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There’s an old saying that time is money. There’s also the view that, on occasion, getting money owed to you is more bother than it’s worth. My wife Suzie and I have reached that stage over a $2000 cell phone bill.
In the lead-up to retirement, we made a concerted effort to streamline our finances. That’s when it came to light that we’d been billed for a third cell plan going back several years. Suzie had assumed my plan was coming out of her checking account as well as her own, and never questioned the two payments. In fact, my plan was coming out of my own account the whole time.
Suzie called the provider and walked the account staff through the whole story, in full detail. Then she did it again. And again. All told, over the last eighteen months, she has spent an unbelievable number of hours getting nowhere.
The company is a Byzantine labyrinth, a giant, incompetent telecom that seems constitutionally incapable of resolving the issue. Every phone call and every email thread has to start from scratch, because no one on their end can keep the case history straight. Line supervisors and department managers promise to look into it and call back. They don’t.
At this point, we’re down to two options. We can ask the UK’s semi-independent communications watchdog to investigate on our behalf, or we can hire a legal representative and pursue it through the courts. That’s when I asked Suzie, over dinner one evening, whether it was really worth the energy to keep plugging away.
Some of these calls run over an hour, and afterward she’s stressed to the max and in bad form for hours. In my mind, the $2000 isn’t worth what it’s costing her. Suzie wasn’t ready to hear it at first. She’d put too much into this to walk away empty-handed.
“I know it feels like quitting now would waste everything you’ve done,” I said. “But that’s the sunk-cost trap. The time’s already spent. It can’t be recovered, and it shouldn’t decide what we do next.”
After a bit more back and forth, she reluctantly came around to my way of thinking. So we’re throwing in the towel. Not because we’re in the wrong, but because being in the right isn’t much comfort when it’s eating your evenings and your peace of mind.
For all that, we can’t pretend we’re blameless here. We don’t owe this money, but we do own the fact that we let it slide for years without noticing. Two people who consider themselves careful with money let a third phone bill run under the radar simply because neither of us thought to ask the other a simple question. The real lesson isn’t about telecom companies at all.
It’s about talking to each other more, and more specifically, about who’s paying for what. A five-minute conversation a few years ago would have saved eighteen months of grief.
Becoming a landlord 30 years ago, I wish I would’ve kept track through the years of all the people I gave free housing too. The way I see it is that God didn’t hold me accountable for what I did wrong. So who am I take people to court and squeeze every penny out of them? It’s legal and fair, but I let it go. It’s part of helping others. Admittedly in your case you’re helping a nameless face giant Corporation, but not really. Those are people there too and it’s owned by people.
I was horrified when I recently watched Mr. Bates (now Sir Alan) vs. The Post Office, a story of ordinary people being bullied by bureaucrats into paying money they didn’t owe while the UK Post Office refused to investigate the software glitches responsible for huge errors. Still not fully resolved after nearly 30 years. Big difference between your case and the Post Office but Thank God that Sir Alan hung in there.
Our friend worked as a postmistress for 20 years, spanning the period you’re referring to. She was never wrongly prosecuted, but she still lost tens of thousands of pounds out of her own pocket because of the faulty accounting software behind the scandal. She’s since sold the business and retired, but she still hasn’t received the compensation that was promised.
I would try to get the money back and donate it to a worthwhile charity.
These byzantine telecom companies are terrible to work with. I recommend just cutting your loss and moving on. The money is not enough to pursue legal action.
Years ago in business, I had a company that owed me $27k and refused to pay. Our agreement was well documented in writing. The EVP would not return my calls. Finally, I sent him a letter documenting our agreement. A colleague suggested that I CC Counsel on the letter. That worked! I got a call the next week from the EVP and he said, “It looks like I am going to have to pay you bastards”. I thanked him and we received a check a few days letter.
You may want to try that little trick in written correspondence.
