How to Save the World

Two weeks ago, my modem conked out. I phoned Bell, Canada's largest corporation, and was put through two hours of tests involving unplugging all my phones and connected devices, plugging them back in one-by-one, and several tests from their location, before they acknowledged that the problem was their piece-of-crap Chinese modem. They wanted me to stay home for a day so that a service person could replace it. When I complained they said they'd send it by priority mail and would not require a signature when they delivered it. They sent it with a signature required, so I phoned again and was told I would have to speak to their 'customer care' department â€“ but I could only do that the next day during business hours. When I complained again they said they would instruct the courier to re-deliver it without a signature required. They did not do so, so I was without the modem until I could go and pick it up at the courier office the following weekend. They then sent me an e-mail with a customer satisfaction survey with 56 questions asking me whether I was pleased with their 'customer service'.

Then a week ago I got a letter from my insurance company, six months after they had sent an insurance appraiser to our house. The appraiser had miscalculated the size of the house and ignored the size information I supplied him with (from the real estate company), so there was a bill attached for some $160 for extra insurance on the higher appraised value. The appraised value is at least 30% higher than current market, which any survey of recent sales would have demonstrated. This is just price-gouging by the Canadian insurance oligopoly, since they all share and abide by each other's inflated appraisals. What's worse, they said that since I was unable to come up with the paperwork on our wood-burning fireplace insert, on the spot when the appraiser visited, they had 'concluded' that it was an 'illegal' installation and ordered us (in the middle of a sub-zero cold snap) to stop using the fireplace or face having our insurance revoked.

Then yesterday, after two weeks of coping with leaks into our living room through our six-month-old roof (warranted for 20 years), the roofing contractor called back to say that (a) since it was caused by ice-damming, it was not covered by the warranty, (b) if I didn't go on the (30-foot-high) roof immediately and get the snow and ice off by salting and heating it, it could cause structural roof damage that also wouldn't be covered by the warranty, (c) he doesn't do de-icing and doesn't know anyone who does ("it's dangerous and you have to tether yourself to a firm support"), and (d) "everybody" and "thousands of people" are facing the same problem this year (though I have canvassed the neighbourhood and found no one who has had this problem, and there's been no mention of it in the local press).