I’m fighting with my garbage collection service right now. It has been going on for two months but I am not giving up! When we moved into our new house, I noticed it had the largest trash collection can available. I went online and checked prices to see we would be charged a whopping $48 a month for it! Yeah, not happening! A quick phone call and the nice woman who answered the phone assured me that the can would be replaced with the much smaller and more affordable $20 size and that they would drop off a recycle bin for us. It still hasn’t happened.
So every week or two I make a phone call. I get a profuse apology, a promise of a new can, and a credit on my bill. With hold time I am spending at least an hour of time a month on an issue that should have been handled. Sure, it nets me $28 in savings a month, but if the collection service was doing their job correctly I could be saving that $28 with no further time investment. We don’t have an option on collection services where I live so I am stuck unless I want to drive my own trash to the dump every week.
So here’s my plan. They just collected my trash so I am throwing that empty can into the back of my car. I am driving down to their offices, turning in the can IN PERSON and verifying they update my account with the new can they give me. I can hopefully core a recycling bin at the same time. Then, I am going to ask for a further credit due to the inconvenience factor levied against me. They may say no, but it doesn’t hurt to ask and they likely will say yes. They are at fault after all and this is going to take one to two hour chunk out of my day.
The moral of the story? Check your bills regularly. Companies are out to make money, which is fine. But sometimes they make money at the expense of good business practices and that is not fine. Make phone calls to fix billing errors but do not be afraid to step up your game in phone calls don’t work. Showing up at the business in person (but with temper under control, please!) works wonders. If that isn’t a possibility, send a registered letter to the highest person on the company food chain you can find.
I could just sit back and use the big trash can, but my family has never been able to fill it more than half full in a given week. I am not spending $336 a year on a product I didn’t ask for and don’t use. Wish me luck!
