I have a long distance telephone service provider where you dial an access number, and then make fairly cheap long distance phone calls. I've had a few problems over the years, but lately they've been big. I thought I would share this wonderful piece of prose I sent to them via email and like to call, "A Plea: Make It Work".

Hello. My account number is xxxxx. Please make it work.

Sunday November 18

When I dialed the Xxxx access number, it said, "Please enter access code". I entered my account number. Then it asked for my password (then the pound key). I entered my PIN (then the pound key). Then it said, "Access denied."  I tried calling a few times, and even went online to make sure I knew my PIN (I reset it). Nothing worked. Your offices were closed.

Monday November 19 - #1

I tried again. The same thing happened as Sunday. I called your office. The man I spoke to said he would reset my PIN and told me to try again. He said that if I still had problems, I should call back and Xxxx would take care of it.

Monday November 19 - #2

I tried again. The same messages, the same result. As advised, I called back. The woman I spoke to told me to press the pound key after she did something. I asked if she wanted me to press pound while on the phone with her. She said "yes". Then she started talking nonsense. I again asked her when I was supposed to press pound. She muttered something and hung up.

Monday November 19 - #3

Figuring I was supposed to call the access number again and press the pound key as soon as connected, I gave this a try. When I pressed pound, it asked me for my password rather than my access code. I entered my PIN (plus pound). The computer said "I did not understand your response."

Monday November 19 - #4

I called your office again. The computer hung up on me.

Monday November 19 - #5

I tried calling the access number again. I got a fast busy signal. Same with your office. This happened a lot over the next half hour.

Monday November 19 - #6

I got hold of someone in your office, and repeated my story. They insisted that calling the access number and pressing the pound key would solve all of my problems (despite all evidence to the contrary). They did promise, however, to send a request to the technical support team, even though they insisted that some customers were having problems some of the time, due to a system upgrade. The implication was that I was being bothersome, and that just because I was having problems all of the time, it didn't mean that other customers weren't doing just fine, and I really shouldn't be troubling the company with my silly complaints of not getting any service at all.

Monday November 19 - #7

Figuring I'd be a sport, I called the access number once more. When I finally got through, I did as I was told and pressed the pound key. The nice computer lady voice again asked for my password (plus pound key), and I obliged, only to be told that she just couldn't understand me. I decided to call it a night, and let the technical support team work their magic.

Tuesday November 20

I called the access number and went through the whole thing all over again. When access was again denied, I tried again using the not-so-helpful pound key technique. Apparently my button-pushing is unintelligible.

Wednesday November 21 (that's today)

I wish I could tell you that anything happened differently than what happened on Tuesday, but I'm afraid I'd be lying.

My plea to you (and this may be repetitive) is to make my service work. That would be really really really nice, and would ease my escalating blood pressure from having to talk to people on the phone there.

Thank you very kindly,

Allison