When money and principles clash I can get uncomfortably stubborn, and this situation would qualify. Still the sum is not great enough to justify legal pursuit. Trashing the company online could result in them going after you. So at the end of the day, and with a very bad taste in my mouth, I’d walk away. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I knew, just knew, that the money I loaned my brother to launch a tourism venture in Hawaii wasn’t all coming back. I knew he would bail on the repayments sooner or later.
My wife and I even set aside a significant sum as a sort of insurance policy to cover the expected loss.
When the inevitable blowoff came (complete with obscenities), it was actually for much less than we expected. Instead of pursuing the issue as we could have, we made the decision to let it go. We took it as a win, ended the relationship for good (a much-overdue step) and eventually splurged the money on a wonderful vacation.
Not to Hawaii.
Mike, for my wife’s 60th birthday this November, I really wanted the people closest to us to be part of the trip. Some couldn’t cover the cost, so I offered to front the money for them with an open-ended repayment arrangement: no fixed schedule, pay me back whenever works.
Having them there mattered enough to me that I’d have been willing to just cover it outright anyway. I’m about as confident as you can be that I’ll get repaid eventually, but I’m going in with the mindset that you should only lend what you can genuinely afford to lose. If for some reason it doesn’t come back, I can absorb that — it wouldn’t be a deal breaker.
Before we ended our relationship, I let a business associate get into me for around $5,000, at a time when that was a significant sum to me. But I knew he couldn’t produce the money easily, and I was moving on. We didn’t part ways over the money, I was just ready for a change. Your post brought that incident to mind, but I hadn’t thought of it for many years, and I’ve lost no sleep.
Edmund, my first business investment was becoming a junior partner in an import business with a father-daughter duo. It lasted six months before I walked away right after the Christmas break, due to a serious personality clash between us. I did eventually get my investment back, but that took a while. At the time, protecting my peace of mind mattered far more to me than recovering my stake.
I take it you don’t have Small Claims courts in the UK, where you could file for a small fee.
Ormode, while we do have a small claims count, it’s slightly more complicated than that court can handle. The main issue is data protection: although we were the ones paying the bill, the account itself is in someone else’s name, so data protection laws mean we can’t get enough information about it to actually make the claim. Overriding that would require a higher court — and frankly, that’s just too much hassle for the sums involved.
100% with you Mark. I can’t deal with putting myself or my family through unreasonable grief and headache, for an amount of money that would actually make no difference to lifestyle or future financial security.
Onwards and upwards!
Greg, definitely onwards and upwards. Suzie’s 98% there with me, I’m sure the last 2% will follow shortly. In some ways the hassle did us a favour: our new cell plans come in 40% cheaper than the old ones, so a couple of years will cover the loss entirely.
Mark,
I recognize the decision to give up as a valid one. Some thoughts: (1) post on social media, identifying the company by name, the barriers you’ve encountered, and ask for comments (2) change telecom providers and make sure they know why, (3) in the US there is a process called small claims court – not sure if you have that option.
I’ve read that the social media post approach can be quite effective.
Jeff, Suzie and I are social media refuseniks — I couldn’t bear the thought of feeding the algorithms. We’ve stuck to the old-fashioned method instead: word of mouth. And I’m gratified to hear the business in question has lost a few accounts over and above ours. Small claims is still a possibility, but we’ve decided to draw a line under the whole thing and sail off into our retirement sunset.
I like how you stick to your principles. Good for you. You probably sleep very well at night. 🙂
Jeff, good point about the social media approach. I haven’t tried it recently, but years ago I was having a huge hassle with Blue Cross / Blue Shield. They were completely nonresponsive and unhelpful.
I decided to post on their Facebook page to get their attention and put it out in public. It worked and they finally responded to me.
That said, if you go that route, I’d be very careful that you’re accurately stating the facts (and can prove it if necessary). Once you’ve said it in public, if they claim it’s false, you could have libel problems.
