My trusty cellphone that I've been using for six years developed a problem. I couldn't make or receive phone calls, and that's a rather big problem for a phone. I got on tech support with my phone company and I spent hours following their instructions: do this, try that, etc. But nothing helped. I had to change a lot of settings on the phone, and type in many lines of what I can only describe as ancient Greek, or possibly Klingon. But nothing helped. Tech support was unable to get the phone working, so I ordered a new phone.
But unfortunately, they sent me two phones and billed my credit card twice. I got it straightened out after several calls to tech support and a trip to a Fedex drop-off location to return the second phone. But hours were wasted.
So now I have my new phone and my old phone. At this point, I had not installed the SIM card into the new phone, so I decided to experiment with the old phone. Tech support couldn't fix it, but maybe...
I removed the phone's battery and re-installed the battery. I tried making a call. I was successful. Using another phone, I called my phone. No luck, it still wouldn't receive calls, but that may have been due to all the twiddling with the phone settings that tech support had me do.
I installed the new SIM card into the new phone and configured the phone and it worked. Then I realized that I should've kept the old phone. It was perfect: I could make calls, but no one could call me. But I kept the new phone, and the old phone no longer works except to browse the internet.
The new phone hassles me with unwanted calls from numbers I don't recognize and voices that sternly warn me that I'm in trouble with the FBI and I should press "1" immediately...etc. I get a lot of texts from females that say, simply, "Hi." Behind that greeting is a criminal, probably in India (why do they always sound Indian?) fishing for an American all-day sucker.
My partner Nuria thoughtfully gave me a case for the phone. I won't bore you with the number of times I put the case on, then took it off to make the phone work, put the case on, took it off, put it on, etc. A more reasonable person would have sent the case back for a refund. But my experiences with getting a refund for something that doesn't work, especially if it's cheap, is—it (getting a refund) usually doesn't work, either.
And so it goes.
2 comments:
Good morning!
What a terrible experience! But I am amaze of the way how you were able to fix it because in my case, I just throw it away, I am not a patient person.
Good job, Mr. VW and I was wondering if you were ok but I forgot that Nuria is with you, so you have been busy.
Thank you for sharing it.
Have a great day!
TA
Greetings and Welcome Back !! I check every morning for my tidbit of wisdom or humor only to find "the street is quiet"...... but hope you are having a lot of fun this summer.
I completely agree with your opinion regarding these phone companies. I can tell you that about 1 in 3 persons tell me how poorly their phone is working. It doesn't matter the cost of the phone -- and I don't believe it matters which provider either.
Technology is supposed to provide us outstanding phones and service. And yes, everyone with phone issues needs to realize talking to a tech support person requires hours --multiple times-- and usually the problem returns the next day.
I equate this with the goings on in the world -- I have my hypothesis but it's easy to see where I'm going with this.
I propose cell phone companies design a new contract that says "if the phone owner spends more than 1 hour with a technician" the phone will be replaced at no charge.
Great post and great to see you back in action.
LL
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