Star-Telegram.com: Dave Lieber

Keller teen's death illustrates importance of flu shots

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:12 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

Taylor Moon’s flu was getting worse. His mother called the doctor’s office and was told, "Bring him in tomorrow morning." A few hours later, Taylor, 15, of Keller, stopped breathing.

Less than five days after coming down with the flu, he was dead. It was Valentine’s Day.

"It’s unreal," Susan Moon said recently. "You feel like it isn’t happening."

At first, the cause of Taylor’s death was listed as complications from the flu. But weeks later, autopsy results showed that he was infected with something rare and little known — MRSA pneumonia.

People familiar with the antibiotic-resistant MRSA superbug know that it is usually passed through open sores and wounds. But little is known about MRSA pneumonia, which piggybacks on cases of the flu.

Statistics about the illness and related deaths are not kept in most states, including Texas. But one study showed that cases are on the rise, especially among teens.

Taylor didn’t have any open sores, his mother said. "A lot of people think we ignored a skin infection on him." If only. He would have had a fighting chance.

Moon worked to get over the shock of her son’s death. She became a watchdog and has gathered valuable information about MRSA pneumonia.

She learned that two weeks before Taylor died, U.S. doctors received a medical advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asking them to look out for young patients with influenza. Doctors who were suspicious about the illness, the advisory stated, should test patients for MRSA.

Taylor never got a test. Moon wishes she had known about the advisory.

"You know parents will go through hell and back for their sick child," she said. "I just want the parents to have the knowledge to know to demand" the MRSA test.

Flu shots

This year, the recommended age for those who should get a flu shot has changed, partly because of MRSA pneumonia fears.

Now, the recommended age for shots is 6 months to 18 years. Flu shots are also recommended for adults older than 50, pregnant women and healthcare workers.

Why emphasize flu shots? Doctors say the best way to prevent MRSA pneumonia is to prevent an initial flu bout.

Moon wants parents to understand the new recommendations. She also wants to lobby state lawmakers next year to increase MRSA reporting requirements in Texas.

A test program is under way in several cities, but statewide infection statistics aren’t kept. A new state panel on infectious diseases has been slow to start because it lacks funding.

Elsewhere, a new California law requires that high-risk patients in hospitals be tested for MRSA within 24 hours of admittance.

Deaths must be reported to the state, too.

Most other states do not have similar requirements. In Texas, hospitals say they voluntarily test patients for MRSA.

Fight with hotel over missing clothes offers lesson

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:55 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

Air Force Sgt. Emily Kifer is a tough cookie. Although stationed in Colorado, she’s in Fort Worth for 90 days to train new soldiers on how to stay safe in convoys when they go to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base at Carswell had no short-term housing for her, so she checked into The Cattle Baron’s Quality Inn on South Cherry Lane in Fort Worth. The government pays the bill.

One day in late September, while she worked at the base, she says somebody removed a bag of her best civilian clothing from her room. The clothing was bundled in a special bag used for the hotel dry-cleaning service. A proper receipt was attached. She figured the maid took it to the front desk for her in an act of kindness.

After three days went by, she asked about her clothing. Hotel staff didn’t know anything. She kept asking. Eventually, a manager said a housekeeper placed the bag in the lost and found. They gave Kifer the clothing, but when she opened the bag, it wasn’t hers.

The soldier continued to seek a resolution with hotel supervisors. But there was fine print on the bottom of the dry-cleaning receipt, and hotel management was quick to point to it: losses must be reported within 24 hours.

General Manager Trina Taylor wrote her that if the items were reported missing the first night "we could have been of better assistance in finding out what happened to the clothing."

That first day, though, the sergeant assumed her clothes were at the dry cleaner.

Kifer complained to corporate headquarters, Choice Hotels International, where she was told her complaint would be forwarded back to the hotel. She returned, as told, to hotel management. A manager checked with the hotel’s owner in California.

The owner offered her a $150 gift card for free nights in any Choice Hotel affiliate. She explained this wouldn’t do much good since the government pays for her overnight stays. If she kept the refund, she could be charged with fraud.

See, all this soldier wanted were her best clothes; and short of that, $630 to pay for what was missing (she can’t bring herself to use the word "stolen"). The sergeant’s request was backed with strong ammo: She has original receipts for all the missing clothing.

