Cell phones

Cell phones, those amazing little gadgets we’ve all become so dependent on, to the point that many of us no longer have a traditional land-line based telephone in our homes.

They are also something we’ve begun to get increasingly aggravated with, as carriers lock us into long term contracts with high financial penalties if we attempt to cancel the contracts for any reason.  Those contracts can look very attractive initially, but as time moves forward, and our lives change, they often become increasingly unwieldy monkeys riding on our backs.

Especially in the economy that has plagued us the last five years.

Faced with shifting fortunes, rising costs, and shrinking incomes, many people are desperate to reduce their monthly expenses, to get them to the point that their outgoing bills are less than their income.  That’s something our government isn’t very good at, not only for themselves, but for their constituents.  Corporations, however, seemed to have perfected the art of extracting blood from turnips.

With your cell phone carrier, they often have you over a barrel.  You can’t afford the monthly expense, but you certainly can’t afford the cancellation fee, or the negative notation on your credit history.  There aren’t a lot of options available, especially when you desperately need that cell phone, whether because it’s your sole connection with the outside world, or because you are searching for a job.

There are a few things, especially when faced with a temporary financial crunch, as well as some other things you can do to prevent being caught in the contract bind, while not causing undue financial hardship.

First, resist the urge to “upgrade” your phone at a reduced initial cost and renewing your contract.  This is where the cell phone companies are dangling a carrot out there, intending to keep you on THEIR treadmill.  Resist the temptation, and either continue using your old cell phone or buy another outright.  To keep costs down, you can often buy a used phone via Ebay or other outlets.  Do your research, make sure that the make and model is compatible with your carrier, as well as has some kind of guarantee from the seller that it will arrive in good condition.  You’ll still have to pay an activation fee.

If you don’t actually need a smart phone, skip the trend, stick with a basic function phone, which often can be used on a smaller data package.  These smaller plans without large data packages can save $10 or more per month, which can quickly add up.

Don’t add lines.  Each line comes with an additional contract, usually 24 months long.  If you have a need for additional phones, consider a prepaid option instead.  Then, if it turns out that it’s not needed anymore, you aren’t faced with an unnecessary bill.

If you are locked into a contract situation, and desperately need to cut your bills, there are a few options available.  Check to see if you can change the plan itself without altering your contract.  This option exists with many cell phone companies, and by switching to a basic phone with fewer bells and whistles, you can often cut your plan as much as a hundred dollars a  month.  Don’t cut it so short that you end up going over your limits however, overages are very expensive with many companies.

There is also the option of “suspending” your contract temporarily, usually up to 3 months.  This may have a monthly service charge, but it will allow you time to get your finances under control.

If you are not locked into a contract, you may want to explore other options, even if your finances and job situation looks bright and cheery.  By avoiding the contracts, you are free to explore other options as they become available, without having to wait.  That means everything from the latest iPhone to the different packages available.  It also means that if you are suddenly offered the perfect job in some exotic location, you won’t be biting off a chunk of that “early termination fee.”  Numerous companies offer prepaid plans, some even have iPhones and other smart phones available, complete with unlimited data and minute plans.  Straight Talk, available through Walmart, is one of them.  It is also serviced by the Big Three in cell phone providers: AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, depending on your location.  If you move and your old phone isn’t served in the new area, the problem is solved by simply purchasing another phone, and you are never stuck with a two year contract that leaves all of the cards in the cell phone company’s hands.

Contracts, ranging from one to three years, have become the bane of the consumer’s life.  They are everywhere, increasingly restrictive, designed to reduce competition for our dollars for years at a time, and ultimately reducing the level of service we manage to choke out of the various corporations.  Once you are locked into their services, its virtually impossible to change suppliers, no matter how terrible their service becomes.  It’s not a good trend, especially in a world that has increasing numbers of monopolies to which the consumers are becoming enslaved.

We don’t really have a choice about our electric, natural gas, water, cable, or land based telephone service, yet these companies want to often lock us into contracts to continue receiving their services, and leave the consumer with early termination fees if they decide to move out of their service area.  Cell phone companies do the same thing, using the carrot of reduced cost cell phones to entice customers to their two year enslavement.

To make it even worse, a cell phone is locked to a specific carrier, preventing the consumer from going to another carrier and acquiring service for that phone.  That means even if you aren’t locked into a contract and have a $500 cell phone, you have to buy their service, or buy another cell phone.  Is this really fair?  After all, you bought the cell phone, not leased it.  The cost was not subsidized by the cell phone company.

Something has to be done about all of these corporate monopolies with their abilities to turn us into their indentured serfs for years at a time.  In the meantime, the only way we can avoid that trap ourselves is to carefully read the fine print, avoid contracts with penalties for early termination, and learn to pay as we go.  Prepaid cell phones are one option, and unlike the early days when their fees were outrageously high, they have become increasingly competitive.  Today, Straight Talk, one of the larger prepaid companies, is part of TracFone, and it is marketed through Walmart.  Their unlimited voice and data plans are $45 per month, with no contract and no penalties if you don’t like it, but you do have to purchase the phone, which range in cost from about $19 to nearly $500, depending on features, models, and brands.  Their customers seem to be about equally as satisfied as those who are paying $110 or more for the same service with a contract.

So what does a person really get with the additional $65?

You get a two  year contract, and a reduced price on your phone, plus a $35 activation fee.  That means that at $110 per month, you will pay an extra $1595 for that cell phone in lieu of just purchasing it and going with a cheaper prepaid plan.  Outside of that, there is little difference between companies.  Sure, there is “tech support” with your contract phone, but have you ever used it?  Did it offer you any help?

There’s another reason to consider the no-contract phone.  In the case of a Straight Talk phone, Walmart offers a protection plan that includes water & humidity damage, and costs from $6 on up, depending on the initial cost of your phone.  With most companies, the “insurance” on your phone is about $7 per month, and in the event of water or humidity damage, the replacement can cost you $100 or more, as well as has to be mailed to you anyhow.  With Walmart’s protection plan, there is apparently no deductible on the phone, which means that the difference (in 2 years) can be over $160 per month for better coverage.

Then there are the hidden charges on contract cell phone service, all of those mysterious taxes and service fees that really will surprise you, as they approach increasing the price 20-25% per month.  Without the contract, the fees are included, providing you with a manageable price per month that can be adapted to  your budget.

