Consolidated Communications → Three-state FP hearing in New Hampshire next month

From the Nashua Telegraph: Utilities regulators in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont have proposed holding a joint status conference next month to question FairPoint executives, including new CEO David Hauser, about their efforts to stabilize the company.

They also hope to discuss FairPoint's latest financial statements – the company lost $17.8 million in the second quarter of this year – and recent organizational changes, the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission announced Wednesday.

The meeting is scheduled for Sept. 9 at 1 p.m. in New Hampshire, although a precise location has yet to be announced.

»www.nashuatelegraph.com/ ··· news0121

The Concord Monitor's story on the hearing takes an interesting tack, leading with some numbers from the financial report:

According to the company's latest financial filings, it lost 9.3 percent of all access lines between June 2008 and June 2009. In northern New England, it lost 13.4 percent of its residential lines, 7.5 percent of business lines and 1.9 percent of broadband internet subscribers in the year's time. In each category, the company lost more in the second quarter of this year than in the first.

»www.concordmonitor.com/a ··· 08130309

We dumped Fairpoint in Jan, landline and DSL. Still get a statement every month, no new charges it just shows $35 in parentheses. We can't figure out if it's a credit they owe us, a past due they think we owe or what. Tried a couple times to call but they either couldn't find our records or we gave up after being on hold forever.

Sam

That should be a credit, Sam... the parentheses indicate they owe you, not the other way around.

They have owed me money for months, and I always get that same bill format. I would like my money back, as they took it from me three times over, but no dice...

Once they have your money, I have no idea how you get it back from them. To the best of my knowledge, they have no idea, either.

Don't talk to them: use fax. A fax is legally threatening to a business as it serves as a verifiable communication. Courts treat it same as a certified letter. Voice is too disputable. Check the BBB site: they usually have fax numbers in the business profile.

The routine I use for any dispute (or simply want action) is fax once, if no response (only happened to me one time in 10 years of this) within ten days, fax same again adding the "this my second fax, first was on [date]. Please respond", wait ten days then CC your state's Attorney General's Office. Keep everything simple, to the point, and civil.

It doesn't take much for me to turn to this solution as I find repeated calls to corporate customer service incredibly stressful. Email-to-fax services are cheap. Faxaway.com costs me $12/year with unlimited incoming, pennies per outgoing (something like 6c/minute connection time = 6 to 12 cents per fax).

G'luck!

Agree with the approach, and also agree that it generally works.

FP is an exception, however, and their lack of a working "chain of command" is, in part, why all of the hearings and overhauls are occurring.

There isn't anyone in charge to fax. There isn't anyone who knows the person responsible for any given issue. There isn't anyone who can even find any number of the actual accounts, for that matter...

Talking to one department merely gets you passed off to another, and even the PUC seems to be at a loss at this point as to what should be done.

In my case, if FP stays solvent through the first week in October, I be even with them, as I will have not paid them in months, and they took months of money from me that I did not owe them. It all comes even October 9.

You still may want to fire-off a few faxes to somebody, anybody, anywhere at FP just so you have a durable record of trying. Whomever takes over - should it come to that - is going to wade through a sea of billing resolutions. Yours will float straight to the top if they see more than just phone call records. They're not going to listen to all the recorded calls ... if, in fact, yours were recorded and FP doesn't lose or destroy them.

Again, best of luck. I have FP too (voice + dsl) but haven't had to deal with any of the billing crap you and others have suffered.