Do Not Always Trust Referrals From Your Friendly Utility Rep

Well like I mentioned in a previous posting, the lightning that hit my house also fried one of my telephone lines and after checking by my telephone company's technician, he told us that supposedly we needed to do some re-wiring as the in-wall telephone line was damaged and he said that there was no way he could repair this. Trusting the word of a professional, we asked for his recommendation for a wireman and the guy came around and proceeded to go around looking for a route that would enable him to charge us the maximum. The worst thing was the location this route ended up with was far away from the original location despite our request and would have necessitated me to purchase a wireless set in order to bring the phone set to our original location. So this made me have second thoughts that night and I called again my friendly handy man who surprisingly said he could do the job, although he actually brought along his telco technician friend to do the job, but he said he would check if the line could be repaired before deciding to re-wire. Well what do you know, he managed just that and he needed to only replace the in wall socket and cable which incidentally the telco technician could have done himself and for free. Well it cost me about two thirds the quotation of the first guy but I think this is money well spent as I managed to maintain the status quo without the need to do any re-wiring. Now I am mulling whether I should make a complaint to the telco. Anyway let this experience be a guide for you all out there, as to have a good handyman at hand will save you a lot of grief. So don't absolutely trust whatever an official representative of a utility may tell you, as they may be recommending something that may the easy way out for them