Ideally, I would like to port my landline number to Google Voice, giving ultimate flexibility with handling incoming calls. But number portability to Google Voice is currently not an option.

My second choice would be to port the landline number to a VOIP phone service.  I would, of course, still need an internet provide for the VOIP service to work.  Currently, my DSL internet is not through AT&T, but it is through another company called DSL Extreme.  But although third party DSL service such as DSL Extreme can be used “standalone” (without landline service) in a Verizon service area (as is the case for another property of mine), is not available standalone in an AT&T service area.

So that means I would have to pay more to go with AT&T standalone DSL or cable internet.  Either option would run me about $40 a month for the most basic service, since it wouldn’t be bundled with cable TV or any other services.  (I get the network TV channels over the air just fine, thank you.)  I’m currently paying about $25 per month for a 3.0 Mbps connection with DSL Extreme (an upgrade from the basic $20 per month for the 1.5 Mbps).  Therefore, any savings from switching to VOIP would mostly be offset by the increased cost for the internet connection.

Furthermore, all of the above is moot right now, since my current DSL Extreme contract doesn’t expire until late 2010.  So my plan is to wait and to re-evaluate the situation then.

Now back to the latest update. I called the number listed on my phone bill for any questions about MCI charges, and the call went straight to AT&T. After a couple of transfers, they were able to get me to the right department that handles the third party billing. Other than the U-Verse sales pitch at the end (which I’m guessing is mandatory), the agent was helpful and was able to go back to the last couple of months to refund me about $100.

That leaves an additional $200 that I suppose I could go through MCI to resolve. I have a feeling that I would end up spending more than $200 of effort to recover it, though. I may just consider it a lesson learned to keep a closer eye on the phone bill next time around.

On another note, there was a $9.95 charge on the latest bill for a third party billing from a company called Text Savings, LLC. Not having any idea why this charge was here, I called the toll free number shown on the listing. Here’s the experience of someone else who called to question a similar charge, from this webpage.

“I asked her the name of the business attached to my home phone number that they billed via ATT … it was a .com business name I registered about 10 years ago. We never incorporated and never operated as a business, but we had a .com name reserved for our Web site. This company is buying old lists or databases of .coms and billing the phone numbers attached at random.”

My scenario was similar: also about ten years ago a group of four of us had registered a .com name for a website we were going to put together as part of a new organization, but the website and the organization never got off the ground. The address on record was for another partner (who incidentally passed away over a year ago), but my phone number was on the listing. When I called and explained the situation they said they would reverse the charge.

The poster quoted above suggested calling AT&T to have a “third party block” put on the landline and the cell phone. Sounds like an excellent idea to me, if it will really prevent unauthorized third party charges on my bills. The downside is that I wouldn’t be able to do stuff like text my vote for my favorite American Idol, but I can live with that!

As a final side note, a friend of mine commented that he was surprised MCI was still around after all these years. In my internet searches I stumbled on one potential reason – they have lucrative contracts with many correctional departments to provide collect calling services from prisoners!

For a period after making the switch, we would get a “this call can not be completed” when trying to make a local toll call.  We thought nothing of it, because we thought it was a natural part of the changeover, and in the interim we just used our cell phones for the occasional local toll call.  Soon enough the local toll calls started going through again, so we figured the hangup was a temporary glitch in the system.

Now I have to admit to not looking very closely at the phone bills over the last year, as they are not very high. But our most recent bills for the last couple of months seemed a bit steeper, prompting closer examination.  I noticed we had made more local toll calls this time around – and at the rate of $1.19 per minute! I can call internationally for cheaper than that! Also surprising was that I was still being billed by MCI!

I called AT&T to get more information, and they confirmed that I had switched to an AT&T plan that covered local toll calling, but the switchover from MCI to AT&T for local toll calls didn’t happen.  They put in a work order to fix it from today forward. That’s all I was really going to get from them on this call, and I figured it best to look at the old bills before deciding what to do on the old charges.

After I got home from work, I checked all of my phone bills back to the beginning of 2009. Up to June 2009, MCI charged 10 cents a minute for daytime and 5 cents a minute for nighttime local toll calls.  Then from July 2009 onward, the rate jumped up to $1.19 per minute!  So in that time period, I’ve been charged over $300 for calls that should have cost only $30!

I also noticed the following text at the bottom of the MCI section of the March 2009 bill  (and a couple of subsequent bills also):

Our records indicate that you have requested to cancel your MCI account. If you want to continue to use MCI, please promptly all the 800 number on your invoice. Otherwise, please call your local phone company to switch your service to a new long distance carrier in order to avoid being charged possible higher casual calling rates and surcharges on future calls.