Sure, there are no “discounts” on the phones initially.  They have to be paid for, along with shipping (if you don’t pick it up in the store) and taxes.  But…in the first two years alone, assuming you don’t damage the phone or get a huge desire to have the latest iPhone or smart phone, you will save $1757, minus the cost of your phone.  Even the phone’s cost may not be as high as you think–it isn’t uncommon for the phone from the carrier to cost $100-300 more than your “discount”, leaving you with a big bill.  The same phone or a similar phone with similar features, may be available from a no-contract program at roughly the same price.

The no contract phones are also an excellent idea for parents with a child acquiring their first cell phone, a teen with a new cell phone, or even a college student’s cell phone needs.  It means no surprise overages resulting in bill shock.  An inexpensive phone for calls and simple texting can be a solution for a child, who is more likely to lose or damage a phone.  (Loss is not part of the coverage from Walmart’s protection plan.)  If a cell phone is lost, there are also no worries that there will be calls to Dubai and Hong Kong suddenly appearing on your bill either.  These cheap cell phones can also be considered a temporary or “throw away” solution to a short term cell phone need–if an additional phone is needed during an emergency or travel.  They also offer international plans, handy if calling out of the country, as well as plans for 3 months, 6 months, or a full  year.  Imagine trying to pay a year in advance on your contract phone!

I’ve talked to customers that have used Straight Talk, and they are generally happy with the service they have received, whether it was their first cell phone or a replacement for the contract cell phone.  I also know people with a number of other carriers, including Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, and C-Spire.  The ones with other carriers are usually not as happy, and often are chafing at the bit for their contract to end, whether for financial reasons or because another company offers a desirable service or phone that is not available with their current carrier.  Sometimes it is due to relocation, and the service available in their new area is not as good as it was in the old area, leaving them paying for substandard reception or perks such as a local store that repairs their phone.

With a no-contract service, you are still free to choose to use a traditional contracted service at any time, if it turns out that you aren’t happy with it.  The sole complaint that I have noticed with no-contract services is number portability–it can be expensive, not available, or a pain.  If this is not an issue, one way to test the waters is to buy an inexpensive phone from one of the companies and try it before terminating your contract.

The phones can be served by one of three carriers, and not all carriers are available in all areas, and even in the areas that they are available, they may not offer the same type of reception.  There are also many issues with both 3G and 4G service, especially in small towns and rural areas.  Read reviews, find out which phones are served by the company that offers the best service for your area, as well as the areas in which you frequently travel.  In my case, I know that Verizon does not service the area in which my daughter lives, and therefore, I would not consider using Verizon as a contract carrier OR via a prepaid program.  Unfortunately, both AT&T and Sprint have spotty coverage throughout the rural areas of my home state, so either one could also leave me without a signal while traveling elsewhere.  That problem is true for most of us in the United States–no carrier provides complete coverage anywhere.

In addition to prepaid plans from companies like TracFone, the cell phone companies often offer a prepaid plan.  Unfortunately, they often don’t let you use the same phone that you may have used with their contract service, requiring you to purchase a different phone (at full price, with limited choices.)  Even with that, for many people, their services may be a better option.

Avoid the contracts when possible, and keep your independence and freedom of choice–it’s the best choice for your financial future as well.  Never set yourself up to end up with a big bill by adding friends or relatives to  your contract service unless you truly are independently wealthy.  Instead, opt for the no-contract version, even if you purchase the phone and plan, you will protect yourself from unexpectedly large bills in the future.

Write your representatives and senators, asking them to offer the consumer relief from these unwieldy contracts that favor the corporations, as well as to legally unlock cell phones and make them able to work with any carrier, and removing the monopolies that plague us all.  It’s high time that corporations began being accountable for their services, rather than able to rape the consumer with high rates, poor service, and long contracts with large penalties.

Tis the season to shop for a new cell phone (and carrier?)

We have Sprint as a cell phone carrier.  I’ve been with them for years, and was with Verizon previously.  Greg also was previously with Verizon.   Our contract is up in January, our phone is nearly two years old now too.  We’ve been sharing a phone for the last (almost anyhow) two years as part of the downsizing of our budget.  For a while, we tried the pay-as-you-go routine, but the fees for a phone that saw almost no use were excessive in our opinion, especially since most of the time, we’re in the same location.  We also have the “everything” plan, mostly because in the past, everything seemed to be more than my package included…every month.  It costs us about the same, and we don’t worry about it anymore.  I like that, not worrying about data, texts, day of the week, hour, or minutes.  It fits with our “Keep It Simple, Stupid” (KISS) philosophy these days.

Two years ago, after the fourth Blackberry malfunctioned (ringer quit when I was receiving a call) I was on the rebound from “smart” phones.  I wanted a phone that WORKED, and preferably a flip phone to stop the continual “pocket dials”.  I also wanted a QUERTY keyboard, as I had fallen in love with that feature on the Blackberries.  The answer was LG’s Lotus.  They had just come out with a new Lotus, and I didn’t see any reason to pay extra for the new one, when the old one had what I was looking for.  I opted for a basic black one, with a nod to Greg’s gender…I just couldn’t see him being crazy about pink or purple, and we’d already decided to stick with a single phone for a while.

I don’t really have any complaints–the phone has done what it is supposed to.  Granted, it’s NOT a smart phone, and that’s my own fault, so it has pretty limited use outside of making phone calls.  I don’t use a lot of smart phone features, but I do use some.  Greg uses a phone to its maximum capacity, however, as he’s much more the geek than me.  I’m curious about the gimmicky things, like the codes you can photograph and your phone gives you the info.  I might use Twitter more if I had a phone app that could handle it.  Sometimes even I have a need to check my email when it’s not convenient to tote (or use) the laptop around.  And as Greg pointed out…it’s coming onto the holidays, and MouseHunt will have their annual Winter Hunt.  (Yes, I’m a huge fan of HitGrab’s MouseHunt game…)  I just might want to log into Facebook (the devil we all love to hate) or MouseHunt (they are on Facebook, but you can also access the game through their website.)

I want a smart phone.  Now comes the hard part.  I want one that works and makes us a whole lot happier than the Blackberries ever did.  I’m not sure about touch screens, I’m a bit leery of their lifespan, and I prefer to use a phone about two years before replacing it.  We’re also moderately hard on our phones–I’m apt to drop them, we’re continually plugging in headsets, chargers, etc.  We have a granddaughter who might grab it with sticky fingers, or poke at it.  I’ve also been burned on that whole “it’s gotten wet” due to the moisture sensor inside of the phone (it had NEVER been in the rain or dropped in water either.)  It seems that the Gulf Coast, with it’s ambient moisture levels and the constant sweating (try holding a phone against your ear for 20 minutes on hold when it’s 93* F. and the humidity is 98%…) is going to always indicate that you “got it wet.”  I’m just glad the dogs are all long past puppyhood and are highly unlikely to snatch it into a slobbery mouth and run off with it or chew it.

