SBC Long Distance - switched to SBC long distance, long distance charges about doubled - charged $ 1.84 per minute for call to Mexico

SBC Long Distance - switched to SBC long distance, long distance charges about doubled - charged $ 1.84 per minute for call to Mexico

From: [Email User]

Watch out for their FALSE and MISLEADING ADVERTISING!!! They insisted that they would save me a lot of money if I switched from my former Long Distance Carrier to theirs (in California). My long distance charges about doubled!! What they failed to tell me – oh, yes, it’s in the small print in the contract – and you get the contract AFTER you sign up with them based on their promising you the sky… - is that they ROUND UP TO THE NEXT MINUTE instead of charging in 6 second increments as my previous carrier had been doing (the one that was charging me “so much more”, according to that lying SBC sales rep….).

So, hypothetically, a carrier charging $.07 per minute but charging in 6 second intervals may be less expensive than SBC Long Distance charging $.05 or less per minute, but rounding UP to the nearest minute!!!! For example, in the first instance, 100 calls @ 66 seconds each would cost $7.70, whereas in the second instance those same 10 calls would cost $10.00. – WHAT A RIP-OFF!!! SBC Long Distance also charged me a whopping $1.84 per minute to call Mexico!!!!?? Just about everybody knows that you can call Mexico from California for about 14 cents per minute, which is about 10 to 13 times higher than just about everybody else - this was ANOTHER BIG-TIME RIP-OFF!!! They finally made some adjustments, but only AFTER I filed complaints with the California Public Utilities Commission!!! And, you just cannot imagine how many days and hours I spent calling their customer (non)service department, with unbearable and excessive “hold” times, getting connected to some body else, getting disconnected and having to start all over with their miserable voice mail maze… and still hardly getting anywhere with them. CALLING SBC CUSTOMER (NON) or (USELESS) SERVICE is just that, USELESS!! You might think that it would be more effective to write them at their (non) service address, not their address where payments are sent. Well, guess what?; they almost never reply to letters. Even when I sent letters to their Long Distance, their Residential and their Business Customer (Non) or (Useless) Service Departments, via CERTIFIED MAIL!!!, I failed to get a reply from any of them!! Therefore MAILING TO THEM is also USELESS! They even blocked my long distance calling ability for about 5 days even though I sent the full amount of disputed payments to the California Public Utilities Commission; they are not supposed to interrupt service if payments in dispute are made to the Public Utilities Commission. And, when I left 2 angry messages (if you had your long distance calling ability blocked for no reason, wouldn’t YOU be angry too?), I never got the decency of a return call – WHAT ELSE IS NEW? SBC is a BAD COMPANY. Stay away from them. And, tell a friend, Tell ALL your friends. Alex Modehn