Problems with the Cable Company

Ever had problems with overbilling? By, say, a couple of hundred dollars?

The cable company has been double billing me by a hundred Euros a month for the last three months for Internet service and I decided that I'd better preempt their next automatic bill payment, or else I'd get socked with another big deduction next week (second week of February).

Even though it was a Saturday morning, I got up early and made sure I was the first person waiting outside the cable company's office when it opened at 10 AM. If you're not there early, you can find yourself standing in line for an hour or so.

The first time I went there two weeks ago, a guy took a look at my account but didn't do anything. He took a look at my account, typed in a few comments, and then said it would be taken care of.

Skeptical of his cursory work, I went back yesterday and my case was handled by a customer service agent who immediately recognized the problem for what it was: somehow, my bank account info had been linked to the account of another subscriber, and I had been paying their bills with my account.

During a recent merger of various cable companies, the accounting systems had been merged, and somehow my account information got linked to another person's account.

The service agent promptly typed out a note, this time much more detailed, with the amounts of the three double-billings to be refunded to my account. She also (I hope) deleted my bank account number from the other person's profile. I'll find out this Friday whether or not it was successfully removed.

She advised me nonetheless to follow up in a few weeks to see if the matter had in fact been cleared up. I won't be able to rest easy until I get the refund check in the mail or receive some kind of recognition that they messed up!