Kifer joined the Air Force on her 18th birthday. Since then, she’s served eight years as a military police officer in the Air Force Security Forces. She serves, she says, in honor of her grandfather, who was a World War II sergeant and a Purple Heart recipient. "I felt a really strong heritage and legacy to pass on," she says.

Alone in a strange town, the soldier wrote The Watchdog: "I sincerely did not know where else to turn considering I am not from Texas and have very limited resources here — which is part of what makes this situation so difficult. . . . Without my clothing, I am really at a disadvantage for the next two months."

The Watchdog contacted two hotel managers. Neither responded. I called the office of hotel owner Gary Perez, but he didn’t respond either. I contacted corporate headquarters, and according to Kifer and Choice spokesman David Peikin, here’s what happened next:

The hotel offered her a $250 gift card, but she turned it down because it wasn’t even half the replacement value.

Meanwhile, she filed a missing-items report with Fort Worth police and also quickly filed a small-claims lawsuit in the Tarrant County Justice of the Peace Court No. 4. She leaves in six weeks.

This week, the company made another offer: a check for $723 to cover the old clothing and replacement items she bought, as shown by receipts.

Here is the statement from Peikin:

"Our normal process is to have the hotel work directly with the guest to resolve issues like these. To the extent the hotel, in our opinion, doesn’t demonstrate the level of responsiveness that we think is appropriate, we will get involved."

The Watchdog called the hotel to speak with manager Taylor, but the staffer said, "She left the company." I asked Peikin why, and he said he didn’t know.

Sgt. Kifer moved to a different hotel.

Watchdog: Medical ID theft

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:42 CDT

Medical ID theft

After Nov. 1, it could be harder for doctors and healthcare organizations to ignore warning signs of medical ID theft. According to the World Privacy Forum, the Federal Trade Commission is launching rules that require those who keep our medical records to recognize "red flag" situations that could mean that ID theft has taken place.

Some recommended flags from the WPV are also good warnings for patients to know in general. Pay attention when:

A patient gets a bill for another person.

A bill comes for services not received.

A bill comes from a healthcare provider the patient never visited.

Medical records are inconsistent.

Health benefits are listed as depleted when they aren’t.

A patient visits a healthcare provider and has an insurance number but not a card. — Dave Lieber

Watchdog: If it sounds too good to be true ... it is

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:45 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

Nearly every day I get an e-mail, phone call or letter from someone asking: "Is this a scam?"

In J.F.’s case, he got an e-mail from the Rev. Terry Smith in New Zealand promising "800,000.00 United State Dollars Which I Deposited for you." Yes, that’s how it was written.

J.F. asked me, "Will you investigate this?"

My answer: Duh, J.F. What’s to investigate?

If you ask yourself, 'Is this a scam?’ most likely, it is.

Checking the meter readers

Some Arlington homeowners were skeptical of the statement made by an Arlington utilities department manager in the Sunday Watchdog column that city meter readers always read water meters. The manager’s statement referred to a homeowner whose meter was misread twice in recent months. A city official insisted the meter was read, just not correctly. The homeowner didn’t believe that the meter had been read because it was buried in dirt.

L.P. writes: "The city of Arlington has 'guesstimated’ our water usage for years. . . . I believe that until Arlington residents gather together and visit a City Council meeting to express their outrage, little will change."

S.B. writes that she likes the method I suggested to track your own household water usage and compare it with city readings.

Here’s the method again: On your most recent water bill, find the date your meter was read and begin your own meter readings to coincide with the city’s readings for that date on the next available month. Write down the numbers on your meter on the start and stop dates of your billing cycle. Then compare with the bill.

Do Arlington meter readers read all water meters every month? Let me know what you find out.

TRCC called 'unfixable’

The Watchdog always keeps one paw on the Texas Residential Construction Commission, which, as we reported this summer, was recommended for extinction by the staff of the state Sunset Advisory Commission.

The TRCC, which is supposed to resolve disputes between homeowners and builders, has been called the Builder Protection Agency by critics who say it favors the building industry. Builders say it protects homeowners from unscrupulous builders.