Mark, your story brought back a memory. A couple of years ago, Mum wandered off shopping at Heathrow and came back with a Burberry scarf that had cost around $1,000. Yikes! She hadn’t really understood what she was spending, and we agreed it should go back, but by then it was too late to return to the store. Once we were home, I called Jonathan and asked what I should do. His advice was simple: let it go. So I did.
Mum eventually gave the scarf to Dean, and I told him to treat it as a valuable asset! Besides, who needs a $1,000 scarf in Florida?
Your article reminded me that sometimes pursuing money we’ve lost or are owed ends up costing us something equally valuable,our time and peace of mind. Jonathan understood that, and I think you and Suzie have reached the same conclusion.
Oh Andrew, a costly foreign exchange lesson indeed! But maybe your mum was onto something all along: she’s given you a great memory, a great story, and a physical souvenir of the adventure. That’s really what our money is for, isn’t it? Even if, on this occasion, it took 1,000 dollars to prove the point.
You made an honest mistake, brought it to their attention, and learned that they did not care. Do not beat yourself up. I’ve previously read on this site, and agree, that when taking a loss such as this, it is useful to consider the magnitude of that loss relative to your net worth. Putting it into perspective this way would not reduce my disgust toward the incompetent/unethical behavior of the company representatives, but would help to reduce my anger or stress level and guide my decision making whether and what to do about it. So, if pursuing this matter means spending even more time plus paying legal fees which may diminish or wipe out any refund owed to you, it would be easier to take the loss. I have experienced a similar loss due to fraud, and while it took a while for my anger to dissipate, it did. You can still complain and let others know what sort of service they are providing.
Jack, I’m a cynical old git by hard-won experience, so when we discovered the issue — and how long it had been going on — I wrote it off on the spot. My wife was the optimist and took point on chasing it. She’s probably a shade more cynical now too, but as you say, the hit to our finances is so negligible it’s not worth getting worked up about anymore.
Mark,
Maybe Suzie’s already done this, but if not there’s one last option she might consider. When regular channels prove fruitless, I’ll scour the web for the email address of the CEO of the company in question.
A website called http://www.ceoemail.com might help (scroll down and there’s a link for UK companies). Or, if you can at least find the email address protocol for the company, e.g. “John.Smith@ABCCorp.com,” you can make a good guess. If you’re unsure whether to, say, include a middle initial, send the email both ways. The one that doesn’t bounce back is probably correct.
Write an email to the CEO. On occasion I’ve had the CEO him/herself answer, but usually it’s someone from the “Executive Escalations” dept. or some such. These people have the power to cut through the B.S. and actually help you.
Of course, sometimes the attempt is in vain, but I’ve had remarkable success with it over the years, including with some of the biggest companies in the U.S. (Chase Bank, Home Depot, Honda U.S.A., Verizon, PayPal, Charter Communications/Spectrum, etc.)
And it won’t cost Suzie a lot of time—just the time to explain the situation. From your article, it sounds like she’s already written the explanation, so just a cut-and-paste.
Good luck,
Andrew
Andrew, that’s an excellent suggestion, and one I hadn’t considered. Low effort, outside chance of success, my favourite kind of bet. Definitely worth investigating before I put the whole thing to bed.
Good suggestions Andrew. I’m still old fashioned and in addition to the email, I would mail a written letter and send it certified with a written receipt. An email might get received by them as junk/spam.
Olin, thanks for the suggestion. I like email because it’s fast, easy (and free). My experience has been that if they’re going to reply to your email, it’ll happen within a day or two. If no response by then, and it’s something you’re really fired up about, following up with the certified letter could be a good move.
Good call! We pay everything through one account, so we wouldn’t have a problem like yours. But it’s important to recognize that the cost can be more than the benefit.
Marilyn, before retiring we restructured our finances so all bills come out of one account — which, ironically, is exactly how we spotted the extra cell plan payment in the first place.
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