Hmmm, now I can see how this is going to play out when I pursue this with MCI and AT&T.  AT&T is going to say that they have no control over MCI’s billing and that I need to deal with them.  MCI is going to say, “well, we warned you” and blame AT&T for dropping the ball and say it’s not MCI’s problem.  And neither will provide any clarity to the sequence of events surrounding the local toll service being disabled for a while and later re-enabled, which is the crux of the mixup.

If anyone has been through this kind of situation before, I would love to hear your experiences before I proceed further!

(26 April 2010 – Here is an update on the situation)

• Twitter feeds:  SanBernardinoNF, AngelesNF, inciweb – for the Sheep Fire, use #Sheep_CABDF
• Wrightwood Forum – a great local forum with a high signal-to-noise ratio
• Inciweb

Here’s a few links specific to the Sheep Fire:

• Inciweb information for Sheep Fire
• Burn area map – overview
• Burn area map – topo with street grid of Wrightwood visible

Now, just 8 months later, the pilot light started going out.  It’s easy enough to relight, but it only stays lit long enough to heat up the tank once before going out again.  I called Whirlpool technical support and got someone from Johnson City, TN.  They said to check the thermocouple to make sure it generating at least 12 mV of current.  Mine was generating 20 mV, so no problem there.

After that, I did some research online.  It turns out that there was a class action lawsuit for those who purchased a Whirlpool gas water heater between 2000 and 2006.  Furthermore, even those who purchased Whirlpool gas water heaters after 2006 are also having problems.  Finally, there is this forum thread, with over 47,000 hits and many plumbers saying that they have spent so much time on service calls for these water heaters.

I called technical support back Thursday.  This time I got someone from India.  I indicated that the thermocouple was OK but I was still having problems.  It was obvious that I was not the first caller to have this problem.  They are overnighting a new gas valve for free and gave me an authorization number and a contact who will install the valve at no cost to me.

I received the gas valve on Friday, but too late to get a hold of the plumber to make an appointment to install.  It looked identical to the current gas valve.  From my research it appears that the root of the problem is the poor design of the air intake which gets clogged, with the only way to clean it to completely remove the gas assembly.  Maybe when the plumbers change the gas valve, they clean the air intake from the inside, which it what really solves the problem – until the intake gets clogged again.

I decided not to waste any time getting the valve replaced and so Saturday morning I called technical support.  This time again I was connected to someone in India.  I told them that I wanted to return authorization number to return the water heater to Lowe’s.  After much back and forth, and a refusal to provide a return authorization, the agent said she would transfer me to a senior technician.  I asked if he would be able to help me and I got a wishy-washy “yeah…..”  I waited on hold for five minutes for this supposed senior technician, after which I was disconnected.

I called Whirlpool support from their main website, and they said they could do nothing because they license their name on the water heaters made by American Water Heater Company and I would have to go through them.  I explained the reason I was calling Whirlpool was that I was getting nowhere with AWHC.  The only thing the Whirlpool agent could do was record my complaint.

The first priority was to restore hot water for the family, as I would be traveling on Monday.  So later that day I bought a new GE water heater from Home Depot and installed it.  I would deal with getting rid of the Whirlpool water heater later.

Sunday I went to my local Lowe’s, without the water heater and explained my situation to the lady at the returns desk.  She said if I had the water heater with me I could return it if I wasn’t satisfied with the product.  I mentioned that I had to go home and get it, so I was back with it about an hour later.  There was a different person at the returns desk when I returned.  She had to call a manager in the plumbing department to authorize the return.  The conversation went like this:

Manager: “Are you going to exchange this for a new water heater?”
Me: “No.”
Manager: “Why not?”
Me: “Because it’s a piece of crap.”
Manager: “You know, the other ones across the street (i.e., Home Depot) are the same ones made by American Water Heater Company.”
Me: “No they’re not.”
Manager: “Are you sure?”
Me: “Yes, they’re GE water heaters made by Rheem.”

At that point he said nothing else to me, turned the cashier, and authorized the return.  Finally, success!

The return process was less painful than I had expected.  I felt a bit bad for the manager because it was obvious that he knew of the problems with these water heaters, but he probably had instructions from above to do some token push back on the returns.

Meanwhile, back “down the hill”, we had a few leaks to deal with from the rain.  One of the roof tiles had slid out, luckily I was able to climb up a ladder and push the tile back in with a shovel.  While I was up there, I noticed that a piece of another tile had broken off – I covered it with a tarp temporarily.  I’ll have to work on permanent fixes once the rain stops.  In addition, in our family room with the vaulted ceiling, the caulking had cracked between the bottom of the picture window and the trim piece below.  So water leaked behind the trim piece and down behind the window below.  I’ve got plastic taped up there for now, but a permanent fix will have to wait after the rain.