So, I started with Sprint, since we’re a current customer there and I don’t have to wait.  They too have the iPhone.  They also have Google’s phone from Samsung.  They have several other smart phones.  It means renewing the contract for 2 years unless I opt to go with a “pre-owned” phone.  I checked that option, but it seems the only ones offered there are the Blackberries that left such a horrible taste in my mouth as one after another failed despite reasonable use and care.  There is also the Samsung Transform Ultra.

The Samsung Transform Ultra is slightly more attractive than the Google phone because of it’s addition of an external memory card.  It doesn’t hurt that it’s also $20 cheaper.  The iPhone, with it’s attractive availability of a variety of accessories and apps, is more than double the price, which is a big ouch with the KISS budget.  (That might be more Kiss it good bye than keep it simple too)

Now when I’m dealing with my frugal side, I want to look at just the smart phones that Sprint offers at no additional charge.  That sounds wonderful until you read the reviews of those phones.  It seems it would be a false sense of economy that lead me that way–frequent failure and being forced to replace it at a higher cost later isn’t going to save me any money in the long run.  I really DO want the phone to last the full two years of the contract, or nearly so.  My current phone isn’t broken yet…but the hinge is getting weak, and one of these days, it’s going to fall into two halves.  Experience with many cheap flip phones in the past has given me practice in feeling the warning signs of a worn out hinge.  It MIGHT make it to January, it might not.  To make it worse, the closest Sprint store is over 50 miles away, making replace/repair difficult too.

And then, there is the possibility of switching carriers.  C-spire offers what seems like better coverage (my sole complaint with Sprint is spotty coverage in rural areas) and similar pricing packages.  The iPhone is the same price, and they also have the Samsung Admire at no extra cost.  There are more C-Spire stores on the Gulf Coast than there are Sprint stores too.

How far will customer loyalty and ease of managing the entire new phone thing be if I stay with Sprint compared to switching to C-Spire?  I’m not sure.  I haven’t dropped into a C-spire store to see about the process.  I do know that the store in Gulfport that we dropped in was not very clean, had outdated sales and promotions posted everywhere, and had very little in terms of the latest in phones on display.  We were there about 15 minutes, and the sales clerks never spoke with us, nor did they leave the sanctuary of their sales counter at the back of the store.  We had driven over early specifically to stop there, as my mother was flying into the airport, and  leaving without talking to anyone left us with an hour to kill–we went shopping elsewhere for other things.  I won’t go to Gulfport again if I need a Sprint store, we’ll check out the one in Mobile instead.  Hopefully, their demo phones won’t leave us searching for wipes to remove the grime after we touch one.  It was literally the dirtiest cell phone store I have ever seen, from the fingerprints on the doors and windows to the displays inside.  Even the narrow counter that held the phones had obvious grunge on it.  We were there in early October, and the sales/promotions advertised on their displays all had ended in September or August.  (For Gulfport people, this was the store on the North side of I-10 off of Highway 49, I gather there is another store somewhere south of I-10 as well.)  I absolutely despise poor customer service, and dirty displays don’t do much for me either.  The employees there are obviously putting in time for a paycheck, and aren’t even particularly worried about job performance ratings to keep their jobs.

On the bright side, this is the season for great deals often.  I’m not too worried about the contract not being up for another month, it’s cheaper to just pay for a second phone for a month than to pay the “early termination fee” anyhow.

The big question might be…iPhone or not?

Good Morning and cell phones

Good morning, world.

The sun isn’t up yet, but that’s okay.  I start my day at 6 a.m. since that’s when my antibiotic is due for my morning dose.  Four times a day, sicker than a dog, I’m religious about it being on schedule.  That means that the rest of my pharmaceutical department is also started at 6 a.m., even if it isn’t as critical on the morning dose time.  I realized I was qualifying as “old” when I suddenly had all of these pills to take.  So, please excuse me if I’m a bit “off” this morning.  I’ve been quite ill, and I feel “loopy” for a bit after all the chemicals are consumed.

But getting on with life, our cell phone is in need of replacement.  We’ve known that for a while.  It’s nearly 2 years old, positively a dinosaur in terms of tech devices.  In addition, it was a reactionary purchase.  I was in the middle of a fit when our previous smart phone, a Blackberry, had suddenly developed a glitch in which the ringer didn’t work.  It would flash at us, but that was only good if you were looking at the thing.  It was about Blackberry #4, with one glitch after another, and I was livid.  The repair department had informed me that the thing was not covered since it had gotten wet, and showed me an offending red spot inside the cover.  It had never gotten wet, we’d never dropped it in water…but that “sensor” indicated otherwise.  Before I crawled over the counter and choked the employee, another waiting customer, with a sad and defeated voice, informed me that in our climate (we lived in New Orleans then) all it took was sweat in a pocket and our cellphones’ sensors indicated “water damage.”

I was done with smart phones, I ranted, and Greg patiently drove to the local Sprint store, where still in my snit, I chose a Lotus.  It isn’t smart, but it did have a QUERTY pad, and I’d been eyeing them for a while.  I still think its a great form, a wide flip phone with an actual Querty pad, but…it has other issues.  Like not being very smart.  We had been spoiled by the Blackberry, especially Greg, and since we were cutting costs by using a single cell phone with ample features, we were both stuck with my reactionary purchase.

Nearly two years of a dumb brick has made us nostalgic about the Blackberry, but I still haven’t forgotten the frequency of failures from it.  Smart phones have come a long ways in the past few years, and while Blackberrys may have once been king of smart phones, they aren’t even in the running these days.  Choosing a Blackberry now labels you as a dinosaur yourself, unwilling to adopt new technology and clinging to the familiar.  Either that or really cheap, since that’s what most Blackberrys today are.

Hoping to avoid the reactionary purchase as our current Lotus has a groaning hinge and well worn corners, it is past time to start researching.  Previously, I was thinking seriously about the HTC Evo in either the 3D or the Shift.  Asking Greg to take a look and offer an opinion hasn’t been particularly successful.  It’s not that he’s unconcerned or has no opinion, he merely assumes that I’ll choose and he’ll adapt.  I’ve been told that’s a sign of a very smart man and that I should hang onto him.  It’s really not why we’re getting married though.  I’d already decided he was very smart, very charming, and good company and that I should marry him long before the Lotus incident.  It doesn’t hurt that I already adore him and I’m madly in love with him either.

