They Think They Know Best

So got this call yesterday about an extra charge on a customer’s bill. Now we are all going through this pandemic, it has been, and is continuing to be stressful. It is frustrating that these companies think they know what’s best for their customers when really that is far from the truth. A carrier network that I work for is doing a Covid Connect, which is supposed to help customers who can’t pay their bill. It isn’t really much help though because you only get 1 month deferred and you have to make those payments each month for that 1 month that has been deffered. Now I can understand if a customer asked for it, but in this case the customer never asked to have it, but yet was getting charged to make up that 1 month referral. Honestly the phone call was upsetting because I couldn’t help her. She cant be refunded, her bill is higher, and she does not have a job right now. She is upset because she is living frugal with savings at the moment and the bill is out of her budget now. From talking with other coworkers there seems to be a ton of customers calling in on this issue because this network carrier has a system set in place that determines what accounts they think are going to be at risk and goes ahead applying the Covid Connect to their account. Customers have every right to be angry because they didn’t ask for it, they didn’t verbally consent for it. This shit is just beyond frustrating and this company needs to mind their own business. If a customer needs help they will call and ask for it. Otherwise don’t give customers an extra charge they don’t need. I really want to cuss these higher ups out.