September 13, 2004

• Cell Phone Drama

  
  

  Last Tuesday, my dear husband had his cell phone stolen out of his car while at work.  It wasn’t entirely what I would call a theft because hubby left his window down on his car…so the thief pretty much had an invitation…ya know?

  
  

  Anyway, we have our cell phone service through AT&T Wireless…so I called and explained what had occured and attempted to get a replacement phone sent out to us.  This wasn’t that big of a deal, except that we don’t have insurance on the phones so we had to pay for the replacement.  However, the lady that took care of this for us talked to her supervisor and found a way to get around us having to pay full price on a replacement phone…and was able to get us an upgrade as well.  So, after a couple hours or so on the phone with these fine people, we had a new phone being shipped out to us for around $35 plus shipping costs and was to be deliverd within 48 hours.  Great!

  
  

  The new phone arrived on Thursday, but wasn’t opened until Friday morning because I wasn’t paying much attention to the package the night before…otherwise destracted by the children of the household.  Anyway, I had Jason open the box while I was at work.  Only one problem, this new phone didn’t come with a SIM Card…i.e., the brain for the phone!! OOPS!

  
  

  So, I called AT&T Wireless back and spoke to another helpful lady and explained the situation.  She said it was just a shipping error and that she’d order another SIM Card for that phone and overnight it to us (which means Monday delivery).  Okee dokee!! Cool…so that solves that.  Well, that’s what I thought anyway.

  
  

  Saturday, we’re getting ready to leave for dinner when my mom brings me her cell phone and says that she’s getting an error message.  Hmm…okay.  So I take a look and the phone says, “SIM Card Registration Failed”.  Uh oh…that can’t be good.

  
  

  I think about it for a second and then think, “OMG…they deactivated the wrong phone’s SIM Card!!”.  So I attempt to call AT&T Wireless to straighten this out…but once on the phone and through the lengthy listing of automated messages…I’m informed that the estimated wait time is over 20 minutes for my call.  Well, like I’d said…we were getting ready to go to dinner…I wasn’t about to wait that long.  So, I hung up and declared that I’d call them in the morning.

  
  

  So I did just that….first thing Sunday morning I was on the phone with yet, another lovely lady from AT&T Wireless.  Her name was Mary and she was extremely helpful and found out exactly what had occured with our phones.  So…here’s the explanation:

  
  

  When Jason‘s phone was stolen, they suspended activity on his number and mailed out the replacement phone…but minus the SIM Card.  So, when I called to report the missing SIM Card, the lady wasn’t able to order a new one for that phone because the activity had been suspended for that number listing the SIM Card as deactivated…they are unable to order an replacement card for a deactivated number.

  
  

  You with me so far?  Okay…

  
  

  So, instead…she ordered a replacement card under my mom’s cell number not thinking that it would affect it.  However, this deactivated my mom’s active SIM Card and still didn’t solve the problem for Jason‘s phone.  So Mary, after realizing all of this, was able to go in and manuver things so that a new SIM Card was issued for Jason‘s new phone. 

  
  

  So now…I have two SIM Cards coming out to the house.  The one arriving today is actually for my mom’s phone…and Jason‘s should be here either tomorrow or Wednesday. 

  
  

  BUT…there was one other hitch…while Mary and I were finalizing all of this on the phone, I was disconnected.  Yup…in one second…she was gone!  So I call back, but you know that I didn’t get Mary back on the phone because call centers don’t work that way.  Nope…Mary was in Oklahoma City…and when I called back I got Ralph from upstate New York!  He of course had no clue as to what had transpired or what Mary and I had uncovered and fixed.  So I had to explain all of this to him…to which his first response was to try to reactivate the SIM Card on my mom’s phone…to which I replied “NOOOOOOO!!! Don’t do that!! Mary put in an order for another card already and the replacement (the active) SIMS Card for that phone should be here tomorrow…so puhleeeeezzze don’t do that.” 

  
  

  I think I may have scared him a bit…but I went on to explain things just a bit more and then asked him to just please check to make sure that the order Mary had placed was processed and was being shipped.  So…he did and it was and is…so all is well. 

  
  

  I tell you what…this was just way too much drama for me!!  It was tiring just reiterating it all!

  • 11:44 am
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