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The cell phone saga
Oct. 27th, 2004 10:44 amI meant to post about this last night, but ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lordaerith and I were having too much fun playing with our new cell phones. Yup, that's right, we got new cell phones. But i'm jumping ahead in my story.
A while ago we get this: "Your contract is almost up and you're a really good customer so we have this awesome only-over-the-phone offer for you." Actually, the deal looks really good. It's the same price we're paying currently and it gives us more minutes, no roaming charges, free calls to anyone on the Cingular network, etc.
So friday afternoon I call up to talk to this really nice woman about the offer. Find out that it really is what they say and furthermore we can each get a new $200 phone for $50 (that's a straight up price, no rebate). So we go for it. We give her aerith's work address (since we're not home in the daytime). She tells us 3-5 business days and that there will be activation instructions with the phones and as soon as we activate them the new plan will be in effect.
This is where the fun part starts. I get an e-mail over the weekend with the package tracking number. However, it only says quantity 1. I figure that it means one phone for each number listed (i was right about that). When we check the fedex site it says that the phones will be delivered on Tuesday (yesterday).
Aerith doesn't get the phones at work. He sees the fedex truck on his street, but the fedex guy never comes to his work place. When he gets home he checks the tracking number and finds out that yes the phones were delivered to northampton and someone signed for them. As it is only his boss and him at his work, he knows that he couldn't have missed it. He calls up a few places along to street where he works, but no one has the package. At this point, I come home and aerith is already upset. He tries to call the FedEx 800 number but there isn't an option that he likes. So we get a number for a kinko's office and the woman there tells him that it did have the right address on it.
We head out and try some of the other buildings on his street. of course it's 5pm so most of them are closed/closing. again, no luck. Then we head up to the fedex office on route 5/10. we forget the tracking number...oops. But the people there are nice to us and the guy who was delivering packages in our area does remember the name of the person that it says signed for it, but he can't remember where it was delivered to. I think that Aerith is literally fuming by this time. However, we do learn that if you say "representative" when you call the 800 number you get right to a person.
Back home I call Cingular to make sure that they sent me the right tracking number. They did. I also verify that it's two phones. It is. Meanwhile Aerith calls the 800 number and speaks to someone who is able to give him the address where it was delivered to. I look it up and find out that it was delivered to the Cingular booth in the Walmart in Northampton. Hey, at least it made it to a Cingular store and not some random business.
Off we run to Walmart. There's no one in the Cingular booth, but we can see the package with our names on it behind the counter. So we go over to customer service and talk to the manager. He explains that if the package has the Walmart address on it that he can't give it to us, but if it doesn't he can. So he goes and gets it and of course it has Aerith's work address on it. We pull out ids, proving that we are the people on the package, and we finally get our new cell phones. There are two of them in the box and the boxes are even labeled as to whose phone is whose.
We get home, open our boxes, put the phones together, turn them on and...nothing. the have the right numbers in them, but they aren't picking up that they should be our new phones. And there are no instruction on how to change it over. So, it's another call to Cingular. The first guy is really hard to hear and rude and said he would call me back on the home phone, but doesn't. So I call back (this time from the home phone) and get another guy who's really sweet and helpful and gets our phones activated. Because I've worked in the telecommunication industry before, i just double check that we're getting the new plan...guess what, it's not listed. So the guy switches it over for us and everything.
After dinner (which Aerith made while I was on the phone with Cingular...what a sweet guy!), Aerith and I spend time playing with our phone and transferring information over to them. But before we start going crazy, I am smart and check the cingular site. I then find out that our new plan doesn't start until 11/03. But that's fine with me.
So to sum up: 1 missdelivered package, a few hours of running around, 2 phone calls, and some playing around later we have two brand-new special and fun camera phones with memory and color and a new plan that costs us the same as our old plan but gives us more minutes and special perks.
lordaerith and I were having too much fun playing with our new cell phones. Yup, that's right, we got new cell phones. But i'm jumping ahead in my story.A while ago we get this: "Your contract is almost up and you're a really good customer so we have this awesome only-over-the-phone offer for you." Actually, the deal looks really good. It's the same price we're paying currently and it gives us more minutes, no roaming charges, free calls to anyone on the Cingular network, etc.
So friday afternoon I call up to talk to this really nice woman about the offer. Find out that it really is what they say and furthermore we can each get a new $200 phone for $50 (that's a straight up price, no rebate). So we go for it. We give her aerith's work address (since we're not home in the daytime). She tells us 3-5 business days and that there will be activation instructions with the phones and as soon as we activate them the new plan will be in effect.
This is where the fun part starts. I get an e-mail over the weekend with the package tracking number. However, it only says quantity 1. I figure that it means one phone for each number listed (i was right about that). When we check the fedex site it says that the phones will be delivered on Tuesday (yesterday).
Aerith doesn't get the phones at work. He sees the fedex truck on his street, but the fedex guy never comes to his work place. When he gets home he checks the tracking number and finds out that yes the phones were delivered to northampton and someone signed for them. As it is only his boss and him at his work, he knows that he couldn't have missed it. He calls up a few places along to street where he works, but no one has the package. At this point, I come home and aerith is already upset. He tries to call the FedEx 800 number but there isn't an option that he likes. So we get a number for a kinko's office and the woman there tells him that it did have the right address on it.
We head out and try some of the other buildings on his street. of course it's 5pm so most of them are closed/closing. again, no luck. Then we head up to the fedex office on route 5/10. we forget the tracking number...oops. But the people there are nice to us and the guy who was delivering packages in our area does remember the name of the person that it says signed for it, but he can't remember where it was delivered to. I think that Aerith is literally fuming by this time. However, we do learn that if you say "representative" when you call the 800 number you get right to a person.
Back home I call Cingular to make sure that they sent me the right tracking number. They did. I also verify that it's two phones. It is. Meanwhile Aerith calls the 800 number and speaks to someone who is able to give him the address where it was delivered to. I look it up and find out that it was delivered to the Cingular booth in the Walmart in Northampton. Hey, at least it made it to a Cingular store and not some random business.
Off we run to Walmart. There's no one in the Cingular booth, but we can see the package with our names on it behind the counter. So we go over to customer service and talk to the manager. He explains that if the package has the Walmart address on it that he can't give it to us, but if it doesn't he can. So he goes and gets it and of course it has Aerith's work address on it. We pull out ids, proving that we are the people on the package, and we finally get our new cell phones. There are two of them in the box and the boxes are even labeled as to whose phone is whose.
We get home, open our boxes, put the phones together, turn them on and...nothing. the have the right numbers in them, but they aren't picking up that they should be our new phones. And there are no instruction on how to change it over. So, it's another call to Cingular. The first guy is really hard to hear and rude and said he would call me back on the home phone, but doesn't. So I call back (this time from the home phone) and get another guy who's really sweet and helpful and gets our phones activated. Because I've worked in the telecommunication industry before, i just double check that we're getting the new plan...guess what, it's not listed. So the guy switches it over for us and everything.
After dinner (which Aerith made while I was on the phone with Cingular...what a sweet guy!), Aerith and I spend time playing with our phone and transferring information over to them. But before we start going crazy, I am smart and check the cingular site. I then find out that our new plan doesn't start until 11/03. But that's fine with me.
So to sum up: 1 missdelivered package, a few hours of running around, 2 phone calls, and some playing around later we have two brand-new special and fun camera phones with memory and color and a new plan that costs us the same as our old plan but gives us more minutes and special perks.
