HATE!!!
It was supposed to be a simple check-up call, done during my lunch hour (since I certainly wasn't going to walk anywhere).
I had an ancient (by which I mean four-year-old) cellphone. "Get a new cellphone!" said Overheardgirl, trying futilely to get the 2 button to work. "Get a new cellphone!" said my coworker, seeing me squint as I tried to read the scratched screen.
"Get a new cellphone, and get it with Working Assets!" said a couple different friends whose opinion I value.
Now, on the face of it, this was a great idea. I love the politics of WA, and having once used them for long distance, I know their customer service is awesome. So I did it.
A week later, I was carrying around two cellphones, because the account STILL hadn't switched over. It finally did the night before I left for Alaska.
Which is why I had already used up my first free 30 minutes by the time I figured out the damn thing got no reception in my house. None. Okay, if I stand at one corner of my dining room table and don't move a muscle, I have a 50/50 chance of completing a call. And in my front bedroom, where I only have the AC on when I'm asleep as my AC unit is wheezing its last gasps, I get a couple bars. Otherwise, though, my phone is dead in my own home. Considering this is my primary phone, this is a Bad Thing.
So I switch back to Cingular. WA, meanwhile, is saying I'm terminating my contract, but I'll fight with them later. First, I have to figure out why my new Cingular phone has yet to arrive.
An hour on hold with various customer service reps later (why no, I don't have to work, please, keep piping that delightful music into my ear!), I find out that some asshole's been using my SSN to set up fraudulent accounts in California.
This has been going on for years, evidently. It's on my credit report, because these things are registered via SSN. And yet, even though they look up account via SSN, no one noticed that there were three different accounts, under two different names, in three different states, with the same SSN! For four fucking years! No one thought to say, "Huh, that's weird." No. But now I'm stuck without a usable phone, god knows how much credit fraud attached to my SSN, and at least an hour's more of wrangling various cellphone companies into either giving me my damn phone, or taking their damn phone back.
Hate.
I had an ancient (by which I mean four-year-old) cellphone. "Get a new cellphone!" said Overheardgirl, trying futilely to get the 2 button to work. "Get a new cellphone!" said my coworker, seeing me squint as I tried to read the scratched screen.
"Get a new cellphone, and get it with Working Assets!" said a couple different friends whose opinion I value.
Now, on the face of it, this was a great idea. I love the politics of WA, and having once used them for long distance, I know their customer service is awesome. So I did it.
A week later, I was carrying around two cellphones, because the account STILL hadn't switched over. It finally did the night before I left for Alaska.
Which is why I had already used up my first free 30 minutes by the time I figured out the damn thing got no reception in my house. None. Okay, if I stand at one corner of my dining room table and don't move a muscle, I have a 50/50 chance of completing a call. And in my front bedroom, where I only have the AC on when I'm asleep as my AC unit is wheezing its last gasps, I get a couple bars. Otherwise, though, my phone is dead in my own home. Considering this is my primary phone, this is a Bad Thing.
So I switch back to Cingular. WA, meanwhile, is saying I'm terminating my contract, but I'll fight with them later. First, I have to figure out why my new Cingular phone has yet to arrive.
An hour on hold with various customer service reps later (why no, I don't have to work, please, keep piping that delightful music into my ear!), I find out that some asshole's been using my SSN to set up fraudulent accounts in California.
This has been going on for years, evidently. It's on my credit report, because these things are registered via SSN. And yet, even though they look up account via SSN, no one noticed that there were three different accounts, under two different names, in three different states, with the same SSN! For four fucking years! No one thought to say, "Huh, that's weird." No. But now I'm stuck without a usable phone, god knows how much credit fraud attached to my SSN, and at least an hour's more of wrangling various cellphone companies into either giving me my damn phone, or taking their damn phone back.
Hate.