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Carla, however, won't budge. Since she came up with the internet theory on her own, she's
not about to surrender it so easily. We're at another stalemate. I pose a hypothetical ques-
tion to her as my last, desperate gambit.
“Carla, if you received a phone bill one month for 2000 Euro for phone calls to the moon
that you were sure you didn't make, how would you go about protesting the charges?”
“You could always try complaining to customer service.”
“Isn't this customer service?”
No, this is client services, she says with a sigh. How dumb can some people be? Customer
service is something else altogether, and they can only be contacted via fax. If I want to
make an appeal, I need to try my luck with them.
I thank Carla for her assistance and wish her a good afternoon. I go for a walk for an hour
in the countryside to decompress from my psychic battle, and to remind myself that it's
beautiful here, that I'm happy here, and that's why I put up with this crap. Later that after-
noon I sit down to compose my letter to customer service.
I study my phone bill more carefully and notice certain details about the special charges
that make it obvious that they are bogus. I decide to go on the offensive. I point out that
more than half the charges are based on calls that were made for less than a minute. In fact,
11 calls were exactly 17 seconds in duration, 14 calls lasted exactly 11 seconds—each at a
cost of 7 Euro. I ask, hypothetically, how and why anyone would make 11 calls that last for
precisely 17 seconds? Shouldn't this, in and of itself, alert customer service that these are
fraudulent charges?
Why, instead of investigating these obviously bogus charges, would the Telecom Italia rep-
resentative insist that I had made these calls? I absolutely refuse to pay these charges. I
insist on knowing exactly who it was that I supposedly called. I am sure that I am not the
only victim of this scam, and I expect that a formal investigation will be launched by Tele-
com Italia to determine how their billing system was infiltrated and compromised. And I
certainly expect to be kept informed as the investigation proceeds.
I sign my letter, Professor Samuel Hilt, with both my American and Italian addresses, and
fax it off. In Italy, everyone who finishes college is entitled to use the honorific title, “Doc-
tor”.But,using“Professor”inyoursignatureindicatesadvancesstudies.Idecidetogamble
that my aggressive tone and the possibility that I could be someone or know someone im-
portant will worry them just enough to get them to respond to me.
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