E1cross

This is one hell of a funny story. One that can educate people not to take things lying down.

I have an internet connection that is provided by a leading service provider. I always make my payments before the due date of the bill. In the month of January this I received a bill for $24 for which i issued a check immediately. I assumed that the check had been cleared from my bank as I did not hear from the service providers after that. I was a bit taken aback when I received my bill for February which showed that the payment for January was still outstanding and the total now due was $46. I checked with my bank and they confirmed that the check for January had been cleared on the 10th of the month.

I therefore deducted the $23 due for the month of January and issued another check for the month of February. Surprise!!  Surprise!!.  My connection was disconnected the next day for non payment of the full balance.

I called the customer service department for an explanation and demanded that my services be restored immediately. They refused to do so and said that they would only restore my line once I had made the outstanding payment. Talking to a supervisor was fruitless as they were always in meetings.  I made it clear that I would sue them for the harassment if they did not restore my line. That too did not deter them from asking me to take a hike.

The next day I got a statement from my bank that showed that the check had indeed been cleared and approached a lawyer for assistance. He did charge me a good amount of money for the case but assured me that we could recover it from the internet service providers.

The funniest part started when my lawyers sent them a letter informing them about the case. I started getting calls from the supervisors (no less) who apologized and pleaded with me for an out of court settlement. I refused and the matter was taken to a court, where I could prove that the service providers had taken the money from my account and credited it to some other account. A clear case of negligent accounting.

I won the case and got my connection back. Not to mention all the costs that I had incurred and some compensation for time I spent in court as well. 

I was really happy that I stood up to the challenge and proved my point.