Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,303, Disputing an Incorrect Bill.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1,303.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Go to ESLPOD.com for more information about us.
This episode is a dialogue between Regina and Bob about a problem with Bob's bill the indication of how much he should pay a certain company.
Let's get started.
Hello, this is Horizon.
My name is Regina.
I'm calling to dispute my bill.
There's a billing error.
Your last bill was $650, and it is past due.
It's past due because this is the third time I've called to report the problem.
But my bill still hasn't been corrected.
My bill is normally $65 a month.
I called last week and the week before.
Look.
I just want to get this sorted out so I can pay my bill before my service is disconnected.
Your bill may reflect charges you've made to your usage plan, such as upgrading to a more expensive plan.
I've made no changes to my usage plan.
I've had the same plan for eight months.
Your bill may also reflect overage charges if you went over your allotted minutes or data.
I haven't gone over my limit.
Can my case be escalated so that I can speak with a supervisor?
Certainly, sir.
Will that be today?
I can't tell you that, sir.
I just hope she calls me back before my service is over.
Regina begins our dialogue by saying hello.
This is Horizon.
She's answering the phone, of course.
She works for a company called Horizon.
She says, my name is Regina.
How may I help you today?
Bob says, I'm calling to dispute my bill.
There's a billing error, he says.
Your bill is usually a piece of paper, though nowadays it could be an email that you get from a company telling you how much you have to pay for some product or service that you buy from that company.
Bob says that there is a problem with his bill.
There is a billing error, E-R-R-O-R.
An error is a mistake.
A billing error is a mistake in the amount of money that the company says you have to pay.
Bob is calling to dispute, D-I-S-P-U-T-E, his bill.
To dispute means to disagree about something, especially when you think there is something wrong.
In this case, Bob thinks there's something wrong with his bill, so he's disputing it.
He's saying, no, that's wrong, that's incorrect.
We often use this verb when there are problems with money and the amount of money on a bill.
Regina says let me take a look at your statement.
A statement S-T-A-T-E-M-E-N-T here refers to a written report or, again nowadays, an electronic report that shows all of your financial activity over a certain period of time.
For example, many of us have credit cards and Every month, the credit card company sends us a statement which has a list of all the things we bought with our credit card, as well as how much money we paid to the credit card company during that same period of time.
That's a statement.
Regina is going to look at Bob's statement electronically, of course.
She says, your last bill was $650 and it is past due.
If a bill is past, P-A-S-T, due, D-U-E, it is late.
It has not been paid on time and still needs to be paid.
We may also use the term overdue, O-V-E-R-D-U-E.
A bill that is overdue or past due is a bill that has not been paid on time.
So if you have to pay your rent on the first of the month and you don't pay it for five days or ten days, The rent is overdue.
It's past due.
You are late.
Bob says that his bill is past due because he explains.
This is the third time I've called to report the problem, but my bill still hasn't been corrected.
Bob says yes, my bill is past due, but that's because there's a problem with it and I have called to report it, but it has not been corrected.
To report, R-E-P-O-R-T, means to give someone information about something.
It's often used to mean to officially notify someone.
To notify N-O-T-I-F-Y means to tell someone, but usually in a formal way or in a way that is used say, in a business or governmental situation.
You notify the government that you are not going to pay your taxes this year.
And the government notifies you that you will be going to jail.
That's how it works here in the U.S. sometimes.
Bob reported a problem to this company that has not been corrected.
That is, it hasn't been fixed.
There's an error that is still there. present on his bill.
He says normally his bill is $65 a month, not $650, which is what the company says it is.
Regina says I'm looking at your account and I don't see a record of any previous calls about this problem.
A previous call would be a phone call that Bob made in the past.
Regina says she doesn't see a record, R-E-C-O-R-D, of any previous calls.
A record would be some written detailed information, probably in the computer system of the company, showing that Bob in fact called.
Bob says, I called last week and the week before.
Then he says look, I just want to get this sorted out so I can pay my bill before my service is disconnected.
The use of the word look, L-O-O-K, in this sentence is is to get someone's attention.
In conversational English, if we want a person to pay attention, perhaps because he hasn't been listening very closely up to this point, we might say look,
We might also say, listen.
They mean the same thing, even though, of course, look is something you do with your eyes and listen is something you do with your ears.
The point is that we're not saying they should actually look with their eyes, but rather that they should listen to what you're saying.
Bob says, look, I just want to get this sorted out.
To sort S-O-R-T.
Sorted out something in this case means to fix the problem, to take care of this situation, to find a solution to the problem.
To sort out can also mean to take a group of things and put them in different categories, but here to sort out means to get fixed.
Bob wants to sort out this problem Why.
Because he doesn't want his service with this company, whatever this company does for him to be disconnected.
