I was asked a while back to write an article for bartcop.com. At the time,
along with owning an insurance agency, I was also the manager for a group of
professional wrestlers called "The Texas Outlaws" and ole bartcop thought it
would be fun to have a political article based on pro wrestling action.
Unfortunately with the way the election turned out fact was stranger and funnier
than fiction so I just couldn't compete with the circus going on in Washington.

I was still very interested in doing a weekly article for bartcop so inquired as to
whether he would be interested in something that was consumer oriented.

My family recently sold our insurance agency located in "Knuckledrag" Oklahoma
and moved from the hustle and bustle of city life to the middle of almost 1000 acres
located in the hills of southeast Oklahoma.

Our choice was to sell the agency we owned in Tulsa and move to Wilburton
"the middle of nowhere" Oklahoma or let the insurance agency my grandfather
opened in 1951 close due to the retirement of my mother. Some of the things
I ran into during the move have caused me great motivation with regard to
stomping the guts out of the liars and thieves of corporate America.

I guess the individual that motivated me the most was a gentleman from the
Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages that informed me after I told him what the
terms of our original agreement were that "we're a corporation, we can do
anything we want including not honoring the terms of  the original agreement
and changing it anytime we feel like!".

Now that I've picked on one of the people I had trouble with (and I'll
expand on that story at another time) let's get down to some real business.

On November 14th my wife had an auto incident that involved a deer.
Something we have plenty of where were live.  My step-son ended up being
life flighted from Wilburton to Tulsa so it was necessary to make collect
phone calls from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of the hospital we were
in back home to his mother who was hospitalized in the local hospital where
we live.  Since the phones at St. Francis in Tulsa wouldn't allow for
operator assisted calls I did the only thing I could and tried 1-800-COLLECT.

It was easy enough to reach my parents house to let them know what was
going on so they could relay the information about my step son to his mother
in the other hospital. It all seemed really convenient at the time and based on
the commercials that proliferate our television should have been relatively
inexpensive. For lack of a better word the advertising is an out and out lie.

The first minute cost $3.99 and is 99 cents a minute after that. What this
amounts to is that you don't save any money. Well, I don't know about
the readers at bartcop.com but it just seems to me that over $1.00 per minute
is not only nothing to advertise about but telling people watching that it is
a good deal is nothing short of lying and fraud.

By the way 1-800-COLLECT is actually owned by MCI so if you're using them
for long distance service I might recommend you call them and fire them as
your long distance company and please, when you do so give them my name.

After the rude manner in which I was treated when I called about their ridiculous
prices I informed the lady that they would soon be hearing from people using
my name when firing them as their long distance provider so be sure when
you decide to switch to use my name "Cliff Downing" when firing them.

I might recommend that you try the new Southwestern Bell long distance service
if it is available in your area because from August 1st when we moved to nowhere
we've had very good luck with them even though their Yellow Pages division
seems to be full of high minded republicans.  Provided bartcop allows me to
continue in the coming weeks we'll discuss cell phone companies as well as
property management companies. Both of which I look forward to telling you
horror stories about.

In the mean time if you feel ripped off be sure and call to give em hell.
I'll in the mean time always be looking for ammunition for the article
so I'd love to hear your horror stories.

E-mail to downingc@swbell.net