to be wiretapped and would prefer someone to call you back, you've got to suffer and wait up to 24 hours? In my opinion this is a very discriminatory situation. This is what amazes me about these big wig corporations. The most simplest thing that could be resolved in a few seconds just isn't. They seem to go out on an arm and a limb just to create as much of a problem for you as possible. This is a fucking multi million if not billion-dollar company. And all they can do is squabble over a ten or twenty minute phone card. Instead of trying to satisfy the customer and reasoning with a story like the one above, they don't! It's too much of a hassle! It's so much easier for them to tell you that they can't help you and brush you off with some pathetic excuse. It took me a week of calling various departments and being told again and again that there was NOTHING that could be done. Then by accident I was given a phone number to the executive offices somewhere out there on the East Coast. The savior of the day was a Mr. Charles Sepley who although was busy himself managed to find a reliable source to call me back. When I explained most of the story to a Mary Anne, she simply said that she was going to replace my two cards. Why couldn't this have been done to begin with? And remember the sarcastic individual Ron who said, "the card has expired, there's nothing that we can do and there is NO phone number that I can give you within the MCI corporation who will be able to help you with this matter." Well I made sure that I gave him a call. I told him that the next time a customer calls who has a problem like my own, maybe he shouldn't be so pig headed and arrogant and that he should realize that there ARE other superior departments above his own who CAN sort out such matters. And conveniently, now his whole story had changed and all he could do was divert the conversation to the address that he had wanted to give to me, so that I could write a letter. Screw a fucking letter, I want to sort this out over the phone not deal with letters going back and forth for weeks on end to a company that DEALS in communications to begin with, hence the telephone. I've had other issues like the one above with MCI over the years. It's not just them, AT+T are just as bad. It's just the same old story, once a little company eventually turns big they completely forget what put them there to begin with and all they want to do is screw over the customer. My GTE story is a great example of that also. Thanks for your reading, again, Johnny Anderson. Back to Some really Pathetic people.Click below to see:-
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