Marketing Brilliance

I'm one of those people. You know the ones; I want the best deal for my husband's hard earned money. I'm not cheap, mind you. I am willing to pay more for a quality product. But I like to check around once in a while to make sure that I'm not paying too much on things like phone service, insurance, satellite, etc.

So, when I received a flier from McLeodUSA offering DSL for $19.95 a month with free router and installation, you know I was all over it.

A little background: We currently use Qwest for our phone service. As do most people in our area. They have a corner on the market. I have been unhappy with Qwest for a myriad of reasons, including, but not limited to, increasing our DSL costs when we were told they would remain unchanged, months of problems cashing our checks when our bank merged with another, bad customer service.

So, today I called McLeod to find out more about this offer. DSL service $19.95 per month; check. Phone number remains the same; check. All fees to switch service and activate waived; check. Free installation & router; check. Plus they will call Qwest so I don't have to deal with them; BIG CHECK.

So, I am all ready to set this up. The guy on the phone askes for our home phone number. I give it to him. And he says:

"I'm sorry, we don't offer DSL in your area."

Then why did you send me a flier?!?! Seriously, don't they research these things before they mail the stuff out?