OnStar Is Not Your Friend

OnStar Is Not Your FriendDay Two Guns And Bruises


  The very first thing I did after notifying those closest in my life as to what was going on, was to start making calls to those places that hold all my information, that track where I go and when.  Please, right now, look at your mail whose name appears first on your accounts? Who is listed first on your phone bill, your internet bill? Because, that is going to become essential to this next step, I found out the hard way how much that matters.

 I have used OnStar to order pizza on the go, to find Starbucks out of town, to make phone calls and to get a dead battery charged, I loved the service, until I actually needed them to NOT monitor me. I pressed the little blue button of hope, the agent I was sent to was very nice, she was kind and apologized for what I was going through. It was difficult to say out loud to a stranger those private, shameful words. To admit that I was foolish and not too bright, that is not what I said, but it is how I felt, shamed and embarrassed and stupid. I told her that I had a TRO in place and I just needed them to NOT tell my husband where I was. I tried not to talk too fast, to measure my words and breathing. They informed me I would have to go online and change that. I had no idea that I could track our vehicle online before that moment and I wondered if he had been following me and if so for how long.  It really wouldn't have bothered me, I did not go out of the house much anymore, but I still felt a little...unsettled.  She told me to just use my account number and I could take care of it, not problem. I asked for that number and suddenly she became vague. She asked me to call back in, that her computer was slow and she could not see it.

 So, I did exactly what she asked. I pushed that little button I had been so conditioned to think of as there to help me and got a rude awakening. I had no status, none. This exercise would be repeated with Comcast when I tried to get that fax line number changed. My name had been on the account, but I had been added and while I was being shuttled between one agent and then another...yep all he had to do was go online and disappear me. Suddenly, Comcast didn't want to talk anymore. I asked everyone along the way about their policies in such situations..no one had an answer for me, no one. The worst was yet to come.

 A family member worked for a call center for Verizon. They offered to put my phone on their account and it would give me a discount.  This is someone I loved and trusted with my life. This was not some second cousin twice removed. So, I switched over to her account and my bright shiny relatively new iphone came with me. When everything went sideways I knew I had texts of my husband profusely apologizing for his physical abuse, I also knew there were videos that documented abuse as well as text filled with it , I shared that with a friend. Who passed it to my husband and boom, no more phone. We tried to get a new number, good news said Verizon we can do that for you! You just have to buy a new phone. No, I explained I do not. I had the phone before the line got switched. It did not matter I was told, because the current owner of the line had reported MY phone stolen. I am the owner I replied and Verizon knew that because they had sold and sent it to ME. The agent was unmoved. I was passed back and forth, again. Before my phone went completely dead I began receiving notices that my Verizon settings were being changed. I called my loved one, she did not answer, I texted and called worried that my husband had found a way to hack my account. Finally, she took my call and said she was figuring the bill out and that she needed money now or they were going to shut off the phones. I had no access to our banking accounts at this point, but I had transferred a small amount of cash out and I promised to take it into the Gig Harbor Verizon store for her the next morning. I tried to ask why my email had been changed for my account, but she had no time for me and hung up.

 When I sat there on the phone with unhelpful Verizon agents, I realized the magnitude of what this person that I loved so much had done. I wanted my money back, $399.92 cash! It was not going to happen. I wanted my phone back on, nope not that either. I asked how could my physical property, a phone's possession be transferred over to a third party by Verizon, now the agent got testy and informed me that she did not have to talk to me. She put me on hold. There was talk about investigating an employee accessing my text messages, which they are not to do, there were many versions of what protocol was and what they would and would not do, my head ached at the craziness of it all. While I sat on hold after the fifth transfer, I heard it, Verizon had a domestic violence program.....what? This was great news, why had no one told me earlier? When the agent came back on I asked her why no one had discussed it with me. She was very short and firm, because I was not a customer. She did not have to talk to me and she was done talking to me. I have had my account with Verizon since 1998, the same number, I have had all my family on my plans and at the end of the day, Verizon had decided that while, they would ruin my credit if I did not pay my bill, they were not going to see me as a customer in any other form.

 Check your accounts. I am not that person. I never have had to. I never checked up on my husband, never doubted his word, never squirreled away money or kept secrets, that made one of us.

This is my solace, this space right here and the knowledge that the same technology that has been used to manipulate and track me, is tracking him. I will get my records back, those texts and videos are on their way. He can only delay them, the world has changed and he cannot erase his actions as easily as he did in the past. He cannot disappear me and I will not be quiet or hide. I will keep writing you here.