| He should be more mad, in my opinion. It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It’s such a fundamental part of life at this point. At the minimum, users should get a “We are no longer willing to provide you service. You have two weeks before service will end. Please switch your number to another provider if you want to keep it.” Other than non-payment, are there other phone companies that simply disable your account without warning and without giving any reason? I can imagine something like, "You are required to live in this geographic range, but the majority of the time you are outside of it.” Or “You are too expensive to continue to support” or any number of other things. But man, no warning, no reason, no recourse, disappear your phone access? That’s just plain bad. |
People today laugh at "Ma Bell," but at least you could go to a local office and sit at a desk in front of someone who could actually fix your problem, no matter how ludicrous it was.
I once lived in a four-story apartment building. When I moved from the second floor to the fourth floor, I called to have my phone transferred. The person on the phone said there is no fourth floor in my building. This wasn't a new-build. It was over 100 years old, and was converted into apartments decades earlier. But the woman on the phone couldn't do anything because the computer said there were only two floors.
I walked down to my local Bell office, and sat down at one of those battleship green desk with a woman and told her my story. She said, "Oh, yeah! I know that building. I drive by it every day. Is it nice inside?" Then she pushed some buttons on the computer, and the next day a guy with a gold-and-blue striped hardhat showed up and rewired the punchboard.
You can't even call Google for help with Google Voice, let alone talk to someone who knows your neighborhood.