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I hate cell phones
Or at least I hate the, excuse my french, bullshit that seems to be their inevitable byproduct.
Today I emailed my local TV station's "Problem Solvers" crew, just because if I didn't vent to someone who might actually listen, I was going to end up in prison for actions I couldn't help:
Compared to a lot of problems that cross your desks, I’m sure this ranks as one of lesser importance, but it’s important to me, so I hope you’ll bear with me.
Until two months ago, I had never owned a cell phone, by choice. I liked leading an unleashed life. But recently I started a small business, and discovered that my clients expected me to have one. So I started researching them, and visiting half a dozen or more stores that sold them, and, after a lot of research that basically only confused me more (I’m not a stupid person – I have a master’s degree, sixteen years of professional experience, and my business is already taking off, but the business of cell phones and their contracts is about, oh, 100 times more ridiculously complicated than it needs to be), I walked into the Radio Shack in the South Hill Mall in Puyallup, which happened to be the first store where the sales staff didn’t stare in openmouthed wonder at the vision of a 51-year-old woman buying her first cell phone in the year 2010.
The staff was, I thought at the time, very helpful, explaining the differences (and lack of differences) between the various prepaid cellphone companies and the phones they offered, since I expected to actually use the phone minimally and did not want to be tied down to a contract for more than $20 a month (this did earn me a startled, “well, contracts generally start at $50,” which in turn earned them an appalled look from me). Eventually I narrowed things down to two companies, Net10 and TracPhone, which, I was assured in tones of greatest confidence and shown in the paperwork, were owned by the same people, and had identical programs, that the only, absolutely the only, difference was in the phones they offered. I could buy the same minutes at the same price from either company, and as few as 60 minutes every two months. The phone came with 300 minutes, so I was set. I bought the phone.
Today was day 58. Being a bit unsure about trying to update my phone online or over the phone this first time, I went back into Radio Shack for help and to buy more minutes.
This experience was a 180 degree turn. I won’t get into how sullen the salesperson was, and how, when I told him I was 90% sure it was a Net10 phone, insisted on selling me TracFone minutes and then, when I asked him to put the PIN number into the phone for me, suddenly realized that, yes, this was a Net10 phone, and we had to go through voiding the sale and buying Net10 minutes. The TracPhone minutes would have been good for 60 days, and I only had to buy 60 minutes. When he went to sell me the Net10 minutes, all of a sudden I had to buy 200 (I still had over 250 of the original minutes left on the phone – the only reason I was buying more minutes was to get more days), and they were only good for 30 days. When I complained about this, the clerk went to fetch his manager from the back room (which took long enough that I’m pretty sure they were hoping I’d just go away).
His manager was utterly rude. Incredibly rude. When I explained the situation and what I’d been told, and told I’d been misled and the situation needed to be straightened out, he told me I was a liar to my face (he didn’t use the word liar, but that’s what he meant), and I think if he could have gotten away with it, he would have physically shoved me out of his store.
And, of course, the situation did not get rectified.
At this point it’s not so much the days and the minutes themselves, although it’s getting close to the principle of the thing so far as I’m concerned, but it’s the rude treatment *and the fact that I was lied to in the first place.*
Is there anything that can be done to get Radio Shack to quit doing this, to me or other people, and is there *anything* that can be done to get me what I was told when I bought the phone? I know that last one is a long shot. But the first one really desperately needs to be dealt with.
Thank you.
---
Yes, I know I'm tilting at windmills here (however, my beef is with Radio Shack, not the cell phone companies, no matter who's in control of the minutes/days bullshit -- the point is that I was lied to and then treated badly, and that's my beef -- and I want that to be crystal clear). As I said at the beginning, it was either write this letter or do something to Radio Shack that would get me arrested. And I really don't want to get arrested. It would screw up my brand-new freelance contracts something fierce.
Today I emailed my local TV station's "Problem Solvers" crew, just because if I didn't vent to someone who might actually listen, I was going to end up in prison for actions I couldn't help:
Compared to a lot of problems that cross your desks, I’m sure this ranks as one of lesser importance, but it’s important to me, so I hope you’ll bear with me.
Until two months ago, I had never owned a cell phone, by choice. I liked leading an unleashed life. But recently I started a small business, and discovered that my clients expected me to have one. So I started researching them, and visiting half a dozen or more stores that sold them, and, after a lot of research that basically only confused me more (I’m not a stupid person – I have a master’s degree, sixteen years of professional experience, and my business is already taking off, but the business of cell phones and their contracts is about, oh, 100 times more ridiculously complicated than it needs to be), I walked into the Radio Shack in the South Hill Mall in Puyallup, which happened to be the first store where the sales staff didn’t stare in openmouthed wonder at the vision of a 51-year-old woman buying her first cell phone in the year 2010.
The staff was, I thought at the time, very helpful, explaining the differences (and lack of differences) between the various prepaid cellphone companies and the phones they offered, since I expected to actually use the phone minimally and did not want to be tied down to a contract for more than $20 a month (this did earn me a startled, “well, contracts generally start at $50,” which in turn earned them an appalled look from me). Eventually I narrowed things down to two companies, Net10 and TracPhone, which, I was assured in tones of greatest confidence and shown in the paperwork, were owned by the same people, and had identical programs, that the only, absolutely the only, difference was in the phones they offered. I could buy the same minutes at the same price from either company, and as few as 60 minutes every two months. The phone came with 300 minutes, so I was set. I bought the phone.
Today was day 58. Being a bit unsure about trying to update my phone online or over the phone this first time, I went back into Radio Shack for help and to buy more minutes.
This experience was a 180 degree turn. I won’t get into how sullen the salesperson was, and how, when I told him I was 90% sure it was a Net10 phone, insisted on selling me TracFone minutes and then, when I asked him to put the PIN number into the phone for me, suddenly realized that, yes, this was a Net10 phone, and we had to go through voiding the sale and buying Net10 minutes. The TracPhone minutes would have been good for 60 days, and I only had to buy 60 minutes. When he went to sell me the Net10 minutes, all of a sudden I had to buy 200 (I still had over 250 of the original minutes left on the phone – the only reason I was buying more minutes was to get more days), and they were only good for 30 days. When I complained about this, the clerk went to fetch his manager from the back room (which took long enough that I’m pretty sure they were hoping I’d just go away).
His manager was utterly rude. Incredibly rude. When I explained the situation and what I’d been told, and told I’d been misled and the situation needed to be straightened out, he told me I was a liar to my face (he didn’t use the word liar, but that’s what he meant), and I think if he could have gotten away with it, he would have physically shoved me out of his store.
And, of course, the situation did not get rectified.
At this point it’s not so much the days and the minutes themselves, although it’s getting close to the principle of the thing so far as I’m concerned, but it’s the rude treatment *and the fact that I was lied to in the first place.*
Is there anything that can be done to get Radio Shack to quit doing this, to me or other people, and is there *anything* that can be done to get me what I was told when I bought the phone? I know that last one is a long shot. But the first one really desperately needs to be dealt with.
Thank you.
---
Yes, I know I'm tilting at windmills here (however, my beef is with Radio Shack, not the cell phone companies, no matter who's in control of the minutes/days bullshit -- the point is that I was lied to and then treated badly, and that's my beef -- and I want that to be crystal clear). As I said at the beginning, it was either write this letter or do something to Radio Shack that would get me arrested. And I really don't want to get arrested. It would screw up my brand-new freelance contracts something fierce.