How can I talk to a real live person at BellSouth?

[RebelOne]

My phone line has gone out twice since last Friday. I called repair and got that god-awful automated service. The repairman came out on Sat. and supposedly fixed it. Well, it went out again yesterday. I want to talk to a human so that I can schedule a time because I am at work. I called the repair again today and the automated service said someone would be there tomorrow. Well, I can't take off a whole day from work and sit around and wait for the repairman. I have tried every number, but I can't connect with a human. Anyone have any ideas?

[RagingInMiami]

1. What if you dial Zero?

[RebelOne]

2. Tried that. Just got sent to more automated numbers.

[anarch]

3. there are no actual humans at bell south

I'm pretty sure about this. Even the so-called "repair guy" is probably a robot.

[Wcross]

4. I went through the same stuff with them.

They are the absolute worst that I have ever had to deal with. Its almost impossible to deal with them. If you are positive the problem is outside the house you won't have to be there.
It took them three visits to give me a reliable dial-tone.

[seaglass]

5. Does the automated service have voice recognition? I was

stuck in automated hell with Verizon and was so frustrated I yelled "I just want to talk to a human" and the automated voice came on and said "it seems you want to speak with a customer service rep" and then connected me to a live person.
Who knew it was that easy?

It's worth a try if they have voice recognition.

[RebelOne]

7. Tried that. Didn't work.

In fact, I had to call Cingular yesterday and it worked with them. All I said was "Give me a person."

[Arkansas Granny]

9. I tried to do that with AT&T one time and the automated voice

response system kept insisting that it could help me with my problem. I wound up quitting AT&T long distance service because of that. I called LD providers until I got one that answered with a human instead of a machine.

[Strawman]

6. Call the cancellation department

That always seems to be the quickest route to a human.

[RebelOne]

8. Ah ha! That may be worth a try.