The Rage: Tech Support Edition

I feel the need to vent about the general incompetence and stupidity of humanity for a second here. Especially regarding Clearwire and other broadband service providers. Because of moving into a blind spot, I had to cancel my Clearwire account. By the way, don't ever use their service. Its spotty and slow at the best of times. Canceling my account was the biggest pain in the ass I had to deal with in this move, closely followed by the Comcast installation debacle which I will get into later.

Clearwire uses a wireless modem that picks up on their satellite signal to give you access to the world wide web. There's something in my new building that blocks that signal, so I had to call customer service to see if the problem could be resolved. Three weeks, one visit from a technician, and six calls to "customer service" (hah.) later, the situation still isn't resolved. Here's a timeline.

Call #1
I move my modem from my old apartment to the new one, confident that my internet service is indeed portable. After all, that's what the nice people at Clearwire told me. After being plugged in, the modem completely fails to get service. After spending some time on hold with elevator music that keeps cutting out, a tech support guy walks me through the troubleshooting process. This entails trying the modem in every room of the apartment, including the bathroom and the outside porch, to see if it can get service anywhere. It can't. I'm annoyed. The tech concludes that the modem must have gone bad and sends me a new one. It will arrive the next day via UPS.

Call #2
I wake up early the next day and call Clearwire to track my modem. They tell me the UPS driver is already on route, and my window of time for waiting is 10am to 5pm. No, they can't give me a more specific window of time. I wait, afraid to take a shower or leave the apartment because everyone knows the UPS truck always comes during those five minutes you're unavailable. Finally the modem arrives, and I power it up with a crawling sense of forboding. It, too, completely fails to get a signal.

Call#3
I appraise the tech support people of the situation, and they decide finally that I'm probably in a blind spot. But there's no way to know for sure unless a tech comes out to my house and does basically the same thing I've just finished doing - plugging the modem into every outlet in every room to see if there's that ONE little sweet spot where I can get internets. The tech will come the next morning.

Tech Visit
This is the least frustrating part of the whole process, excepting the fact that it had to happen at all. To his credit, the technician showed up right on time. It takes him less than ten minutes to figure out that I can't get signal in my apartment, and he promises to note that in my account so I won't get charged any early termination fees when I call to cancel. He tells me to wait a couple hours for the notation to appear in the system before I call. I ask him what I should do with the two modems I now have in my possesion. He agrees to take the newer one, but says that I will have to ship the old one back myself. I grumble impotently about stupid red tape and bureaucracy.

Call #4
I tell the people I need to cancel my account. They see the notation on the account, and assure me that I will not have to pay the early termination fee. But the billing cycle has just started, so my account has already been charged for the next month. They assure me that the charge will be reversed as soon as they recieve the modem from me. Joy. I walk down the UPS store that day and ship the offending piece of machinery back to its masters.

Call#5
A week later, the charge is still lurking on my account, so back I go to the labyrinth that is the Clearwire phone system. By this time, I've memorized the choppy elevator music. A technician finally comes on the line and verifys my identity. I ask him if he can tell me whether or not they've recieved the modem yet, and when the charges to my account will be reversed. After a pause, he tells me the modem has been recieved, but that I am still liable for an early termination fee.
I pause. Count to ten.
Attempting half-successfully to keep the sheer fury out of my tone, I tell him that he is mistaken. I remind him that I had a technician come out to my house to verify my tragic lack of signal precisely to avoid paying a fee. Otherwise, I would not have had said tech out to my house at all. The man asks if I moved into the blindspot, implying that it was my own fault for moving somewhere their puny satellite could not reach. I ask him to verify his information, and he puts me on hold again. Several minutes, and half an aneurism later, he comes back on the line. He tells me my previous information is not wrong, and I don't have to pay the fee. Somehow, he managed to admit he was wrong without admitting outright that he was, indeed, wrong. I ask as politely as I can when I can expect to get my money back. He says it should take 2-5 business days, but since there is a holiday coming it could take a little longer.

Call #6
It has now been over twice five business days, so I call back to find out where the hell my money is at. I find out that the last tech I spoke to hadn't even put the request for a refund through yet, and now I have to wait ANOTHER 2-5 business days. I wish that I had gotten his name so I could file a vitriolic complaint. Also, at this point, I am angry enough that I would be pretty happy with your standard voodoo ritual, so I further wish I had some of the guys hair. Having none of these things, I am left to fume until next Wednesday when, presumably, I will have gotten my money back. If not, back I go to broadband hell.

I mean, seriously, who the hell hires these people?