I logged into Sprint today, realizing that with all of the recent turmoil between my daughter’s hospital stay and then my own stay, I had neglected to pay them.  They are funny about that, and only forgiving so far before retaliating with a shut off.   Since I really want to avoid that, despite being loopy this morning…I logged in.  While I was there, I thought, gee whillikers, I really should see what they have in terms of phones now.

Greg may have some competition.  I may be in love.  They have a Nexus 4S from Google with a very attractive price–$29.99 with a 2 year add on to our contract.  It has all of the features I think I want.  It looks pretty good in the videos and photos.  I’ve never seen one.  I think I want one.  It also has this new thing called a Google Wallet that was just rolled out last Monday…and that looks convenient too, even if I suspect that Pascagoula, Mississippi doesn’t have many places that can accept it yet.

I know I’ve often complained about Sprint.  I thought about changing providers too.  Cellular South has some attractive packages and attractive coverage…and lots of complaints about customer service.  I’m big on customer service, and those complaints have actually scared me away.  AT&T is just as bad about their customer service.  The other providers fall short on coverage or pricing.  I may want to throttle Sprint sometimes, but most of the time, they provide reliable service at a reliable price.  We have even priced going with a no contract pre-paid service, but the problem seems to always boil down to poor coverage or high prices.  Sometimes it’s a case of better the devil you know, right?  We’ve actually sort of decided that for now, we’ll stick with Sprint, and add a pre-paid service when we’re ready to add a second phone, sort of hedging our bets on prices and service.

It doesn’t hurt that this phone knocks enough off of the price to make that 2 year commitment acceptable.  The discounts are actually more than the early termination fee would be.  Okay, I’m a sucker for slick technology.  Still, I think I’d like to see/touch/feel one of these phones before I commit to two years with it.  That means visiting a Sprint store and hoping they have one in stock.  I don’t even know where a store is located in Pascagoula!

The sun is up…but dragging Greg off in pursuit of a Sprint store in Pascagoula might not be a great idea at this hour…it’s barely 7 am on a Sunday morning.  Still…

I did warn you that I was loopy, right?

Cellphones, companies, contracts, and our budget

I’m only about six months from having my current contract with Sprint finally expire.  I’ve been with that company for years, but I have reached the point where I deeply and devoutly resent the contract situation with cell phone providers.  I feel as though the contract means they don’t have to deliver great service to keep us as customers for years…and then only play nice when its time to renew, offering new phones and upgrades that are really pretty much worthless.

They package the darndest things with the cellphone contracts, and then limit other things in mysterious business moves that do nothing for my enthusiasm for the contract.  Do I care about pro football,  NBA, or NASCAR on my phone?  Do I honestly want to try to watch a movie on a 3″ screen with a tinny little speaker?  How many ways can we ruin a good song by reproducing it on the crappy cell phone speaker?

Seriously.  I want a smart phone, but I don’t want it to be a reading comprehension/IQ test just to change the ringer volume.  I got so disgusted with the whole Blackberry scene that  after BB#4, we went to a dumb phone: the LG Lotus.  I have to admit…I notice its lack of “smartness”, but it IS much more reliable as far as being a phone.

That’s the key.  I want the phone function to WORK, no mysteries, no glitches about the ringer, no mysterious missed calls when the phone was laying on the desk in front of you as you worked & waited for it to ring.  That’s #1, that phone function.  It should get a decent signal where there is a decent signal (some phones don’t like anything but STRONG signals and won’t work without it.)  It shouldn’t drop calls.  It shouldn’t pocket dial when its not even in my pocket.  In other words, it should act the way its supposed to, not like some Stephen King inspired demonic device.

I’ll admit, I have some peculiar requirements for voice.  It has to transmit our voices clearly, because we use it to broadcast our radio programs.  We have to be able to hear it too, and some phones aren’t easy to hear, even though Greg & I both have hearing in the normal range.  (LG Lotus is that way, even with a head set it can be hard to hear.)  We also need to use it with both wired and bluetooth headsets, because time and time again, bluetooth headsets fail to deliver good audio quality for the radio programs, so we stick to wired headsets with a boom mic for that.  Bulky, space-cadet-ish, but reliable.

Then come the other features.

QUERTY keypad.  I like a querty keypad for texting, and I would call us ‘average’ text & picture mail users.  Greg isn’t as picky about the keypad, but he likes to be able to easily access multiple email accounts.  I suspect he’d like to sync it with Outlook, which there are no words to describe the level of hate I have for Outlook.  He loves it, I think it causes far more problems than it has solved since way back when…I think I liked the version that was with Office 2000 or something around then.  I didn’t like it with 2007 or 2010, that much I DO know!  I like to be able to occasionally check email–if I’m expecting something important via email and have an appointment, etc. it allows me to stay in the loop without hassles.

Internet.  Web access is something I find has very limited usefulness in my book.  I occasionally use it when I need something from a website or am searching for a business in an unfamiliar area.  It has limited use then too, as many times the connection is too slow, lost, I’m roaming and it won’t connect at all, or the webpage is unreadable on the phone.  I don’t think I have ever updated Twitter or Facebook using my phone, even in the Blackberry days.  There again, it’s a feature Greg uses more than I do.

GPS.  GPS is something I do like…if it works.  I hate Sprint’s Navigation software.  It’s glitchy, inaccurate, annoying, and frequently loses its signal for whatever reason.  Usually, it puts me within 1/2 mile of what I want…but I better have line-of-sight to what it is!  It also does not work in huge chunks of the area, so it becomes useless if we’re more than a mile or two from the interstate.  We will still often have voice and data connection…but no GPS function.  Go figure!  On the Blackberry, we used a Google map app that was much better.  I don’t know if the Google app now includes bike routes, but if it did…ULTRA cool!

Camera.  I do use it.  Not as much as I could or should maybe, but I do use it.  I wouldn’t want a phone without it again.  (Blackberry lacked it on ours.)  It’s handy, we are never without it.  Therefore, I’d like it to perform reasonably well.

Laptop sync.  It’s so much easier when there is a way to sync with your laptop and exchange information.  Phone numbers, pictures, video,  maps, etc.

Calendar.  Yeah, that would be fantastic, especially if it syncs with the laptop.  My life organized, what a novel thought!

