Internet down, grrrrrr

I'm pleased to say that there is consistency with internet and phone companies all over the world - they pretty much suck. Last Wednesday our internet stopped working. This can happen in India at random times, but usually within a day it's back up and running. It was not running on Thursday and we were leaving for a long weekend, so I wanted to get the ball rolling with having it fixed. I called the company and they said that we hadn't paid our bill. I let them know we had not received a bill yet for this month. Then Greg called when he got home from work. So, they sent a person to collect the money over to our flat. The bill was for three months because their records showed we had not paid our bill for three months. (grrrr) I explained we gave the money to the school and they paid the bill. He showed me their online records (the internet worked for him to do this?!) which showed it had not been paid. (During this time I tried to keep my cool but I couldn't. Then when Greg rang that he was at a friend's having a beer and did I want to join, I was pissed. He's having a beer while I'm dealing with this!! By the end of the money collector's time at our flat, I think he couldn't wait to get the heck out of there. Poor guy, he was just sent to collect the money). I rang up Manish, our go to person for many things, and he spoke to the company guy. Manish let me know he had the receipt but it was at the school. (School was closed early Thursday due to an impending verdict about land - Muslim or Hindi. The whole country was worried about riots. The streets of Mumbai were empty, which was great for Greg and I to bike around. The judges could not agree with a verdict, so it's put off for three months). So, Manish said he could deal with it on Monday and we should just pay the bill. Monday comes, Greg took our receipt of paying the full amount to Manish (our internet was still not on after paying the full amount three days earlier) and handed it over to Manish. Quickly, Manish, not the internet company, figured out the company had not canceled the previous occupant's account, so two were open for our flat. It was corrected, we were assured that we would be credited for three months of service (only time will tell but I'm not holding my breath) and our internet would be back on. Mmmmm, nope. It was still not working on Tuesday. A technician was sent over on Wednesday afternoon. He tried a bunch of things and then called another person. That person told me I'd need to call the call center to get a new password. (I was over ranting at this point). I asked for the number, he didn't know it. I asked the technician and luckily he knew it by heart. Just as the woman said hello, the technician had it up and running. It took another two minutes to explain to the woman on the phone it was all fine. She still wanted a record to show that I had called and things were fine, so I gave her my account info and humg up. The Technician had "found" the correct password. Ahhhhhhhh! This company did not keep good records, shut off our internet before the bill was due and before the bill even arrived. Shutting off our service had cost them man hours and us disatisfaction. Was it worth it? In a country where so many things don't work well, this company has turning off services down pat. You just have to smile and say, "ah, India." BUT I've realized I've been frustrated with communication companies for YEARS. My conclution is communication companies all suck equally. At least we have internet again...and thankfully there is such thing as the internet. OM.