rumpusparable

odd. i've long held the theory, but now am actually experiencing being Arthur Dent'ed by the local phone company.

as i said a few days ago, i was going off-line...

backstory:

i've lived here in germany for 3 years. in that time, despite at first paying my bill ahead by a few months at a time and then later simply paying it on-time, i've had about 4 months of working phone access.

as in, i pay 3-4 months ahead and one day i lose outgoing call ability. dsl still dials through (is a separate line, not like in the states) & phone calls can come in, my line has simply been blocked.

later, still paying ahead, my phone service completely ends. it takes about 1-2 months of trying to get access and them telling me repeatedly "it'll be on in the next 2 days" before i get my final disconnect notice AND NEVER GET MY DEPOSIT BACK. they walked off with around 150euros of my cash.

had to pay the re-start fees and deposit again to re-start phone service. again paying ahead, my outgoing access gets blocked a short bit later. i go and get it corrected and about 3 days after it is corrected it is blocked again.

now, i didn't mind the blocking so much as my internet still worked and that's the only reason i had a landline... but it was annoying in a 'what the hell?" sort of way, the persistance with which they seemed to want to end my service despite recieving my cash.

after a while, i stopped paying ahead for fear of them shutting the service off completely again and my losing large amounts of money... they'd proven less than reliable, it became clear that the problem was more than a once or twice fluke.

so i visited the office the other day, cancelled my account and recieved my deposit back. they now have none of my money and no way to get more out of me.

2 days later, my phone still works.

apparently, paying them just drew attention to myself. had i stopped paying them earlier, i'd've had uninterrupted phone service all these years.