I’ve now spent three months trying to straighten out a cell phone bill. I upgraded to GSM in the middle of November’s AT&T’s customer service meltdown. Long story short: it took two weeks to get my phone working again and at the end of it I was being billed for three numbers.

Now there’s nothing I can do to straighten this out. Calling support results in 10-50 minute hold times. Email support is not empowered to help. Every three weeks I accumulate enough patience to wait through the horrible hold music. The person always politely and confidently assures me that she has fixed everything. Then I get another bill with another improper charge.

I realize this is fairly dull blog-fodder. Hostile customer service is so horrible precisely because there’s nothing a person can do but rant impotently. I even tried going the regulatory route, but near as I can tell there is no consumer protection from cell phone companies that overcharge you and don’t provide adequate customer care.