This Must Be My Month for Corporate Irritation

Good grief. I'm already exhausted, and it's not even 10:30 am. First it was Sirius--y'all heard me rant about that, right? Or maybe it was just a Twitter/Facebook rant--maybe I took pity on you and spared you. It wasn't very interesting:  Sirius radio came with the Expedition, free for a year or two--I don't remember. We enjoyed it--this was before we had the iPhone, and we didn't have an iPod or any other Music Delivery System, so it was nice on long trips, given that I will not listen to radio that has commercials because, frankly, I believe commercials are From the Devil. You think I'm joking? Well, OK, I don't believe in the devil, but if I did, I would swear--swear, I tell you!--that he invented commercials, to wit:
~~they make us covet things we don't have, including but not limited to our neighbor's wife, who has much brighter teeth and shinier floors than our own, less sparkly wife
~~they foster dissatisfaction and unrest, causing us to want what we don't have and to grumble unhappily about our lives and cast aspersions on our fellows, who, we are sure, have lives that are richer and more fulfilling than our own
~~which, in turn, makes us want to steal their stuff and/or
~~kill them, and--

--I could go on with this but, not being a religious person, I'm either going to have to go look up the commandments--what Unitarian Universalists are said to refer to as "The Ten Suggestions"--or I'm going to have to wing it in the service of trying to be funny. I think I'll just hope I amused you and let it go, OK?

Anyway. When that free subscription expired, I renewed. It's been a while, and I'd decided I was going to let it lapse/cancel it this next time around, since we now listen either to Pandora radio or, when we can't get it, our iPod, and since the comedy channels on Sirius, which are the only things we've listened to in the last year or so, are now filled with COMMERCIALS! (see above).

So last week I got a Radio Schedule in the mail from Sirius, and I just happened to look at it instead of throwing it away, and there, in the fine print, it said that they were taking care of my needs by putting me on an auto-renew schedule, and unless I called to cancel, I would be billed just a teensy bit over $300 to cover the next two years of service. $300! For radio!

[And, by the way, when someone says they are Taking Care of My Needs, I'm expecting a plain-brown-paper-wrapped parcel to appear in the mailbox, you know?]

I will not tell you what I said when I read this. $150 a year is kind of steep just to be able to listen to Jeff Foxworthy, don't you think? Their music choices have gotten so hideous we never even tried to listen to those channels.

To cancel, you have to call. You can't go online or send them a letter or stand outside and yell, "Hey, you! I want to unsub, you greedy tone-deaf capitalist pigs!"

No. So I called. I was placed on hold. For, like, many years. I aged, my hair lost color, I formed new wrinkles.

I griped a LOT. I called a different number, was put on hold again, called again. It was a total of an hour on hold.

Then I got angry. I started tweeting, and I found their Facebook page and started posting messages on all their forums. I used My Big Words, the ones I hardly ever get to use lest they cause people's eyes to roll up in their heads. I found an email address there and sent several emails telling them that 1) I was angry and 2) I was going to keep talking about them until someone took care of this.

Lo and behold: a woman called me the next morning. Not only did they cancel my subscription, but they gave me a pro-rated refund. Huh. It actually worked. Who knew? (Note: it almost always works. I have many examples, from the trees in my front yard to my shower to my mother's oil royalties--you've heard the stories before. It works, but it's exhausting.)

Then yesterday, while I was working, someone from Sirius CALLED ME ON THE PHONE and asked me to re-subscribe.

Imagine, if you will, my irritation. Imagine what I said to them when I got their office on the phone and they told me it might take up to 6 weeks to have my number removed from their call list. Imagine. I think they may understand that this would be a very, very bad choice on their part, not removing me from their call list. If they thought I was contributing kind of a lot to their forum message boards before, they'd be amazed at what I can do when I keep getting phone calls while I'm working. WORKING. Amazed, indeed.

OK. Let me try to wrap this up. In early December, I ordered a leather-bound page-a-day desk calendar from Graphic Image, which sounds more exciting than it is. I ordered an orange one from them last year, and I ordered a lime one this year and intended to make 2012 all about fuchsia. I need to use a planner, and the page-a-day ones start at $30 and are butt ugly. I've bought them, and after about two weeks, I forget about them. After years of trying to figure out how to get organized, I hit on this:  a really nice, too-expensive calendar will force me to use it.

So--I ordered the calendar. It arrived. All was well. Then I noticed that my credit card had been charged twice for this calendar. I called the company. Oh, no, they said. They had charged me only once; I should call my bank. The woman wasn't the nicest person I'd ever talked to, but never mind. I called Citibank. I've had a card with them for over A Quarter of a Century (!), and the few times I've disputed a charge, they've removed it immediately, and I've never heard from them again. Alas. That is no longer the case. These days, to dispute a charge, you must jump through hoops, roll over, play dead, and fetch.

I did all of that. I have that kind of time.

Snort.

They gave me a conditional credit. I filled out paperwork. Then, the other day, I get a hefty sheaf of papers telling me that Graphic Image has disputed my dispute, sent in a whack of documents to prove their argument, and Citibank has rescinded the provisional credit. I fill out more paperwork and call them. The woman is very nice and agrees vehemently that I am right, but here's the deal:  no one is claiming I ordered two calendars. The company says I ordered one (true) and received it (true) and was charged only once (false). The record shows the two charges. Now, it seems to me--and to normal people everywhere--that Citibank should just credit my account, since no one claims fraud. It's obvious I was charged twice--it's right there. Everyone can see it.

But no. Citibank will not refund the second charge unless Graphic Image and/or their bank refunds that amount to Citibank. Only then will I get a refund, never mind that no one claims I owed anyone that second charge. Graphic Image and their bank claim there was only one charge, so they're not budging. Citibank claims there were two charges, so they're not budging, either. I'm the only one out any money, and I'm just one, single, solitary person with no power anywhere.

Someone out there--and I suspect it's one or the other of the two banks--duh (and, in fact, those two banks are probably, deep down, the same bank, owned by the same corporation)--used that money to buy a paper clip. One. Paper. Clip. Because it's an insignificant amount to a bank. Tiny. Meaningless.

And they think I will go away. They always think we will go away, because we almost always do. When it's not a matter of life and death--and sometimes even when it is--we will finally give up and just shut up and go on with our lives because we don't have the time or the energy to keep fighting. They're way, way bigger than we are. And ruthless.

And that's how they win.

I have no idea what will happen, but if they refuse to give me the credit, I'll talk about them, never mind our 25-+-year history. They can see my credit history. I should be more valuable to them than that, blah, blah, blah. Nah. It's a corporation, and those things have no feelings. We all know that, and we know we can't win.

Fine. Whatever. But did I mention that my brand-new Discover card is just gorgeous, with a brilliant image on the front that makes that old Citibank card look like last week's leftovers?