Ten legislators on the Sunset Commission will decide by December whether to pass their staffers’ surprising recommendation to close the agency on to the 2009 Legislature. The Austin-based Quorum Report states that last week, legislators at a public sunset panel hearing were not enthusiastic about shutting down an agency they created five years ago.

This week, a Texans for Public Justice study said the 10 lawmakers on the sunset panel accepted a total of $223,000 in campaign contributions from home builders in the past three years.

Throughout their legislative careers, the same 10 received $446,000 from major builder Bob Perry of Houston. Perry is considered one of the prime backers of the TRCC, and one of his top aides was appointed to the commission’s board by Gov. Rick Perry.

Two area legislators sit on the sunset panel. They are state Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, and state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, both of whom accepted legal contributions from builders. (In fairness, they get contributions from homeowners, too.)

How pervasive is builder money in the Legislature? All but six members of the entire Legislature got contributions from builders in the past three years, Texans for Public Justice reported. One of the rare nonreceivers? State Rep. Lon Burnham, D-Fort Worth.

So what are the odds that legislators returning to the Capitol in January will give the bum’s rush to the TRCC when major donors want it to live on?

Watchdog: There's no beating the TollTag system

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:59 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

Monte Nodwell got into a fight with the North Texas Tollway Authority over what started as a $19 bill. He thought he paid it, but the authority said he didn’t.

Nodwell learned that the word authority means just that.

Here’s what happened next. Nodwell’s $19 debt grew over several months to an incredible $569. He was traveling his usual routes, and, most times, he put the required coins into the basket. But on 22 trips, he didn’t pay. Instead, he got billed later in the mail. For each of those 22 small toll charges, he got socked with a $25 "administrative fee." That’s $550 added to the original $19.

Nodwell said he never saw those bills. The authority says otherwise. In any event, when the authority finally unleashed a collection agency on him, Nodwell called to complain. He said he was offered a deal: If he would pay a little more than $200, the matter could be settled. But Nodwell didn’t like that either.

He contacted The Watchdog.

Waiver program

Turns out, in the authority’s world, a $569 bill is not really a $569 bill. There’s wiggle room, thanks to the little-known "TollTag waiver program."

The authority sometimes will reduce a bill in exchange for a commitment to remain with the TollTag program for another six months. It’s a way to steer difficult customers back into the system while they learn to cope.

I should pause here to explain the TollTag system to those Star-Telegram readers who don’t travel east of Tarrant County often. For now, the authority’s toll roads are mostly in Dallas County. Regular toll-road drivers are encouraged to put money in advance into a TollTag account, using a credit or debit card. Drivers then get a tag that stays in the car and can be read electronically at toll booths. Tolls are deducted from the prepaid account.

Drivers can also pay cash at the toll booth, as Nodwell did sometimes. Or, as he also did, they can drive through without paying, and a bill will be sent to the address at which the vehicle is registered.

Nodwell said he didn’t want to give his credit-card number to the authority for a TollTag account because they would "stab it for whatever they want, and I’ll never get the money back."

Last week, he was offered a second bill-payment deal. The offer came during a phone conversation between Nodwell and several authority staff members gathered by a speaker phone in their Plano offices.

I was allowed to listen.

Let’s make a deal

"All these charges and fees are unbelievably excessive," Nodwell complained. "Hundreds of dollars. That’s crazy."

But Nodwell was in no position to argue. Not only did the authority have photographs of his license plate taken as his car passed through its electronic barriers, it also had records of every second Nodwell and a toll road spent together since 2003. And let’s not forget recordings of his phone calls with them.

"I listened to each of the calls," a manager told him.

The authority was in a good mood that day. In the conference call, a calculator chirped in the background, and then a manager offered Nodwell a settlement price of $69 — a $500 markdown.

"You’re getting a large discount," NTTA spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt told him.

Nodwell took the deal and signed a "violation enforcement agreement." In exchange, despite his misgivings, he joined the re-education program and is to stay on the TollTag program for six months.

Watchdog: Read the fine print on satellite-TV contracts

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:24 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

Once TV signals convert to digital in February, some frustrated over-the-air viewers are going to turn to cable or satellite TV options.

Those who have never paid for TV signals before may find it confusing to deal with a new television service, particularly when it comes to satellite TV contracts. A cynic might say there are almost as many fees tucked away in a contract’s fine print as there are stations to watch.