WiFi hotspot.  I miss the days when we could use our phones as modems.  We don’t travel as consistently as we used to, either one of us, but occasionally, it would be nice if there was a way to tether the laptops.  It’s just not cost effective to use either the prepaid or the contract data cards ($67 per month with device protection)  for our occasional use.  It’s also nice as a back up in case of an internet outage, like say during a radio show.  (That happened to us with Cable One a couple of weeks ago just after my show started, and it was out over an hour.  Our current cable provider does not score well for reliability or speed–it’s throttled down during the hours between 4-12 midnight, and has been known to be down (here, not necessarily area-wide) for several hours a day at random times of the day, even while the television signal remains functional.)

Applications.  I haven’t used any since the Blackberry days, but they can be useful assets, especially if they don’t come with a monthly fee or outrageous download fee.  I’m cheap–I have to justify any extra expenses.  Inexpensive apps means it has to be a common/popular operating system with maximum number of users on that platform.

Operating System.  I think Android looks like the latest and greatest.  I’ve never used it, so I don’t know for sure.  Android is also the ONLY OS that offers the ability to act as a hotspot out of Sprint’s current offerings.  Greg dislikes Android and regards Google as invasive and nosy.  He likes Microsoft, who I regard as invasive and  nosy.  (Obviously, we have some interesting discussions here.)  At least neither of us are suffering from iPhone-envy–we both regard that as expensive and invasive.

Cost.  If we stay with Sprint, and purchase our new phone outright, we can go ahead and upgrade now, even though we’re not out of contract, and just not renew the contract at that point.  If we’re going to change carriers, then there are some very tangible reasons to wait.  Basically, if we can replace our phone with a desirable model, whether new or used, for under $150, we’re going to come out way ahead by staying out of contract.  If the cost is $250 or above, it might do us good to consider renewing the contract, although we may suffer from buyer’s remorse later.  I’m all for staying out of contract–it gives us a lot  more flexibility in a very chaotic world.  Who knows if the next place we call home will even be within Sprint’s signal range?  That did happen to my daughter, after years with Verizon and rarely finding any location that didn’t have a signal with their company…her new house has NO signal, requiring her to go at least a mile from home to pick up a signal.  I laughed, because my Sprint phone with its notoriously spotty coverage…DID have a signal there.

So looking at the phones available with Sprint, I thought both the HTC Evo 4g and HTC Evo 3D looked like great options.  I was not interested in the 3D effect for the phone, but the other features are upgraded from the 4g model.  They are both Android phones, and apparently come with a large assortment of pre-loaded (and unremovable) applications from Sprint.  Getting Greg’s input from searching and reading isn’t easy–I may end up dragging him to a Sprint store just to look at their phones, and then coming home to see what the real deal is on them.  After a phone is checked out via reviews, I then hit Ebay to see what kinds of prices the phones are getting there.

Buying from Ebay does have some risk.  Ensuring the seller has a good rating is the first criteria.  I don’t like to buy with relatively new sellers, or ones with too many negative reviews.  No one can please everybody, and some people can’t be pleased even with a free lunch, so a few negative nannies aren’t a complete turn off.  It’s consistent complaints that throw up warning flags.  I want the seller to specifically state that the phone has a clean ESN, that it is a Sprint phone, etc.  Most sellers will stand by their products as long as you are reasonable too, which is what I am looking for in seller reviews.  I’m also cheap though.  I refuse to pay an Ebay seller the same amount I’d pay in a retail store with an established reputation and clear return policies.  One example is that by renewing my contract with Sprint, I can get the HTC Evo Shift 4G for $99.  Granted, I expect to pay more if it doesn’t include the contract, but that price is also for a new phone with a warranty.  That means that is as much as I will pay for a “like new” used phone unless it comes with additional accessories or something extra that appeals to me.  I am also unlikely to go over $150 for a new, no-contract phone.  The Evo 3d phone however would cost me $199, so I would pay proportionally more via Ebay without complaint.  That means that I may opt to drop the idea of the Evo 3D because of the price tag–our budget says we need one under $200.

That means taking another look at the Blackberry offerings.  We liked the Blackberry–it’s one thing we agreed on.  We didn’t like its tendency to pocket dial, it’s finicky nature, or the frequent glitches it experienced.  But…we’re several generations down the road since our Blackberries were released, and logic says that a lot of them have been addressed, especially the pocket dial issue with the Blackberry Style 9670 from Sprint.  A flip phone (I like) with BlackBerry software (Greg likes) and all of the functionality of the old Blackberries?  Hmmm quite attractive.  Plus, if we renewed a contract, that’s one smartphone that costs $0 to upgrade to.  It doesn’t offer some things, like 4G (not available anywhere even close to here), some of the fancier interfacing options for Outlook, Facebook, etc. (we don’t care), the ability to act as a hotspot (shucks).  It has basically all of the other features we are hoping to have though.

So why am I going through all of this even when I’m not ready to buy it today?  Several years ago, I was seeking specific features from my cell phone.  I went through five phones in a single month, all of which Sprint told me would perform the function but in fact…didn’t and couldn’t and wouldn’t.  It cost me $35 for each activation, even thought the phone was returned, and cost me a lot in hassles due to conflicts in my record about which device I had “upgraded” and which device was “out of contract” for months.  That was my first purchase of a phone via Ebay–I bought the Blackberry, which turned out to be the only phone that Sprint had that could do what I wanted it to, from a private seller for about $80.  It was used, in great shape, reset to factory settings, and included all of the accessories that had originally shipped with it.  To renew my contract with Sprint, I would have paid about $150 for the identical phone at that time.  I used it for over a year without any problems, and the first thing that broke was the scroll wheel that had plagued those models of Blackberry all along.  I don’t want to go through another repeated series of “fails” in search of a phone we can live with for a couple of years.  (We typically use a phone for 2 yrs or longer without a problem.  I have used some of the earlier, simpler phones for as long as 4 years without upgrading.  Our experience has indicated that the smartphones have a much shorter lifespan, typically being lucky to last the 24 months of the contract they come with before becoming progressively more “glitchy” until the FAIL point is reached.)

When our last Blackberry failed, it did so by ceasing to ring with an incoming call.  It flashed…but you had to see it to know that.  We hadn’t budgeted for a new phone yet, and we went ahead and renewed the contract and got the LG Lotus that we are currently using.  We both hate it, although Greg probably does more than me.  It’s very limited after years with a Blackberry, and was bought during a reactionary mood when the Blackberry failed.  Live & learn, right?

