I posted some of my um, adventure as a comment to another diary. Someone suggested I do a diary on this so....
I was so wound up this morning that I decided to make a few phone calls. I did it on speaker phone so my roommate could also listen. She is not political at all. When she comes home from work I usually fill her in on the news of the day. She calls these my "rants". Anyway, I wanted her to hear for herself.
I decided to give Verizon a call first. Since Verizon was our phone company until we switched to Vonage a few months ago I figured our information was well in the web. So I used the contact information that was provided on the frontpaged diary.
(this is all from memory. Although most of it is so bizarre that I can still hear their words eating my insides.)
The first question I asked the first person I spoke with was "Have you read or seen the news this morning?" At this point CNN and the NYT's still did not have any of this on their websites. I read and explained to her the "situation". She was stuck on getting my phone #. I finally gave it to her and she said that I am not a customer. I explained that I was for the past few years and that this program is a few years old. "If you are not a customer, I am unable to transfer you or help you any further." What? I tried to explain, in a hurried voice, that because I used to be a customer and this program started years......click. Silence. Hello? Hello? OMG, she just fucking hung up on me! Sonofabitch!
REDIAL!
(pre-recorded message while I was on hold): "Your privacy is important to us..." OK
The 2nd person at Verizon asked all of the same questions about phone numbers and blah blah. I asked if I may speak with his superviser. He asked why. I explained about the program. He said- "I'm not sure why you would be upset at this." WAAAAAHHHH. I explained that as a citizen it is my duty to find out if my government is breaking the law. You know the law right? "Sir, since 9/11 we have had to..." I interupted him immediatly. "Are you familiar with Ben Franklin sir? You do remember our founding fathers right?" he snorted back-"I would have no problem if what you say is true, I would have no problem with it at all. Why do you hate this country?" I laughed. "If you are scared sir, get a dog!" click. Silence. Hello. I turned to my roommate-"No he did NOT just hang up on me!"
REDIAL
The 3rd guy was the worst and I don't want to go over that again. He was a copy of the 2nd but more, how should I put this, um more of a scared little man. When I informed him about the 10's of millions of citizens who had there info sold to the government he said- "Sir, we don't know how many terrorists we have in this country." What a waste of time and fucking space this asshole must be. We got in a very loud and heated discussion that went nowhere. Then he hung up on me.
Again, I redialed because I was going to get some damn answer out of these people if I had to call all week. I asked the 4th guy his name and where is his call center. At this point I was convinced that I was talking to yocals in Alabama or something. Just really odd out of touch people. He said Pittsburgh so I was pleased. "Great. I love your town. Could you transfer me to your manager please." He asked why and I told him and........he sounded concerned, did not ask for my number and transfered me! Holy shit! A decent human at Verizon! Andy in Pittsburgh I never got a chance to say it so..THANK YOU. His manager actually yawned and was trying to blow me off but she did transfer me to someone she assured me would be able to address my concerns. I ended up talking to the sales department or some nonsense. It went nowhere but she did tell me to call PUC. So I did.
At this point It was the big story at CNN.com so I asked the nice lady at the PUC to please pull that up on her computer so she could see for herself. Again, she stated that this would be a federal complaint and the best she could do is send me out a complaint form in the mail and I would need to fill it out and send it back but, you know, it really won't do anything. Go ahead and send it to me. ugh.
Next stop, the FCC.
To say that the First person I talked to was a dunderhead would be very nice of me. I pointed her to the cnn.com article and asked her what can I do as a citizen. "Yeah, we got a memo on that this morning and section 222 of the Communications Act states that the FCC can not do anything about this." What. Thanks to bawbie who posted portions of the 1934 Telecom Act with section 222 included in the comments section of the frontpaged diary this morning, I proceeded to read it to her word for word:
According to the article (4+ / 0-)
The Telecom Act of 1934 prohibits the phone companies from giving out private infomation
he concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.
The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of "violation." In practice, that means a single "violation" could cover one customer or 1 million
Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space because there's bugger all down here on Earth.
by bawbie on Thu May 11, 2006 at 06:57:10 AM PDT
The woman became very short and pissed with me. I asked her if she could point me to where I might be able to file a complaint. She said "Look, this just broke this morning. We have not had time to react to it yet." Later on I would learn that this was what they were told to say. After some more back and forth and her refusing to point me in any direction, SHE HUNG UP ON ME! FUCK!
REDIAL
The second person was a real dooooozey. I went over all the info again with him and he said-"This just broke this morning. We have not had time to react to it yet." I was so pissed that now I am talking to people who are reading to me that I went off
"Sounds like the FCC is doing Aheckofajob Brownie on this one. Sounds like your agency is reacting the same way after the levees broke. Your eating cake and playing guitar while bodies are floating around and the best you can do is repeat something off of your god-damned memo?!"
"You need to tell your little story to someone else because I ain't listening."
CLICK
Did he just say that?! No he fucking did not.
Redial
The first FCC woman I spoke to answered. HA. "What is your name please?"
And you will not believe this! She said her name was tr56 !!!!
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
click
HA. Wow. The rest of my morning was much nicer. The last person I talked to at the FCC said she was sorry for the others and emailed me a form to fill out. She wanted me to talk to a lawyer for the company. "I have a lawyer sitting next to me here and she is stating that your understanding of section 222 is not correct."
"Can I speak with her?"
"No, but I will transfer you to the dept. that wrote the 1934 Telecom Act."
"ok, thanks"
The dept. did not take long to get me off the phone and gave me this contact information for addressing the law:
Jim Land
202-418-7400
I called and it was an auto-answer line with a computer voice stating that the computer was Jim Land and could you please leave your information...
Anyway, I tried to call the Bureau of Consumer Protection with the number that I was given by the PUC but it was not a real number. So, all in all, I got real worked up and really had a ton of fun. I'm glad I speaker phoned it for my roommate because she was just amazed by the whole damn thing.
And remember, the next time you talk to a lazybrained and scared little citizen just tell them IF YOUR SCARED, GET A DOG