The Data Hater

(The customer in this story is the friend of a friend of mine. We all have the same ISP, which is going through a massive upgrade to bring Fibre Optics to home users. The rival cable company offers the same high download speed, but much lower upload speed, but to most people, only the download speed matters. This person shares a community house and has his own Internet connection with our ISP. He calls in calmly, but demands that they match the cable service’s plan.)

ISP Agent: “I’m sorry, sir, but the service is not available in your area.”

Customer: “That’s bulls***. I want the Fibre Optics you’re advertising! I want you to match [Rival Cable ISP]’s price!”

ISP Agent: “There’s nothing we can do because your neighbourhood has not been upgraded yet.”

Customer: “Then I’m going to cancel my service and get [Rival Cable ISP]!”

(He tries this again with three other agents, hoping someone will give in and give him what he wants. By the third call, he completely loses it after being told, again, that it’s not available.)

Customer: “Well, f*** you, then. Cancel my service.”

(The agent goes through the complete cancellation process with him. He then calls up [Rival Cable ISP], and requests the high-speed plan.)

Rival ISP Agent: “I’m sorry, sir, we can’t provide the service to you.”

Customer: “What? Why not?”

Rival ISP Agent: “Because there’s already an active cable line to your house.”

(It turns out, other tenants have their own cable service to the house already.)

Customer: “So what? I want that plan.”

Rival ISP Agent: “We can’t run another line to the house; we’d have to split the current line into two connections. But that would decrease the speed severely, and we wouldn’t be able to provide the promised speeds to either customer. We can’t do that.”

(The customer calls the first ISP back.)

Customer: “Yeah, I changed my mind. I decided to keep you.”

ISP Agent #2: “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. We’ve sold the port you were using after you requested to be cancelled. There are no other available ports to provide you service.”

(He goes several days without Internet service until he finds some local ISP no one has ever heard of that runs off of larger ISP networks. They are willing to split the cable ISP’s connection, so he’ll get a service plan — one that is HALF the speed of the DSL plan, and has multiple random disconnections throughout the day. When my friend asks if he regrets what he’s done, he responds:)

Customer: “No, I’m pissed off they wouldn’t give me that plan!”