Research and forethought can help reduce buyer’s remorse and contractual regrets too.  We are a ways from making a decision, and one more step to the research is necessary.  We need to stop at a Sprint store and take a physical look/touch at the phones.  I’m probably worse about that than Greg, but I want to see how it feels in my hand.

We also need to research other companies.  Sprint has an attractive text/data/talk package with a flat rate.  I’m familiar with them, I don’t have to deal with a contract if I buy the phone elsewhere.  Other companies are a huge unknown, and they all have their fans.  Sprint’s spotty reception and lack of 4G service in not only the state of Mississippi, but also our neighboring states, is a down side.  I would like to have the same price and service…with better coverage and speeds.  I”m not sure anyone can provide that, although I have heard that Cellular South and AT&T have much better coverage.  AT&T is notorious for crappy customer service, however.  Their customer service reviews are enough to keep me away–I would rather pay more and deal with actual customer service than put up with crappy customer service.  With Sprint, I have been reasonably happy, although the few occasions in which I was unhappy–I was REALLY unhappy and intended to cancel my service because of the way my issue was being handled.  I was mad enough that the early exit fee was a small price to pay.  In the end, they offered me a better deal than what I had originally wanted just to keep me as a customer, which seemed very counter-productive.  (I had had a computer die, had bought a new one, and my old data card was not compatible.  I was 2 months from the end of my contract, and I asked for a new data card at the renewal rate.  They originally told me no, that I would have to pay the FULL price–not even a discount for upgrading!  I was livid, and was going to cancel and switch to Verizon for data services, as they were faster and the same price.  In the long run, Sprint gave me a new data card at no cost and shipped it overnight.  So getting mad paid me well–it saved me over $100 in what I originally wanted and even more in terms of what it would have cost to actually switch.)

So its a case of my fingers doing a lot of walking, as I check websites.  I should also remember to check with Sam’s Club and other memberships I have–often there are discounts for cellular services that can really save big bucks…if they apply to something you want and need.  A big part of the process does involve checking user reviews of the provider, and that is equally as important as the phone itself if I am switching companies.  Why move to a company that already has a reputation for not responding to their customers needs?  I know what I have with Sprint, and they meet my minimum requirements.  Changing means that I would expect something more in terms of price, service, and customer service.

Decisions…decisions!

When customer service goes bad

We are at the tail end of the biggest consumer season of the year as we start the new year.  We have bought all kinds of products, gizmos and gadgets by this time of year.  We buy them in good faith, expecting them to work, and wrap them up and give them to someone to make them happy.

But sometimes, they don’t work…or don’t work right…or are damaged…or the wrong size.  What then?

Sometimes the first customer service experience is at the store, standing in line with a gift receipt, to exchange that item for something more appropriate.  Sometimes it’s on the phone to call a customer service center.  And while we usually deal with someone who is courteous and efficient, there are times when it’s the opposite.  What then?

Don’t accept crappy customer service!  Demand to speak to a supervisor.

Sometimes though, not even a supervisor can help with your issue.  So what then?

Use your voice, and in the day and age of computers and reviewing websites, your voice can be heard.  Whether its a retailer, product, or manufacturer that fails to meet minimal standards, reviewing the offending party is just the start.

So what next?

Publicize your review.  Put links on Twitter, put it on your Facebook wall, put it in your blog.  Be heard, and be heard loud and often.  Write a letter to the publicity department of the offending company, along with any and everyone else you can find for the company, and include links to your postings.  Be specific about the problem and about why you are upset with customer service.

But be reasonable.  Don’t demand the moon because you bought green cheese!

Here’s some helpful hints when things go terribly wrong.

• Document your calls, who you talked to and the day and time, as well as what they said.
• Never ever use abusive language or profanity or make threats.
• Always ask for a time frame for any action that is promised by the company, such as sending a replacement or returning your call.
• Always be specific about the problem with the product or service.
• Know what you expect from the company to rectify the situation (but remember, you are not always going to get it…if ever!)
• Remember to go back to your reviews & postings and update them IF the company takes any remedial action to fix the problem.  State what the company did and how long after the problem occurred before the remedial action took place.

Most of all, remember to buy from companies that have GOOD customer service!  Be just as vocal about companies that do deliver good service as you are about the ones who don’t.

Why bother?

To not take any action is letting these companies get by with shoddy merchandise and terrible customer service, and that decreases the reasons companies have to deliver good service and great products.  If you support the idea of good old fashioned American quality and service, you have to take action to preserve it.  More and more companies are sending their manufacturing and call center jobs overseas to cut their costs, resulting in a loss of quality.  Many of us are buying their products, thinking we’re getting the best, when instead, we are buying one more cheap import.  Help other consumers avoid the problems you have faced, or at least have the opportunity to go into the transaction knowing that they are not likely to get good customer service. 

When you encounter companies with great products AND great service, yell it from the rooftops and share the news. We call that positive reinforcement as well as “word of mouth” advertising.  Let your word of mouth be your vote for quality companies and against those who fail to deliver!

Dawn of Shades panel program about milabs, alien abductions, covert ops, and more

Last night’s Dawn of Shades program featured Anya Briggs, Eve Lorgen, Melinda Leslie, November Hanson and myself as we broached the topic of milabs, alien abductions, and covert ops.  I’d been addressing these subjects all month in a series of programs, and the panel program was sort of the grand finale to the series.  The whole thing came off fairly well, despite our technical challenges at bringing so many people onto the program at the same time, especially when the voices were so similar and difficult for the audience to distinguish between the speakers.  It went very well.  We could have easily filled an entire day of radio programming and still not completely covered the topic.

Earlier in the month, after Anya Briggs’ initial appearance, I’d had a night filled with what I call “high weirdness.”  I’m not sure what caused these sounds, or what the motivation would have been to have me hear these sounds, but if it was intended to intimidate or frighten me, someone didn’t do their research.  Everything I heard that night have positive associations for me, hardly a good “scare tactic.”  Maybe it wasn’t intended to scare me, but to encourage me?  Who knows!

I was curious as to whether or not more peculiar events would occur as the series progressed, especially after Anya appeared again a second time.  If I was being intimidated, it would obviously recur if I failed to heed the warning to stop addressing the subject.

Guess what?

