Alphabet Soup

I got my telephone bill yesterday.
Verizon N. W. I should just look
at the bottom line and make out
the check and save myself stress
time. As you have to be part
lawyer and part CPA to under
stand it. Besides it is a monopoly,
you really don't have a heck
of a lot of choice.

I look at each month anyway.
There is an Alphabet soup of
letters there. There is USBI,
FUSF,and USF which they tell me
is going to change in charges
(of course it is up, but they don't
tell me how much more) and
they informed me that the
FCRA would also turn me
in, if I didn't pay my bill promptly.

Which kind of irritates me, because
so far, I have paid my bill
as soon as it gets here. The money
goes out the next day. So I don't
like being threaten. Bad enough that
they give you less than a week to get
the money to them. Well, it is 10
days, but they want you to pay it
at least 5 days before the due date,
because it has to be in their office
in that 10 days. And they could
care less if your pay day doesn't
come within that time. You just better
know how much it is and save it
from your last payday.

So I play, I can guess what the
bill is... so I save out that much
plus 5 dollars more. And if I gamble
well, I will have enough money.
If not, well, folks there goes the
grocery money.

But having a computer helps give
you better odds, because you can
go to their site and find out 4 days
earlier what the amount is. Oh, they
will send out a computer advance
notice for you if you like. But so far
that has showed up the night before
I get the bill. Big deal.

Anyway, this month I got some
more letters. ZPDI which bills
for AGM. I thought they had to
be kidding. Then I read down the
bill to find out... and did you know,
that Verizon does not handle their
own collection calls? I was surprised.
I called the toll free number to find
out what was the deal. To be told
that ZPDI who handles it for AGM,
handles this for Verizon. Which irritates
me because, why do I need 3 companies
(Verizon is kind enough to collect the
money for these companies) over just
one call. Which the King accepted.

And the deck is stacked. One charge is
Idaho Bill Statement Fee.. $1.45 and
then there is the Operator Assisted Call
which that was $1.91 a minute. Lucky for
us it was only one minute.Then there is
the usually Fed. tax and etc.

See I don't accept collect calls.
Did once it cost us $6.75!!! for a
minute and half. So I hang up
and by some miracle the person calls me
back. Also I have caller Id so I could call
back if it is someone I want to talk to.

So there you are Alphabet Soup.
FCRA = Fair Credit Reporting Act
FUSF = Federal Universal Service Fund
USF = Idaho Universal Service Fund
IUSBI=no words for these letters but
I bet the U stands for Universal. And
isn't it contradicting to have Idaho
and Universal?
And now ZPDI
and AGM no words for them
either. .(althought I thought
of a few)

I really should just pay the bill.