Unlike cable TV, which usually lets you in and out with minimal fees, a satellite TV contract mirrors many cellphone contracts. Anytime you upgrade, you can get tagged for another commitment of up to two years.

Take the story of one customer, John Adamek of Fort Worth, and his battle with DirecTV. He says he was given a surprise contract extension of two years after he upgraded to high-definition TV. When he wanted out, he was charged a $300 termination fee.

DirecTV says Adamek should not have been surprised. The company says that when customers upgrade their service, it informs them of contract extensions through advertising and marketing materials, sales calls, the written lease agreement, the lease addendum presented to customers during installation, the first bill and a customer agreement mailed out to confirm.

But sometimes people miss the fine print.

"I am at fault for this all the time," DirecTV spokeswoman Caley Cronin said. "I don’t pay attention to my contract or the terms of condition of my service. This has happened to me in the past."

Some customers, she says, have an attitude of "I just want to hear what I want to hear and move forward."

Adamek does not have the same take and insists that he was never informed of the contract extension and never signed anything concerning it. "I think it is sneaky practices," he wrote to the Better Business Bureau after it said it could not help him.

DirecTV had denied his request for a $300 refund, telling Adamek and the BBB, "We have reviewed your account and find the early cancellation fee is valid, and no credit or refund is due."

After Adamek contacted The Watchdog, DirecTV said it would expand its internal probe. The results?

Because Adamek had been a customer since 1999 and company practices changed, DirecTV says the customer "may have made certain assumptions about his request to upgrade his equipment."

The company insists that it informed him of the two-year extension. But it decided to refund his $300 and release him early from his contract "because he was a good customer for so long," Cronin said.

He’s now waiting for the refund.

DirecTV customers were also seeing their contracts extended 18 to 24 months if they needed their faulty leased receiver serviced after it was no longer under warranty and had not purchased the company’s "protection plan" for $5.99 a month.

But now, in a major change, customers in that situation no longer get hit with an automatic contract extension. Instead, they will be charged for the service call along with shipping and handling.

That change in policy is so new that, at first, the company spokeswoman didn’t know about it. That’s why customers need to listen carefully to sales reps and ask to see agreements in writing before signing anything.

Best advice?

When shopping for service, "read the contract. Know the terms. Be an active consumer. Ask the questions," Cronin said.

Tips

Watchdog shares information with Congress about Medicare hot line woes

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:56 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

A staffer for the U.S. Senate called The Watchdog recently asking for a favor. The staffer at the Senate Special Committee on Aging was looking for Texans who are hopping mad about failures of the 1-800-Medicare telephone hot line.

We introduced the staffer to Wilma Frashier of Midlothian, who endured her own Wilma-in-Medicare-Wonderland fiasco last year trying to get her medical bills paid. Nobody would help until The Watchdog intervened.

Frashier told her story to the staffer.

"Basically, I told him that phone number is terrible, and getting through the voice menu is a joke," she says bluntly.

On Sept. 11, the committee held a public hearing in the historic Senate Caucus Room at the U.S. Capitol. Frashier didn’t testify in person, but her story helped make the case for Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who has been investigating 1-800-Medicare for more than three years.

"There are failures in the system we need to fix," said Smith, the panel’s ranking Republican, as he opened the hearing. Callers are "our country’s most vulnerable citizens. It is unacceptable to subject the sick, frail and elderly to hourlong waits, disconnected calls, endless loops of referrals and call transfers."

Smith’s staff tests the system with "mystery shopper" calls. They also conduct inspections of call centers, interview call-center employees and monitor phone calls in progress.

The senator listed other problems they found:

Confusing interactive voice menu options;

Jargon and error-filled scripts;

Training deficiencies;

Incorrect information routinely being dispensed.

Amazingly, customer-service reps provided incorrect information in every (yes, every!) test call made, he said.

Finding others like Frashier isn’t hard. Millions of callers, frustrated about wait times, hang up before receiving an answer to their question, according to a 2007 inspector general report. During one week examined by the inspector general last year, 44 percent of callers reported difficulty obtaining information.

