I came home last Monday night to discover that the phone jack in my room wasn't working. I played detective and determined that my phone and phone cord worked on the other phone jacks but that no other phone or cord worked on the phone jack in my room. Clearly, the problem was with my phone jack. I called Bell but it was outside business hours so after getting lost in their automated answering world, I decided I'd deal with it the next day.
In the meanwhile, I found out that a Bell technician had installed a phone line for the new basement tenant and according to her, the technician had spent a great deal of time playing with the wires, trying to get it to work. "Interesting", I thought, "my phone jack worked, a Bell technician was here, and now it doesn't work". Seemed like a pretty straight forward cause and effect case to me.
Tuesday after school I called Bell and actually spoke to a person. I explained my story and was told "you aren't covered by WireCare and the problem is inside your apartment. Therefore if you want it fixed, you have to pay". I relayed my clear cut "cause and effect" logic to her but to no avail. She said it was just a big coincidence, she couldn't do anything else about it and if I wanted to speak to someone who could do something about it, I should call back the next day.
Wednesday, I repeated Tuesday's process with a new person on the phone at Bell. After going in circles for a few minutes I said "listen, I understand there's nothing you can do, and you think its a big coincidence, and you think I won't get anywhere with this, but can I at least speak to someone higher up so I'll know I've exhausted all of my options?". She said okay and I was transferred to the "escalation desk". 20 minutes of holding later (I assume this was an attempt to get me to give up..), I spoke to yet another person and relayed my story yet again. She said "so your phone jack worked, a bell technician installed a new line in your building and now your phone jack doesn't work?" and I said "YES!". She then tried to bargain.. "we can send someone over and if it turns out to be our fault, we'll cover the cost, but if it just turns out to be a major coincidence, you pay". I said "um.. no.". She said "okay, we'll send someone and fix it, and we'll pay". I said "sounds good." Then we discussed what I should do in the event the repair cost "mysteriously" ended up on my bill. She told me it shouldn't be an issue but I could just call her back and she'd deal with it.
Everyone I spoke to in the meanwhile has shared their stories of "Bell=Hell" with me and I began to anticipate having a perpetually broken phone jack (would make a good excuse to buy a cell phone...). Friday, only 15 minutes late, the Bell technician showed to investigate. He looked at my phone jack, went to investigate in the basement, played with some wires down there and within 15 minutes my phone jack was fully functional. He said "yup, the technician must have screwed up your wire while installing the new line".
I feel vindicated and pleased by the relatively quick service, but the Bell people may still have the last laugh when I receive my next phone bill. Stay tuned...
update: Bell in fact did NOT charge me for the repair. Score: me-1, Bell- zero.
