Random Story – I never received a bill

This is just an odd little story from my life.

When I first moved into my old apartment – probably around 2005 – I only had cable and a landline.  But at some point, I decided to get internet.  Well, there was a company that bundled all three, so I signed up with them.  They came and hooked everything up, and everything was fine.  At some point after a month or two, I realized that I hadn’t gotten a bill, and I wondered if they only billed every quarter.  That seemed odd, but I had other things to do and didn’t feel like digging out the paperwork from when I signed up, so I never really thought about it.

On my phone I had a voice mail system.  If I had a message, whenever I picked up the phone there would be a beep.  Otherwise, I’d just get a dial tone.  Most of the messages I got were along the lines of an unnamed bank calling Mister Johnson to discuss an issue with his account.  I’d get a couple of these a week.  But then one week I realized it had been several days since I had gotten any message.  It seemed a little odd, but I had other things to do so never looked into it.

And then I had to call someone and the message came up that the number had been disconnected.  At first I thought it meant the number I was calling, but no, it was my phone that had been disconnected. 

I called the company and they said I was disconnected because I never paid my bill.  I said I never got a bill.  And then I found out that everything was messed up.  First off, instead of Stephen Thompson, the account was in the name of Stan Thomas.  And I lived in like apartment 203, but the address they had was for 314.  Apparently, I had been disconnected for several days – maybe a week? – but I never noticed.  (I didn’t call that many people.)  I don’t know if they disconnected the cable and internet to apartment 314, but it didn’t affect me since I didn’t live there.  They were able to disconnect my phone, but every time I picked it up to check for messages I heard a dial tone so I assumed it was working. 

I don’t know how things got so messed up, but I was able to get everything fixed and under my name and at my address.  And I paid off the months I didn’t receive bills for.  I can’t remember if I had to pay a late fee, or if the operator who fixed it all waved that since the screwup was on their end.