Naomi Sullivan of California testified before the committee that she was improperly enrolled in a medical plan that meant her doctor’s visits would not get paid.

"I called 1-800-Medicare over a dozen times," she said. Sometimes, she was placed on hold for as long as 45 minutes, then she’d get transferred elsewhere, and her call was usually disconnected. Because she couldn’t afford a land-line phone, she ended up using up all her cellphone minutes.

She told the senators, "It got to the point where I couldn’t afford to make one more call to 1-800-Medicare. I just wanted to give up. I felt like less than nothing. I felt like the people at 1-800-Medicare had no interest in helping me."

The top administrator in charge of the phone line, Kerry Weems, who runs Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the line receives millions of calls. Average hold times, he promised, will drop to five minutes or less the rest of this year.

Advocates for seniors were fierce in their criticisms.

Michealle Carpenter of Medicare Rights Center said seniors are among the "most vulnerable to exploitation" and are often fraudulently enrolled in private Medicare programs. Getting out of these is tougher than necessary.

Tell Public Utility Commission you want protections put in place

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:27 CDT

DAVE LIEBER watchdog@star-telegram.com

The good news about unfair sales tactics used by electricity providers to foist high rates on residential customers is that you now have a way to fight back.

Better news: It doesn’t involve the state Legislature, which did nothing during its last session to improve a situation it had created.

How? I’ll show you in a moment.

Growing outrage

First, though, since Sunday’s column, many angry readers have contacted the Watchdog with stories of unexpectedly high electricity rates and uncaring providers and state regulators.

Sparks are flying.

The column was about customers seething about the high rates that Amigo Energy imposed after it picked up variable-rate customers from defunct National Power. They opened monthly bills to find that their bills had jumped hundreds of dollars in one month.

Mike Logan of Fort Worth called state Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, for help because he couldn’t get out of his contract after National Power closed. State rules allowed TXU Energy to charge him a higher rate. Brimer’s office helped Logan get an "expedited switch," which costs a little more but speeds up the usual 45-day wait to move to a new firm.

"Why won’t our governor, Public Utility Commission or whoever protect us from the electric companies?" Logan asked. "Can we do away with deregulation?"

Watchdog answer: Not likely. Improve it? Most definitely.

Pat Carew of Colleyville got satisfaction last week when the PUC upheld his complaint against Amigo. PUC staffers found "no evidence" that Carew was notified before receiving a bill that his variable rate would increase more than 10 percent, the amount allowed without formal notification. Carew most likely will get a refund because he was charged 24 cents per kilowatt hour for part of the summer; the PUC says he should be charged 16 cents.

Amigo Energy President Javier Vega insists his company did nothing wrong. Amigo followed state rules and notified customers as required, he said. He has envelopes, he said, returned from the post office that show he had "intent" to send out the notification, as required under law.

The PUC grades electricity providers on their complaint records. Amigo is one of six providers with the most complaints in the past six months. PUC received 265 complaints about Amigo in August and close to 700 this year.

Amigo has not been penalized. PUC spokesman Terry Hadley said he does not know if the company will be fined.

Project No. 35768

Customers also complain that companies don’t notify them before their contract expires and then charge higher rates.

Joe Gagliardi of Keller says StarTex Power moved him into a higher rate when his contract expired. He kicked up a fuss but was told he had to pay. He complained to the PUC but said he was told that it was his responsibility to know when his yearly contract expires.

That could change if the PUC adopts a proposed rule with a bland name: "Project No. 35768." Don’t be fooled by that: It’s the biggest overhaul of electricity-marketing practices in recent years.

Under the proposal, the provider would be required to send a letter to the customer at least two months before a contract’s end date. On the envelope or in the subject line of an e-mail, it has to say "Contract Expiration Notice."

But The Watchdog found a loophole. If an original contract calls for automatic renewals, no warning must be given. That’s still a problem the public should bellow about because many customers could miss the automatic renewal clause.

Watchdog: Texans are angry about confusing electric rates, and the state is finally going to do something

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:48 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

Pat Carew of Colleyville signed up for a household electricity rate of 12 cents per kilowatt hour. But his electricity provider, National Power, closed suddenly in May, and the company that picked up his account promised a rate of 16 cents.

