IDT Long Distance - ongoing billing problem

IDT Long Distance - ongoing billing problem

IDT Long Distance

below is a letter that I recently sent to IDT that I think says it all. I talked to them again today (only a 14 minute hold time and I got to talk to a supervisor!!!) and apparently NOBODY within the IDT company can issue a credit to an account. Now THAT'S customer service! I gave the supervisor advice to look for a new job since any company that feels they can treat customers like this will not be around long.

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February 24, 2004 To Whom It May Concern: Enclosed please find a copy of the Outstanding Balance notification that I received from your company on February 23, 2004. Imagine my surprise when I received such a notice after being forced to sign up for “EZ Pay” on your website while trying to do a one-time payment by credit card. I checked my account and indeed, as of this morning, my credit card was on file with your company and authorized for automatic payment. Upon receiving your notice and verifying that my account was signed up for automatic payment, I phoned the number you provided to see what the problem might be. After dialing 1-888-213-8406, I was informed by the computer operator that my wait could exceed 20 minutes. I decided to wait, because in the past I have always gotten the same message while trying to reach IDT Customer Service, so I figured that you simply have an inadequate number of representatives for the amount of growth you must be getting. I continued to hold and to try to see if I could find any answers within your website. After approximately 50 minutes on hold, I decided to call your Sales Department on my cell phone to try and get through to them. I was connected within 10 minutes with a sales representative who was quite attentive and immediately transferred me to Billing. There I endured another 10 minutes on hold before reaching a representative. At this point I have already invested an hour of my time, while I was supposed to be at work, into researching a problem that should not have existed. I explained the situation to the representative who looked at the record and told me that because my card expires in 4/2004, the bank had rejected the charges when IDT attempted to make them. I later contacted my bank and no attempts had been made. Because I had signed up for “EZ Pay” in good faith and because my credit card had never been in a position not to accept a charge for either $8.88 or $14.84, I explained to the representative that I earn $12.72 per hour at my job…where I was supposed to be…and that I had now used 30 cellular minutes because of an inability to connect using my land line. I asked that my bill be negated because of the waste of time and income as well as inconvenience to myself (the customer!). He asked me to hold and came back with the response that he could credit my account with 80 minutes of free long distance.

If he had looked back over the last 6 months of my account, he would have seen that I probably have not used 80 minutes in that entire time, so I explained to him that while I appreciated the offer, it really didn’t help me out at all. He continued to tell me that no credits would be issued and he repeatedly refused to connect me with a supervisor. I have worked at a customer support center at a large company as both a representative and a supervisor and I know that the supervisor is the one who gets paid the “big bucks” to take on the more difficult situations. Therefore, I wanted to make sure that the person who had to deal with me wasn’t earning $6 per hour. After repeatedly being denied the opportunity to speak with a supervisor, I asked for a corporate number and proceeded to call that. I was connected with a woman who also backed up the “no refund will be issued” statement. After working for over 15 years in various levels of the customer service industry, I feel obligated to tell you that while IDT offers a great service (low prices and 6 second billing), your customer service is completely inadequate. There should never be hour long hold times, a customer should always be able to speak with a supervisor and when there is a dispute over $14.84 that could possibly be an issue with the bank…the customer should be credited! If you want to retain customers, the attitude should always be “the customer is always right”!!! I am enclosing an invoice for MY time of 1 hour at $12.72 as well as my cellular minutes at .40 per minute for 30 minutes. The total of my bill to you is $24.72. Please negate my “debt” of $14.84 as well as any debt incurred up to 2/24/2004 with your company and consider this matter closed. I have switched long distance companies and I have told the numerous friends that I have referred to IDT to do the same. Your notice states that I need to dispute the validity of the debt within 30 days.

Please consider this a dispute, not over the actual calls, but over the reason for the “debt” as well as the ridiculous amount of time wasted by myself over something that I had nothing to do with. I would like my account to be cleared and closed and I expect that this matter will be considered completed and would like verification of its completion to be mailed to me. Thank you, and I hope you take some of what I said above into consideration with regards to your company." Hope this helps anyone else not get screwed over! Rainey Smith

Rainey S

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