My .002 Cents
Sunday, January 4th, 2009I was both amused and frustrated by VerizonMath, a website dedicated to an odd billing discrepancy, and the agonizing exchange that followed. You should really listen to the whole phone call, but here is the basic issue:
George Vaccaro was quoted a price of .002 cents per kilobyte for data usage while traveling in Canada. He later learned that he was being billed at a rate of .002 dollars per kilobyte. So instead of being charged an extra 71 cents, as he had expected, he found a 71 dollar charge on his bill. When he called to complain, he was unable to get anyone to understand what he was talking about, no matter how clearly he tried to explain it.
My .002 cents is that the exchange reminds me of the Upton Sinclair quote (made popular recently by Al Gore):
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
If they understood what he was saying, they’d have to take the charge off of his bill, which they clearly were not prepared to do.