So when the monthly bill arrived from that company, Amigo Energy of Houston, Carew was surprised to see that it was for more than $1,000. The rate was 24 cents per kwh.

Amigo Energy gave no notice of the increase, Carew said. He complained to the utility and to state officials, but nobody would help him.

According to Amigo President Javier Vega, letters announcing the rate increase were sent to customers. They’re required by law.

"I paid postage for that," Vega said.

Like Carew, Pam Kinkema of Fort Worth said she didn’t get notice of the rate increase. After National Power closed, her monthly bill from Amigo was $986. She sent The Watchdog the paperwork that shows Amigo’s promise of 16 cents and the actual bill at 24 cents. The paperwork didn’t include a notification letter from Amigo.

And the same thing happened to Clifton Hobbs of Saginaw. Big bill. No notice. When he called Amigo to complain, he couldn’t find a friend there.

"They would hang up on me," he said. "They would not answer e-mails either."

'We are being hammered’

Hobbs is protesting by not paying his large bill. Amigo has forwarded his account to a collection agency. Hobbs also complained to the Texas Public Utility Commission and several elected representatives.

"We are being hammered" by electric companies, he said. "They are using the laws our representatives set in place. Nobody out there can help you."

As of now, he’s about right. It’s the Wild West in the Texas deregulated-electricity frontier. But maybe not for much longer, if rules under consideration by the PUC go into effect as early as January.

The proposed changes do not specifically address notification of rate increases. But they will require, if enacted, "clear, plain and easily understood language," according to a draft. That’s quite a change from the current bewildering information about electric plans.

In a key clause, the draft states that in any dispute between a customer and a provider concerning terms of a contract, "any vagueness, obscurity, or ambiguity in the contract will be construed in favor of the customer."

Say it along with The Watchdog: Hoo-ray!

Complications for consumers

Texans struggle to make sense of the menu of residential electricity offered by dozens of providers.

How much is a kilowatt hour?

Is the price fixed or variable?

Why do some supposed "fixed rates" change during a yearlong contract?

How to end a relationship with a company you no longer want

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:08 CDT

DAVE LIEBER

For Virginia Dunivan, trying to terminate her lawn-service contract was worse than pulling weeds.

She says she tried once, twice, three times and more to tell Scott’s Lawn Service to stop coming to her Fort Worth house. Every month, when they called about coming again, she told them not to.

In May, the company called. Called four times, in fact, but she wasn’t home to pick up the calls. She returned home one day and found a $153 Scott’s bill at her front door.

She had already hired another lawn service, and the Scott’s visit, unauthorized, meant her lawn was fertilized twice in the same month. She was incensed.

She called and refused to pay the bill. But she was told that the bill was good. Soon, a letter from a collection agency arrived. She contacted The Watchdog.

Nothing in writing

As soon as Keri Butler at The Scott Miracle-Gro Co. in Ohio heard the story, she promised to fix the situation.

Within hours, the $153 debt was forgiven.

But The Watchdog was still curious and asked Butler to have someone drill down into Scott’s internal records to find the source of Dunivan’s problem.

Dunivan didn’t have a contract, so by rights, she could end the service anytime. The agreement is "continuous unless canceled," Butler said.

"We don’t have any records that she called in," Butler said. "We don’t have anything in writing asking to cancel."

The company’s records show that Dunivan didn’t cancel her service until May, after the dispute over the front door bill.

No notations were found in her file, Butler said, about other calls Dunivan says she received in the previous three months in which she told employees she wanted to cancel.

Records do show that Scott’s called her four times in May while she was away. She didn’t answer those calls, and a Scott crew worked on her lawn anyway.

"When you talk to someone at the same company four or five times, you’re assuming they are writing everything down on your account," Dunivan said.

Protect yourself

Martha Rogers, a customer-service strategist from Ohio, said, "Some companies do a terrible job of allowing people to exit, so customers are on their own."

At the first sign of a problem about ending a service, Rogers recommends writing a letter and sending it return-receipt requested so you know it arrived. Keep a copy for yourself.

Watchdog lesson here: Always put it in writing. And when making big decisions by phone, get the name and employee ID number of anyone you speak with.

Also, if you prefer to call, you can tape your calls with an inexpensive digital voice recorder and store the audio files on your computer.