Return to Sender, Address Unknown

This afternoon I was working from home, because fumes from roofing adhesive had been allowed to get into the ventilation system at work and it smelled awful, to say the least. I had been working several hours when suddenly my network connection went dead. Usually either my flaky router or the DSL is the culprit. Rebooting both didn't fix the problem and neither did rebooting my laptop. My phone even had a dial tone. Eventually, I decided to go out to dinner. That's the quick fix for any difficult situation, after all.

When we got back, my dad decided to try a direct wired connection from the router to the laptop. Then he tried connecting directly to the DSL. Nothing worked.

Finally, he suggested I try calling my cell phone number from my home phone. An automated recording said that I was being automatically redirected to Embarq. I was on hold for almost ten minutes and then the woman who answered took all my personal information. She read me my balance and said it wasn't due yet. I told her about the symptoms and she said they had put a hold on my account, because one of their mailings had been returned to them. She said that it could take up to four hours to restore my service, but thankfully it only took a few minutes, or I wouldn't have been writing this tonight.

A couple of months ago, I did get an answering machine message from an Embarq representative saying that they had received a piece of returned mail and asked me to call them back. I didn't, because I had continued to receive mail from them and my bill is drafted anyway. Why should they care as long as they get their money? It's not as if my address has changed in over three years.

So, without warning, without a follow-up call or an e-mail, they just cut off my phone service. Why don't they just sign me up for Time Warner services while I'm at it, to save me the trouble? Has Time Warner found this out and begun doctoring people's mail? If not, they might want to consider it.