Chazography

I went to Barnes & Noble the other day in an effort to get away from campus and get some work done. I rarely study off campus because most of what I do requires an Internet connection, and I don’t feel like having to fork out money every time I decide to use B&N’s wireless hotspot, SBC Freedomlink. Nonetheless, I decided to go ahead and fork out the money for one day because, afterall, it was just one day. Little did I know how much I would regret that decision. After looking at the different connection plans offered, I decided to go for the Prepaid Connection option which according to the SBC Freedomlink website, “Provides a day of unlimited access at any FreedomLink Hot Spot. Prepaid Connections are available in increments of 3, 8 and 20 days.” Yeah, right.

In any case, I forked out $25 for the Prepaid Plan with 3 connections since it was the cheapest of all the offered options. In reality, I only wanted one day, but there was no option for this. Still, at $8.33 per day this was much cheaper and a much better deal than paying $3.95 per two hour time block. Since I planned on being at B&N from open until close, I would have paid almost what I paid for the 3 full day connections. Well, as it turns out, SBC Freedomlink decided to screw me over and count each of my 3 full day connections as 2 hour connections; yes, you’re reading that right. That translates to $8.33 per two hour time block instead of $8.33 per day.

Being more than a little upset, I decided to write an e-mail to the company asking them to rectify this situation in accordance with the listing on their website. It has been three days and I still haven’t heard from them! I’m really beginning to wonder if I’m the only person to have been screwed over like this; I can’t imagine a company would stay in business very long if they treated all their customers this way. Let’s recap what happened here:

• Paid for 3 full day connection which were treated as 3 two-hour connections.
• Wrote an e-mail requesting rectification of my problem.
• 3 days later I still have not received any sort of correspondence from SBC Freedomlink

If I don’t hear back from them soon, I guess I will have to dispute the charge and deal with it that way. After this experience, I will certainly be wary of anywhere that uses SBC Freedomlink hotspots.