HOLLY NADLER
508-693-3880
If I were writing a children’s book about this week in my life, it would be called, Fun! Fun! Fun! Bills! Bills! Bills!
There’s been a lot of stuff on National Public Radio lately about hidden fees in our invoices, and I decided to go on a crusade and find out Where’s Waldo in my bills, Waldo being each and every suspicious charge. I began with the phone company, Verizon.
Even before I started to look for Waldo, I had an agenda to reduce my three phone lines (for the bookstore) to a single line.
A second line had been dedicated to the credit card apparatus. You can combine this with a primary line, but the practice is not for the concentration-challenged: picture a credit card slip being merrily processed, the phone rings, the nincompoop (usually me) at the desk picks up and starts chatting and, lo and behold, the credit card transaction is dead as Captain Ahab on the last page of Moby Dick. So I made a pledge to myself to pay attention, and go back to the single-phone system.
My third line was for the fax machine. Now a lot of businesses rely on faxes; mine has basically been used to receive ink-cartridge-intensive fliers from companies wanting me to buy stock in Peruvian copper mines, and to consider insurance plans where doctors are on call 24/7. In Havana.
Now when I got roped into the three-line phone service, I was told, with a drum roll audible from the Verizon office, that this could be achieved for a monthly fee of $89. For three telephone lines. Sign me up and put a blue bonnet on it! Well, needless to say, the monthly bill was always way more than $89, but the original brainwashing held: It was still a good deal, right?
So the other day, in a search for those Waldos, and for my own edification before choosing a new plan, I reviewed my latest invoice with a nice customer service lady (and I only had to speak to two robots to get to her.)
“Now what is this charge for $15 for something called Verizon Enterprise Solutions?”
She had to think about it a minute. “This is provided as a service to Verizon.”
“I’m providing you with a service? And what do I get?”
“Long-distance calls.”
“But there’s a long distance charge already itemized for $15.55.”
“Correct. That fee is for the calls themselves.”
“And then there’s another long distance charge for $4.30 for ‘contracts and plans.’”
“And that takes care of the whole of your long distance coverage.”
“There’s also a local usage charge of $4.10.”
“Um hmm.”
“So when I was quoted the basic fee of $89, it was for everything except local calls and long distance calls.”
I’m only touching the tip of the iceberg here. If you spend any time reading the small print of your nine-page bill, you’ll find all sorts of quarks, black holes, and what astronomers call “dark materials”: a 10 per cent increase for stuff called FlexGrow and Digital Data, a $2 increase for anything coming under the rubric of Verizon Freedom for Business (is this anything like the Blue Skies Initiative?), charges levied for something called “switched out-bound calls,” and a FirmRate Advantage fee which is probably just another way of saying, “This rate will go firmly into a corporate executive’s pocket.”
We’re a rustic little Island. Can’t we go back to a rustic little phone company where a Lily Tomlin-type plugs in your call and pops her gum in your ear as you pick up the receiver?
If you’ve acquired the paper you’re holding in your hand when it’s hot off the press, Friday, Jan. 18, then do consider coming tonight at 7:30 to the Oyster Bar Grille for a special Casino Night to benefit the Vineyard Project Camp for Kids With HIV. The $25 admission includes hor d’oeuvres, and the entire evening promises to be the bright light of this cold, quiet month.
At the O.B. Library, the Story Time today, Friday, for 6 to 10-year-olds will have a Mitten Theme. Jan Brett’s The Mitten will be read, then acted out, then mittens will be crafted from felt. Story Time is from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Also at the library: On Thursday, Feb. 7 from 10:45 a.m. to noon there will be a program, Learn Basic Computer Skills I. No prior computer skills necessary; this course is for absolute beginners. There is limited seating so call now to reserve a place, 508-693-9433.
Principal Carlin Hart at the Oak Bluffs School wants to remind parents to register their kids for the Vineyard Smiles dentist who will be here on Feb. 5, 6, 11, 12, and 13. If you have any questions, call Henrietta McElheny at 508-693-6488.
Also, he extends thanks to the Cool Crew, the Fourth Grade Advisory Group which made a donation of $300 to Heifer International. This will buy two flocks of chickens, a bee hive, seedlings, and a water buffalo for folks in Katama — just kidding on the last item — for villagers in need around the world.
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