Nothing happened.  I actually had a very good night of sleep.  No bouts of dogs having fits at unknown things outdoors, no peculiarities of audio stimuli, nothing.  The only “weird” thing to happen is that my cell phone has decided to display the “Sprint” logo upside down, and that started before last night’s program.  I’m not sure what it means to have that occur, other than I have a messed up electronic device.

Covert ops, super soldiers, military abductions, military re-abductions, alien abductions…people are actually reporting these things, and they aren’t all whackos with a need for attention either.  Many of these people are upstanding citizens that stand to lose a lot more than anyone could possibly gain from making up these stories.  These events are very real and very much a mystery.

I don’t have all the answers, I don’t even have all the information I need to formulate good questions yet.  Just like you, I’m confused by this phenomena and wondering how on earth soldiers could be abducting people right from their own homes and doing these things to them, and NO ONE knows about it except their victims!  We aren’t in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, we aren’t a totalitarian government where people can disappear and no one dares question it.   I don’t understand how there could be a secret government and no one has come forward to talk about it, despite centuries of existence.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I don’t believe the guests that I have had on the program and consider their information to be invalid or kooky or anything like that.  What I am saying is that I’m confused, I’m being forced to question my “truths” at the most basic level.  I’m being forced to look at world events with a different eye now, trying to see a secret agenda and its tendrils through out history.

The idea that any government agency, secret or otherwise, would be abducting children and conducting ritual sexual abuse in order to create some demonic ritual to open portals to anything is so bizarre, so far “out there” that my mind chokes as it tries to look at its possibility.  The idea that this ritual sexual abuse is also used to create what will someday become one of their secret super soldiers is equally sick.

I don’t even understand how someone can have a life so secret that they don’t even realize themselves that their alter ego is conducting covert operations for this ultra secretive government. I can’t quite imagine it being myself, whether I’m assassinating someone or working on a nuclear submarine or abusing children…it’s so far “out there” that my mind can’t even wrap around the concept quite yet.

Even the demonic or satanic aspect is something I had never considered a possibility before.  I’m not sure what I think about it yet.  I guess the whole super soldier concept is mind blowing enough that I hadn’t progressed beyond it.  The idea that someone I know could potentially be one of these super soldiers makes my head spin.  I can’t even entertain the idea that I myself could potentially be involved with milabs or covert ops.

I’m not sure what I think, I obviously don’t have all of the information available or that I need to make up my own mind.  I’d rather it wasn’t true, that the Illuminati was something cooked up by conspiracy theorists that had no basis in reality.  Seriously…a secret government and people who live outside and exempt from the law?  That this secret government also has its own military, including these super soldiers that are under total mind control, that it also controls our banks, our public governments, the press, and every minute facet of our lives…those ideas are beyond the ordinary, beyond our ability to believe without question, and probably even beyond any wild suppositions I had ever entertained.  I have no mental file that can hold them.

So what do we do when we are confronted by the mere idea that super soldiers, covert ops, milabs, and the like are real and actually occurring?  Research.  Get evidence.  Get people to come out and talk about it.  Expose it.  Many things, once exposed to the light of day, cannot survive.  I hope something as bizarre as the idea that the Illuminati is real and there is a secret government pulling strings on the public government and the banking industry…and that ordinary law abiding citizens are being subjected to such horrific treatment at the hands of anyone…dies a swift death after a quick exposure…one way or another.  I don’t doubt Anya’s story, so don’t suppose that is where I’m coming from.  It’s that lack of doubt that is creating my mental conflict.

I think about fictional accounts of such things, and that was far fetched enough.  The Matrix?  Are we nothing more than plugged in biological units fulfilling some pre-programmed reality?  What is all of this?

So I guess I’ll close with the realization that I have no answers and that they won’t be arriving swiftly either.

National economy, small businesses, holiday shopping and the flea market

I’m not an economist.  I’m not an anything-ist.  I’m just one more average everyday sort of person, millions of which struggle to survive on this planet every day.

Like everyone else in my “rank,” you might say, of socio-economic standing, I have been hit fairly hard by the economy’s struggles.  I haven’t been devastated by it, I didn’t have enough money to have that kind of issues.  Its more an issue of low paying jobs and unemployment, since the American dream became something most Americans never will achieve.

I measure the economy’s health in small ways.  The best way?  I hit the flea market.  Especially the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Forget all the Black Friday stuff.  I want to see the nitty gritty of holiday shopping.

I went today.  What did I see?

I saw a lot of businesses that had been regulars at the flea market, selling items of quality made by local craftsmen & women, they are gone.  In their place I saw more booths with second hand items and cheap imported goods.  For a Southern flea market, I saw a surprising number of vendors with whom English was a second language and fluency was still a goal they were striving towards.  There used to be a several vendors selling live poultry and cage birds, along with small pet vendors.  I saw one selling poultry, and perhaps two with small pets.  The two bigger woodcraft shops were represented, but only one small one selling items that appeared to probably be handcrafted…and they were also the only booth with holiday themed items.  There were only about half the usual number of vendors with live plants too.

Maybe the weather had something to do with the disappearance of so many, but at the same time…cold but dry weather is not unexpected this time of year, and is far more appreciated than cold & wet weather is.  So…I think the weather can be discounted.  I think those missing vendors have left the small business front, for whatever reason, and are no longer in existence.

I did listen to vendors as they talked…to each other, on the phone, to their partners…and to customers.  I tried bargaining.  I got a very small amount knocked off of a purchase.  Vendors weren’t as desperate for sales, so weren’t as likely to bargain or bargain as far.  They also were pleased with the sales on the second day of the holiday weekend shopping at the flea market, which means that people WERE buying more.  It seems that their rough projections were that they had already sold two to three times as much as they had in the previous five years during the entire weekend…and they still had the third day, traditionally a stronger day in the flea market business, to make more sales.

What does that mean to us average joes in the world?  It means that more average joes are spending a bit more already, early in the holiday shopping calendar.  Early spending means that we (the biggest portion of consumers in the world) have a bit of extra money and we are buying things.  It might be necessities, purchases that we’ve put off for some time as we waited for sales, or necessary items for gifting…but we are buying again for the first time since before Katrina.

I bought too.  I bought a wallet to replace my worn out one.  I bought an over-the-door hanger gizmo for jackets and shirts, as I’ve grown weary of them being tossed just anywhere.  I bought a pair of salt & pepper Tupperware shakers that the vendor swore up and down were entirely water & spill proof–perfect for adding to my camping box.  I bought a couple of small gifts for friends’ children and an old iron skillet with a wonderfully smooth finish for myself.  I also bought a new Y vegetable peeler as my old one had rusted and the traditional straight one is virtually a torture device for me to use.  My companions bought small items like mine.  None of us spent a lot of money…but we spent a bit of it.  I’ve actually spent more on the post-Thanksgiving weekend shopping at the flea market when there were vendors there with locally made goods than I did this year.  But…how much imported-from-china-junk did I really NEED?

