My Utilities Keep Switching

[lrjohnson]

I'm just generally annoyed that my utilities keep switching names.

My Pacific Bell became SBC. SBC became ATT. I pay for the privilege of having a phone, $17 a month for the two of us, no long distance. It feels like I have no choice in the matter.

My cable has switched to suddenlink. Besides having a ridiculous name, in my opinion, the advantage of having a cox.net address (7 characters....nice and short) is going away. I'll end up setting up a gmail account, so that I don't have that idiotic extension, and the next time it's bought out I won't have to switch my e-mail address with large number of places. Again, I feel like I have no choice. I don't want Dish or whatever, I don't want DSL. I want the cable internet, and the locally required channel 2-13 10 buck a month cable.

Everytime I get something that says something to the affect of "thank you for choosing suddenlink" or cox or SBC ...I'm just chapped. I never chose SBC or ATT or suddenlink. I like the sound of PacBell. I remember when Pac Bell was split off from ATT when I was a kid and I liked the Pacific part of the name.

Give me a choice. Or if I have no choice, stop changing company names or don't get bought out.

[34saving]

My favorite is when I look at my bank statements and all of the sudden withdrawls have changed names. For example my gas company has switched names at least three times. (And living in MN natural gas is really something one doesn't have a choice about )

[JanH]

I have also had my phone area code change a couple of times without moving....My folks had their house number change without moving.... It takes me forever to remember to change the name on my payments. The gas cards did it, my credit union changed names and now the credit cards are doing it. The phone and gas co. changed also. Come to think of it, not many of my bills go to the same name as a few years ago!

[shelbylovesmelby]

I hear ya! Too many company mergers & little competition on this end too.

[Ima saver]

My address was changed so many times when I lived 20 miles away that it affected my credit score cause they thought I moved 4 times. I was in the same house. My phone and cable company just changed their name too. Now they are Windstar! What does that have to do with phone and cable??

[PRICEPLUS]

No changes here for quite a while!