Cell Hell

We went to Lakeland today to talk to Sprint and AT&T. It was a disaster dealing with Sprint and I completely lost patience with their system of dealing with customers and numbers. When our contract was up, we went into a Sprint store and they offered to reduce the number of minutes (we never once used the 1500 minutes they had originally talked us into) and our cost. I told them I didn't want to sign up for a new contract until I checked out the new iPhone July 11. No problem, or so they said.

Then the bill came. It arrived at our house July 5 but said it was due June 28... What's up with that? Also, instead of owing less than our 1500 minute plan, this bill was almost double!! They charged for BOTH plans and added a bunch of services we did not ask for. I called customer service and got no explanation, simply a request that I pay my "overdue" balance. I had just received the bill that day!

So I called Monday and was told the same thing. So today my phone won't let me call out at all, except customer service, so we went to the Sprint store in Lakeland where a bright young man talked down to me as if I were four years old, yet he was unable to intelligently respond with a single one of my concerns. All he could say was I needed to pay my bill. I told him I wanted to port my numbers to another carrier as prescribed by law, therefore I did not plan to pay the next month's inflated charges that also showed up on this bill. In essence, I wanted to just pay for what I had already used used ad quit the service since we're not under contract.

No way! I can't even cancel my service unless I pay for in in advance. How crazy is that!?

So off we went to the AT&T store where Richard picked out a phone and we opened an account and ported his number from Sprint over to his new AT&T phone. They couldn't move my number over because the iPhones are not out yet. I must wait until Friday. The salesman there told me that Sprint would probably not release my number unless I paid what they had already billed, even though her agreed it didn't seem right. Of course it's not right, it's fraud!!!

So I called Sprint again and indeed, I must pay the extra month before I can close my account and move my number. I am outraged!!!

So, there was some good to our day... God is always good, although, I must admit scripture says, "Be angry but sin not." I'm afraid that in my being angry, I became also unkind. No, I did not use profanity, I never do, but I let the Sprint folks know how displeased I was, plus I made Richard and other folks around me uncomfortable.

Right about in the middle of my rant at the AT&T store, a police car showed up and the officer got out with his rifle and headed in next door, a check cashing and advance place. He soon left, so it must not have been too bad a bust. At least it gave us all something else to focus on.

Next, we went purse shopping in the pouring rain, cruising around to consignment stores looking for Kathy Van Zeeland purses. What a saint is my hubby! I finally found two fabulous, big handbags I just love.

Lastly, we took my broken Sony to the electronics store where that said they can't help us. Sony claims not to recognize the model number. I had already used up my anger quota for the day so just laughed and left. We'll deal with it another day.

Oh, big news, we're going back to Denver. Crystal is getting married August 9. Will share plans tomorrow, I'm drained tonight.

And my day was like this...

• 10:17 Trying to find a replacement part for my camera, just the picture-taking button. Sony never heard of my camera. It's A Sony from Wal-Mart! 
  
• 10:49 Sprint shut our phone off! We went in when contract ran out and they put us on a cheaper plan but no contract , so now we have no phone. Ick