It sounds like Horizon is a phone company no relation to an actual phone company here in the United States called Verizon.
No relation at all.
The Service that Bob gets, we're guessing his telephone service, may get disconnected.
To disconnect, D-I-S-C-O-N-N-E-C-T. means to stop providing service to someone.
We usually use this verb to connect and the opposite to disconnect, when we're talking about telephone service.
If your telephone service gets disconnected, you no longer have it.
The company no longer provides you that service.
Regina says, I understand...
Regina is saying that, in effect, Bob is wrong.
She says that perhaps the bill that has a much higher cost than Bob says it should just reflects changes he's made to his usage plan.
To reflect, R-E-F-L-E-C-T, means to show or to indicate or to result from.
Regina is saying that perhaps Bob made changes to his usage plan.
Your usage plan is an agreement you have with your phone company about how many minutes you're going to use every month, how much time you're going to talk on your phone or how much data you're going to use.
Data would refer to using the internet on a smartphone or an app.
To upgrade U-P-G-R-A-D-E to a more expensive plan means to go from using say, five hours of time every month to 10 hours of time every month, or from using one gigabyte of data to two gigabytes of data.
Many phone companies, especially cell phone companies, have the option of upgrading their, meaning you can get more service by paying more money.
That's what Regina is suggesting happened to Bob that he upgraded his plan and that's why it's costing him more money.
But Bob says, no, no, no.
I've made no changes to my usage plan.
I've had the same plan for eight months, he says.
Regina says, your bill may also reflect overage charges if you went over your allotted minutes or data.
In the U.S., if you talk too much on your cell phone or you use too much data on your smartphone, you may have to pay extra money That's called overage, O-V-E-R-A-G-E, charges, C-H-A-R-G-E-S.
Overage means you've used too much, you've gone over your limit.
Every month, most people are allotted a certain number of minutes or a certain amount of data.
To allot, A-L-L-O-T, means to give someone a certain amount of something.
We say that you are allotted a certain number of minutes or data on your phone by the phone company.
They give you a.
Bob complains however, that he has not gone over his limit, the maximum amount that he can use.
When you are talking to a company, usually the first person you talk to works for the company but may not have a lot of power to change things, especially if you are disputing your bill.
That's why Bob asks for his case, meaning his problem, to be escalated.
E-S-C-A-L-A-T-E-D.
To escalate nowadays means to have your complaint given to someone with more authority or more power in the company.
I don't remember this verb when I was growing up to be used in this case, but nowadays, especially when a lot of what we call customer service where a company takes care of problems for customers or clients is done over the telephone, we now have This verb of escalating a problem, making someone responsible for it who has more power than your first person you talk to in a company.
After talking to the first person who answers the phone, you are given to someone with more authority, someone called a supervisor S-U-P-E-R-V-I-S-O-R.
A supervisor is a manager or a boss, someone who is responsible for other people and someone for whom You would want to ask if you have a problem that the first person you talk to can't solve.
Regina says, certainly, sir.
Let me have a supervisor call you back when she's available.
In other words, Regina will take down Bob's name and number, write it down and give it to a supervisor so that the supervisor can call Bob back.
Bob asks, will that be today?
Meaning, will she call me today?
Regina says, I can't tell you that, sir.
Meaning, probably, she doesn't know.
Bob says, I just hope she calls me back before my service is... And then suddenly...
The phone call, the conversation between Regina and Bob ends.
The idea here, of course, and the joke is that Bob's phone service has ended because he hasn't paid his bill.
We know he hasn't paid his bill because of a problem that Horizon apparently has made with his bill or has caused.
And now he doesn't have phone service so that the supervisor won't be able to talk to him after all.
This, of course, is the worst possible case for poor Bob.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hello, this is Horizon.
My name is Regina.
How may I help you today?
I'm calling to dispute my bill.
There's a billing error.
Let me take a look at your statement.
Your last bill was $650, and it is past due.
It's past due, because this is the third time I've called to report the problem but my bill still hasn't been corrected.
My bill is normally $65 a month.
I'm looking at your account and I don't see a record of any previous calls about this problem.
I called last week and the week before.
Look, I just want to get this sorted out so I can pay my bill before my service is disconnected.
I understand.
Your bill may reflect changes you've made to your usage plan, such as upgrading to a more expensive plan.
I've made no changes to my usage plan.
I've had the same plan for eight months.
Your bill may also reflect overage charges if you went over your allotted minutes or data.
I haven't gone over my limit.
Can my case be escalated so that I can speak with a supervisor?
Certainly, sir.
Let me have a supervisor call you back when she's available.
Will that be today?
I can't tell you that, sir.
I just hope she calls me back before my service is...
There's no disputing the fact that we have the best scriptwriter on the internet here at ESL Podcast.
I speak, of course, of the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
