2 hours 30 minutes on the phone with Bell customer service in the last 48

I feel like Kevin Dillon’s character on Entourage even writing this stuff down (he’s the one who flies into a rage when they screw up his order at Starbucks), but really, between the insipid hold music, the endless proliferation of account numbers and dollar totals and the inability to get a straight answer other than “call back in 3-6 weeks” it is crazymaking. You can probably stop reading here.

So why am I upset? Because I’d like my bills for satellite service to be sent to my current address instead of my old address (I have been asking since July to have this change made), I want to know what I actually owe them (no two reps have quoted me the same dollar amount and I’ve been given four different account numbers now, two of which have never appeared on a bill; I am also being credited either $500 and change, $741 or $788 for errors they have made), and because in July I was told by Bell that they could consolidate all my services on one bill with no problem — though at this point receiving all my bills at the same address would be a miracle. This round started because we got a threatening letter in French for money we supposedly owe on account we’d never heard of. After 75 minutes on the phone with helpful people yesterday, I thought the problem was solved until I was awakened this morning with a cryptic automated message instucting me to call Bell. This morning, I spoke with two helpful and sympathetic people who couldn’t tell me anything for sure and one condescending agent who claimed to be certain about everything (which would be reassuring if it were true). He actually told me that I had requested a change of language on our account (when I insisted I hadn’t, he said it must have been Carrie, who has never called them) and said it had to be us because “no one at Expressvu would change your language without the customer’s request.” I don’t even care about the language of our bills — I can read a bill in French — it’s the idiocy that somehow we’re the source of the problem. Yes, that’s right. I intentionally opened four accounts at Expressvu and changed the language on the account in October because people at Expressvu never make mistakes. At least the Bell telephone people aren’t actually rude.

I’d switch, but Rogers keeps billing us for September and October services on a telephone account we closed in August (I’ve called them twice now; both times the agents have been polite and tried to fix the problem), and I hear similar nightmare stories about Videotron.