verizon wireless-working for you!

Ok. First ever blog rant!
I know that multinational conglomerates can be assholes, but wtf?
So I purchase a shiny new motorola Q ------------------------------------------------->

With a sweet $100 mail-in rebate its only 100 bucks or so, and I hated my old motorola phone so, so much.
So I get my shiny new phone and all is right, the interface is a bit clunky but whatev-. Hey I have an idea, I'll download only subject lines. Those short, sweet subject lines, and only from the previous three days, oh yeah, and only update once a day from yahoo. That should be such a small amount of data, that verizons crazy 15 dollars a megabyte wont phase me, like the man said, just a gentle breeze through my bank account, like 50 cents a month.

First bill-holy sweet 70 dollars, how did my phone manage to download 4 megs of subject lines? I call, they don't know, but at least their unpleasantly southern. I call again, this time they say they charge for bluetooth transfers?!? I call a third time and a friendly mom-type is very nice, but explains that verizon doesn't monitor what you download, only how much. I explain that there is no way that my 20 subject lines are 4 megs, but alas, she has no way to tell. Perhaps I should be glad that verizon cannot tell where my phone supposedly surfs, but It sounds kinda like fraud to me that they can pull a number out of their ass and I have no way to dispute my charges.

Anyway, so then I start thinking, oh shit wheres my rebate? No form was sent with the phone, and its been 15 days! I call and request a new rebate form. It does not come. I call today and they "just don't know why" I didn't receive the form, "A REQUEST WAS SUBMITTED". Unfortunately its too late to get a new form, as the rebate window has since lapsed. I point out that verizon has now charged me $170 (five dollars less than they charge to break their contract btw) for their crap infrastructure making mistakes. My Verizon rep who has less knowledge of their labyrinth site than your mom is not impressed. What can you do? I guess I should be happy that I'm learning so much about the absurdity of modern life. Maybe I'll right a book about calling trees.