Errant squirrels can thank Time Warner The Advocate, by Dan Higgins
First published in print: Sunday, November 30, 2008
Joseph Cea of Delmar is paid to deal with pesky creatures. His business, C&C Wildlife Management, goes into attics and traps squirrels, mice and bats. Last week, he trapped a beaver, whose dam on a creek was flooding a resident's basement. And, once, Cea even removed some unwelcome squirrels from the governor's mansion. If the varmint has four legs or wings, Cea can deal with it.
But Cea, who has owned his business for the last 11 years, now has a pest of his own to deal with and there is nothing in his tool kit that can help him. The creature causing his trouble? Time Warner Cable. Specifically, its digital phone service.
In 2006, Cea placed his first ad in the phone book and his business took off immediately. He went from about $7,000 in business the year before, to more than $18,000 in 2006, he said. Since he only paid about $1,200 for the ad, he considered it an excellent bargain.
The first sign that something went wrong came in February 2006, as Verizon — the phone book's publisher — was beginning to prepare its phone book for 2007. Someone from Verizon called him to tell him that their records showed his phone number had been disconnected.
"I told them, 'It can't be disconnected. You're talking to me on it now,'" Cea said. Cea thought that was the end of it.
The following February, the Verizon phone book came out and Cea turned to his ad, under "Pest Control." Only, it wasn't there. He had been paying his bill on time, so he couldn't imagine what had happened. He called Verizon and found out that his number came up as "unpublished." And Verizon can't publish a number that, according to its records, is supposed to be unlisted.
How did that happen?
The answer, Cea discovered, was with Time Warner Cable. Several years ago, Cea switched his phone service to the cable company in order to save money. At some point, Time Warner switched the status of his phone number from "published" to "unpublished."
A customer service representative at Time Warner told him that it was because he was using his residential number as his business phone, as well, which, according to this representative, was against Time Warner's rules.
"If they had a problem with that they should have told me," Cea said. "They could have sent me a letter, or something, and I would have got a second phone number. But I got nothing."
As a result, business suffered. Cea estimates receipts dropped about $15,000 from the previous year. He wants someone at Time Warner to explain to him what happened, but he feels he's not being taken seriously. "They keep saying, "Yeah, yeah, we'll look at it,'" Cea said.
Verizon did what it could to help after Cea explained the situation. The company allowed him to buy Internet advertising at steeply discounted prices, a gesture which Cea appreciated.
"But it's not the same as being in the phone book."
In 2008, Cea's ad returned to the Verizon book and business immediately rebounded. This time of year, by the way, is prime time for squirrels looking for warmth in attics. ..................................http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=745075
Logged
