Cell Phone HELL

The world of cell phones. I sometimes wonder why I ever took the plunge.

Besides constantly battling over where we have service and where we don't, paying the dreaded 'over your minutes' bill, giving people the ability to ALWAYS be able to find you and having to deal with customer service representatives.......why? Why do we do this to ourselves?

I know, I know, for convenience, so we can ALWAYS get a hold of our children and they us, in case of emergency, etc., etc.

We have been faithful Verizon customers for over 2 1/2 years now. Our phone died, we called to get it fixed, we were told "it's too old and not 911 compatible, but hey, how about new phones and another year of service?!" Begrudingly, we agreed. New phones arrived. Don't work. Can't program them from our house. Calls were made. New phones were sent. Don't work. More calls were made, new phones were sent (this is the process, they have to send you at least 2 sets of phones before they can determine it is in fact, the phone). Don't work. We can't figure it out, Verizon can't figure it out. We are all stumped. Verizon offers to allow us out of our contract, free to go somewhere else, thank you very much, yada, yada, yada.

Then, the final bill arrives. To the tune of $530.00. Early termination fees for both lines, monthly charges for Oct., Nov. & Dec. (phones were returned the 2nd week of Oct.) and the final kick in the ass - late fees.

Many calls were made. Several customer service agents/supervisors are spoken to. All would be corrected, "very sorry, ma'am", yadah, yadah.

Corrected bill arrives. To the tune of $603.00. Patience running out.

To make a very long story not quite so long - more calls were made today - after 3 months of ME dealing with this shit - the supervisor says to me today, "we're sorry ma'am, but you are not authorized on this account, it is in your husband's name and we cannot talk to you about the bill." Three f*cking months, they have been talking to me - they just discovered it is in John's name?? Wow.

Needless to say, not nice words were spoken, maybe even some swearing. Now, my husband has to call them and "authorize" me to deal with THEIR screw-ups and try to find someone that works there that could possibly give me about $570.00 in credits, what do you suppose my chances are?

You're right. Slim and none.

I'm going outside to play in the newly fallen 7" of snow, with the kids - to 'cool' off a bit.