June 14, 2006
As the Tomato Turns...
And in the continuing saga of Mamamontezz vs TomatoVine, we have today's exciting installment.
When last we checked in on our intrepid band of Hoosier Bloggers, we found Mama and her Spousal Unit embroiled in tough negotiations with the technical support people at TomatoVine, a Voip company. They had fallen for the siren's song of unlimited calling and inexpensive service, and had taken "advantage" of what appeared to be an excellent offer.
However, unbeknownst to them, things were not as they appeared. We join them now at the end of Day 3...
*heavy sigh*
Sounds a bit like a bad soap opera, doesn't it? Well, it feels quite a bit like one too. I spent my entire lunch (semi) hour dialing the many numbers I have, trying to reach someone above a glorified telemarketer but to no avail.
Amazingly, no one at TomatoVine exceeds the rank of "sales" or "technician" and they work completely unsupervised! My submissive has asked repeatedly for a supervisor at the tech support number and was told that no supervisors were available. On one call, the pseudo-technician said that he was the supervisor. During my call this evening to the sales line (I thought that at least here I might get a human being without a 20minute wait on hold), I was told that they did not have supervisors, and that there was no one available above the level of the person I had on the line.
So in a moment of weakness, I called the "back door" number that an unsuspecting sales person had given me on Monday. I listened to the voicemail tree and settled on Marketing. It made perfect sense to me that if anyone in an organization had laser sharp focus on the bottom line, it would be Marketing.
And at 6:20EDT, I reached the voicemail of the department.
And I gave it some food for thought.
Hopefully, it won't choke on it. Or hopefully it will. At this point, one's as good as the other. I'm still without the ability to call out or receive calls, and the New and Improved explanation (provided this morning on the first of many calls today) was that it was a software issue that seems to be affecting only a small number of new subscribers across the country.
Okay, okay, I put my tinfoil hat away last night. I'm back in RealityLand™ again. But I still find it odd that we had service for just about 24 hours and then lost service like that. That's a pretty damned selective software issue. Is it looking specifically for something in my hard drive to validate it's existence? Can it not function until I find the wherewithall to upgrade my RealPlayer? Is it pining away because I choose to use IE instead of Firefox?
We may never know what offended the software so badly that it refuses to comply.
In the meantime, without going back to AT&T, can anyone suggest a more reputable and user-friendly Voip company? I've tired of this game and wish to move on as quickly as possible.