March 2016

My best friend asked me to write this story because it made him laugh. It is a story about something I learned from my mama many years ago—don’t take crap from other people. My parents divorced when I was 11, so I learned a little more from my mother than I probably would have otherwise.

If you take crap from other people, people are always going to give it to you. Are you willing to take it for the rest of your life? I wasn’t. I get it and I can dish it too. Maybe that is one of the problems with many people these days. There is a lot of crap in the world_mostly government and large corporations.

Anyway, back to my story. I don’t take crap! One case in point, I live in the country and internet has been difficult. Remember dial-up? Thank goodness that is no longer around. I thought satellite was the answer to my problems, and it was fairly fast, but around here it was unreliable. Maybe it was the provider. Anyway it didn’t work very well.

Sprint had a plug-in device which they claimed would give me reliable fast internet service anywhere through the local cell phone service tower. I had a Sprint phone and it worked well. I originally got the Sprint phone due to the proximity of the tower which I researched before I bought the phone.

Well, I bought the device, disconnected the satellite service and plugged the Sprint device in, and voila, internet service. Was it fast? No! Not much better than dial-up. Was it dependable internet service? No! It kept going out. I don’t think it would stay connected for more than a couple hours, then I was out of service. It did this over and over and no way was weather a factor. It was a bad device. Sprint replaced the unit and it was no better, though they checked the device at the store and said it was working fine. It just wouldn’t work in my area even though I was close to a Sprint cell tower.

I contacted the Sprint home office and cancelled the service and tried to get them to refund my money. Well, they would not, and on top of that I was slapped with a $200 early disconnect fee. Bullshit!

I immediately contacted a new satellite service provider and got new service. Satellite internet is the only option and the new service is not what it claims, but the best I’ve had.

Back to Sprint, I threatened to sue them if they did not refund my money for the device, rescind the early disconnect fee and reimburse me for phone charges for the device. I did not ask for much—only what I figured the device had cost me, all in all less than $500.

How did they respond? They ignored me, completely and repeatedly! I did a little research and filed a lawsuit in District Court, as the Sprint Home Office is located in another state. I did this without a lawyer, but was ready to hire one if necessary. Filing a lawsuit is easy with just a little knowledge which I picked up with some research.

As soon as the Sheriff’s Office delivered the summons to the Sprint Office, I got a phone call from the lawyers at Sprint. They wanted to settle out of court, and immediately. We cut a deal over the phone and the lady said it would take a couple weeks for me to get the check. It took two days! I dropped the lawsuit.

Case two in point. A few weeks ago I ordered some netting to cover my garden and some zip ties to attach the netting to the fencing. The netting was perfect, but when I tried to attach it to the fencing with the zip ties, many of the zip ties broke in my hands and many more broke while attaching. They were extremely brittle like they were very old from sitting in a hot warehouse somewhere for years.

I had bought the ties at Amazon and wrote to the supplier through Amazon about the ties. The ties only cost $11 and the supplier offered to pay $4 for the bad ties. I didn’t want money, I wanted good ties. They offered $5 and then $6 as a refund, but I insisted I didn’t want money. They also said I had to remove the bad feedback from Amazon before they would send the money. I told them that wasn’t going to happen and that the feedback would only get worse if I didn’t get my new zip ties. As much hassle as they were giving me it wasn’t about the money anymore. I wanted new and useable ties to attach my netting. Then, they asked if I wanted them to send me new ties. Duh! I got the new ties a few days later and they are not brittle and look to be a size larger. Perfect!

It is a little extra work to deal with companies who want to jerk you around, but the satisfaction of beating them when they only want to screw you is worth it. So, the next time you don’t get what you pay for, don’t take the crap. If you do, the crap will grow exponentially for everyone. Maybe my actions will save someone else from a big headache from big business.

I also post this true story in tribute to my mother for Mother’s Day. She will be 93 years old in a couple weeks.