A few years ago there was an article about how a survey compiled about how people hate being in a circular “touch 1″ customer service phone hell. Sunday night I actually was a screaming, crying, ranting she-weevil to a TS guy. They broke me.

So my Mother in law has been having issues with her internet and it looked as if the router, and possibly the modem were both bad. She’d had a cable tech out to look at the modem and they said it was fine but there was SOMETHING wrong. So Mr Man finally broke down and bought her a Belkin N1 Vision (which if it works is supposed to tell you everything from how fast your internet is to how to make Paella), and we took it over to install Saturday. The modem didn’t work, didn’t see the network and so I called Belkin Tech Support.

Two hours later I finally got them to deduce something must be wrong with the modem. The fact that it might be the modem was not out of the question so no biggie.. So Since was going to be in town again the next day for a family thing, no biggie, I packed it up and took it to the local TW office and swapped it for her on the way home. Easy peasy.

I come back the next day, 5pm or so, and reset it all up with the new modem. Router still does not work. Argh. So I call Belkin - again.

This time I spent THREE plus hours with them on the phone across five calls (after getting disconnected twice) stuck in the hold line from hell for most of it listening to the same 60 seconds of the SAME Mozart stanza (not even a whole song! Just one little part of it). Let me just tell you this… I’m here to say it feels like torture. Real torture like Guantanamo Bay.

Finally into hour three they give me what I wanted 5 hours and two days ago - an RMA. They would call me the next day to set it up (more on this later).

So that done, I start to pack up to leave, the MIL pops open her email - Not taking her password now. No access. Internet is fine, just no email. WTF? So I call Mr man and tell him to fend for himself, it’s now eight o’clock pm, and I call Time Warner.

First and second call: on hold for 30 minutes waiting to talk to someone, and I’m disconnected. Thrs call I get someone, do a bunch of butt simpe reset and junk, and get bumped to level two. She thinks she knows exactly why were having problems since it accompanied a modem swap, and she puts me on hold to try to get it done. Over an hour later I’m STILL on hold waiting for her to come back.

It was somewhere about the 40th ad for I Am Legend on Pay Per View that something in me snapped like a burnt twig. I realize I’ve been dumped I got mad, but I also started crying like someone who couldn’t take any more. but also mad. The mother in Law is urging me to hang up and call it a night, it’s nearly 11pm now. I should go to bed. She wants me to stay over now that it’s so late.

Through tears and clenched teeth I say that they are NOT WINNING and call back, twice more trying to circumvent the hold times and get ANYONE to rant at. Finally I give up and call the regular tech line again.

When the guy comes on the line I actually felt almost bad for him as I began a all out frontal assault cursing at him between sobs. I tell him under NO Mean was he putting me on hold EVER. He was going to solve my problem if it meant taking his headset and HANDING it to a supervisor, but he WAS NOT putting me on hold. I had had all I could take. I hissed at him for five whole minutes that it takes A LOT to break me, but they had done it. I told him I knew what Guantanamo Bay must feel like, because after “five hours of headset assholes” I was not even the same person and repeating messages put the shiver of hell into me. I told him that I am pretty unflappable and I get angry before anything else, so for me to be crying like a wussy girl meant they had done me mental harm, and goddamn them for that. (I am NOT a crier. I just don’t do it. I have three moods: goofy, happy and trigger happy, thanks that’s it. When I get to trigger happy back away slowly. I had surpassed my previous peak of “I’ve had it” level.)

The last time I cried that completely from my soul it was when Mister Man’s cousin shot her Mom who was suffering from Cancer in the hospital and turned the gun on herself last October. Yeah. That bad. (Did I blog about that? I can’t remember.)

Anyway, I have to say it though, he could see the writing on the wall and was going out of his way to try to work around my refusal to be on hold, and trying to talk me out of the bell tower. Finally they know what happened, talking to a supervisor on IM across the building, that I needed to go to level two - again. I said no. I said “end me to level three”. He agrees, but says it means I have to go on hold again, but the upside was the wait time was shorter for level three since they had far less call volume. I sigh and begrudgingly say okay. I tell him that If I’m disconnected, they were truly going to wish they were never born.

I only wait ten minutes this time, and a young man answers. I tiredly ask him what level he was, I barely have the brain to even mouth the words. He said three. I begin another exhausted rant, being sure to tell him that I’ve been trying to fix this for for going into my third hour and sixth call, twice being disconnected and once being abandoned entirely for an hour. He is aghast and sets to work solving the problem, which only his level could have done anyway - Reinitializing the modem. Email works again. It’s now a little after midnight. I thanked him for fixing it and then me and my MIL did a happy dance of victory.

See, seems the local TW office hadn’t done it it’s job. The modem was not taking her password because it hadn’t been cleared from the LAST person it was owned by. Only the email app checks into the server, so it was sending it in and erroring since we weren’t who it thought we should have been. It wasn’t the problem we started with, but it also sure the hell wasn’t our fault. It was a massive error on their local branches side, and I’m thinking Wednesday I’m going to call and raise holy hell about it to the office in question.

All this time my Mother in Law , 79, is steaming mad seeing me go through all this - she is raving how she doesn’t need the internet, how she’s had nothing but trouble (and it’s true she has), how she was regretting signing up for two years to save a few bucks and and how what they were doing to me was absolutely reprehensible. She was as stomping mad as I was broken.

So that is how my 15 minutes job on the way home turned into 6 hours of pure 7th ring pf tech support phone hell the broke my will to live and now why Mozart makes be burst into tears. (Yup till does, I was trying to find the song in question for this post, but can’t do it… )

So to pick up on the Belkin half of the saga again, Monday their “staff” was supposed to call me at MY house to set it the return, but managed to call my MIL instead (opposie what I had directed) and left a voicemail, but not a phone number. Of Course. So I had to call Tech support AGAIN. As soon as second the 30 second clip of the same stanza of Mozart starts again, (that god damn clip that I can’t find the name to) I lose it, entirely. I’m crying when Mr Mac calls through on call waiting. That stunned him a bit, as he knows I’m not a weepy pussy girl.

I come back to the hold just as they are picking up and I’m still crying. At this point he starts to explain how they do the exchanges. I have two options: pay in advance for a replacement to be refunded later after they get the broken unit or send mine in first and wait 20 days or so for a new one.

20 days!!! And he can’t even do it for me over the phone, I have to go to Belkin’s website to fill out paperwork for it. I tell him there is no way after this treatment I’m giving them my credit card number and I’ll fill out the stinking form. Thanks for nothing and making me call in for this again.

I hang up and get an idea. I call the place I bought it from, techonweb.com. he answers immediately I and tell them my saga and the guy doesn’t hesitate that of course they’ll take it back as long as it’s within 20 days. (only had it a week). I wanted to kiss the techonweb.com guy on the mouth. I hadn’t called them earlier since most times the internet places won’t take back warranty items making you go to the manfacturer, so I didn’t even think if calling them sooner. Within 12 hours the modem is being shipped, it’ll be here tomorrow. Techonweb.com rules! (many links for google love.)

Yesterday I call Time Warner, and only a few minute son hold I get get billing on the line and demand my MIL be comenstaed for all her un-service and MY time. I said someone is going to pay and she’s getting the money. They can only offer a measly $20 credit. I take it for now and tell them to apply it to her bill. It’s not a head on plate, but I’m not done yet. I’m sending this post to BOTH of my torturers.

Belkin and Time Warner SUCK!! (and I did that so it shows up in Google Searches. Bastards.)