It’s been absolutely beautiful here in North Carolina and I’ve been too busy swimming in the ocean and soaking up the sun to write any posts this week. Other than two trips to the grocery store, (totaling $150), I haven’t spent any money. Our family has been sharing dinner responsibilities with my in-laws, which has kept food costs to a minimum for both families. We’ve eaten some very tasty grub over the past few days.
Unfortunately, we received a very large phone bill from Sprint for long distance calls made from our rental home during the rental season. One week of long distance calls resulted in a phone bill of nearly $280. We use Embarq as our local phone carrier and it’s unclear why our phone was not blocked during the rental season. In retrospect we’re lucky that calls were only made by one set of renters.
The rate for calls ranged from $1.80 to $2.20 per minute. I called Sprint and talked to a representative who kindly altered the bill to a lower rate for us. Within a matter of minutes the bill was reduced from nearly $280 to less than $85. I also called Embarq and made certain a block will prevent all future long distance phone calls.
We’ll be heading home from vacation on Sunday or Monday and after a two week vacation I am not looking forward to heading back to work. For now I’m going to enjoy the last few day or so of sunshine before Tropical Storm Hanna makes her way up the coast.
I’m surprised you had to pay it at all! If you have proof that you requested the blcok then the phone company should cover the cost completely as it’s their fault the block was removed.
I had a similar experience a few years back with a second line into my flat which had belonged to the company I worked for (the last person in the job rented the same flat and worked from home: long story)
I just thought it was a second extension of my main line and, because somehow my internet settings had reverted on my computer after I moved cities, unknowingly I was dialing long distance to use the internet.
When my company asked about the bill, I was able to provide a copy of the fax they’d sent to the telephone company requesting the line be cut off and so we ended up owing nothing…
@the shopping sherpa — I’m glad things worked out in your situation. Unfortunately, our local phone company is claiming that the phone line was never blocked. This seems odd, particularly since we’ve never received a long distance bill before now and we’ve been renting the home for over three years. Truth be told I never tried to make a long distance phone call prior to this incident, but I was not able to make a long distance call after receiving the bill. It’s all very odd, but I am unable to convince the local phone company that they played a role in this issue.