I still have a few items on my shopping list.  I’m in search of a GPS and I’ve set my mind on purchasing a Magellan one.  I need a doll suitable for a 2 year old friend’s granddaughter, and something to give a 9 month old boy–nothing major but something to make them smile at Christmas.  I still need something for my son in law & daughter, as well as my granddaughter…but what can a 3 month old baby really enjoy?  She’s too little to enjoy much yet.  As for GM…he’s going to get his gift early, and that means there won’t be anything under the “tree” for him from me…but, that’s an essential item we’ve put off for two years and he really needs.  Our “Christmas” gifts are really the new printer we needed so badly and a GPS to avoid spending so much time utterly lost.  (Sprint’s Navigation GPS application is dreadful and coverage for Sprint is too spotty on the Gulf Coast.  If we’re five miles or more away from the interstate, we’re highly likely to lose all connectivity.)  I guess at our age, Christmas morning surprises aren’t as thrilling–we tend to focus on what we need and have little space for stuff we don’t.  (Christmas gifting hint for us–send #901 ink cartridges for an HP printer! That’s something we’d definitely appreciate!)

We have a few other items on our wish list–mostly needed items.  Few items are “high dollar” even by our small standards.  (For us, $100 is pushing that “high dollar” line very hard!)  We’re working on living smaller, and with it, we’ve got smaller wants and needs.  Did the economy contribute?  Without a doubt, it provided us with the push to try something we’d talked about but may have never done otherwise.  Do we regret it?  No, but like every other change in anyone’s life, we have found some things we’d wished we’d done differently.

All in all, between having a new grand child and a new status as grandparents, we’re very happy.  We remain optimistic, and the recent observations have me more so.  The less-than-comfortable facets of our lives are things we will hopefully be able to change soon, one way or another.  Life is full of compromises and adaptations, and that ability is what makes humans a fairly successful species in general.  Now…if we can just reduce our impact on the planet to a sustainable level we’ll be doing good!

So for those of you who are contemplating your business and the immediate future in terms of the economy, things are beginning to show signs of improvement.  The flea market observations I’ve made over time tell me that it is a very early indicator of the economy in general, but it is telling me that things have bottomed out already, and the climb has begun.  It may take years to actually recover–that’s no news to any of us.  But the recovery has begun at the bottom of the ladder, and that’s a better sign than we’ve seen in the last five years.

Tassimo miracle? IT ARRIVED

Friday was a very long day for me.  We had to drive to New Orleans for an appointment with a surgeon, and the twin spans weren’t even moving.  We ended up turning around, leaving the interstate, and using Highway 90 to get into the city.  I have no idea what the problem was, but after 45 minutes of not moving more than a car length, it was determined that we might not make it on time, despite leaving several hours early just-in-case.  My big plans of going to the appointment, leaving, stopping at Sam’s Club and a few other stores to pick up last minute items for the baby shower and campfire cookery demonstration were falling by the wayside fast, and not enhanced one iota with the fact that I needed to bake the desserts last night.  I bought a cake from Sam’s Club-chocolate bundt.  They are always very good, dense, and moist.  Today, however, they were overshadowed by THE most delicious cupcakes I’ve ever tasted, as well as the first time I liked frosting that I hadn’t made myself!  (Try www.frostingshop.com to see who made them.)

We didn’t get home until around 7 pm, and there were still unmade cheesecakes for dessert to handle.  I’m quick, and I had already laid a game plan in place to reduce the time investment–we did the cheesecakes in premade crusts rather than the springform pans.  The really big surprise was the box waiting for me, which soon proved to be from Tassimo.

I didn’t have time to deal with it last night, or all day today either, as the baby shower was my primary focus.  I was a bit amazed to see it was waiting for me on Friday evening, since I was anticipating a potential email giving me a tracking number on Monday.  No one at Tassimo seemed aware that this machine had been shipped either.  One curious missing item from the box was the cleaning disk.  It appeared to be the standard shipping of a new Tassimo, and included the filter, manuals, etc. but no cleaning disk, which is required to start using the machine according to the directions that came with the machine.  When I received my cleaning disks, they did not have anything familiar about them, as if I had never seen one before.  Therefore, I’m wondering if they are normally omitted from the standard retail package.  That might explain why I didn’t have one…if it wasn’t included the first time either.

The machine requires about an hour to set up to brew the first time, and it is noisier than I remembered it being.  That might well be because of now being in a travel trailer rather than a traditional wood framed home.  Lots of things SOUND noisier in here because of the smaller space and less sound deadening by the walls.

I brewed myself a Jacobs Latte Macchiato and a Kenya Carte Noire for GM.  I’d not had any Jacobs t-disks before, and I must admit, I prefer Maxwell House over Jacobs at least in this instance.

I found it amusing that the letter from Tassimo inside the box threatens me with being billed if they do not receive the old machine back within 10 days.  Does that mean I can bill them since I didn’t receive the replacement in a timely manner?

All in all, I’m glad to have the replacement, surprised it arrived on Friday, and still have  a bad taste in my mouth from the entire Tassimo customer service experience.  I would still recommend Keurig over Tassimo on that count alone.  I also  have little faith that this replacement machine will live longer than a couple of boxes of t-disks, even though I use bottled filtered water exclusively in the machine.  (I did in the previous machine as well–I prefer the lack of flavor from the bottled filtered water.)  I doubt I would go through the hassle again of obtaining a replacement.  It cost me more in aggravation than buying a Keurig to replace it would.  Having read the reviews of many people who have had even worse experiences with their Tassimo machine than I have, its actually probable that this new replacement will be dying a slow death around the new year, as a 90 day lifetime does not appear to be particularly uncommon.

I guess I’ll have a Tassimo day around the end of each month, celebrating its short anticipated lifetime.  In the meantime, I can enjoy excellent coffee at about $2 + aggravation per cup, since each time I touch the machine, I’m going to remember how much aggravation it took to get it here.  I’ll stick to t-disks that are available at local Walmarts & Targets, or available through Amazon, since I know better than to ever even dream of ordering direct from Tassimo.  I will never buy them in bulk either, since the machine is unlikely to have a very long life, and gives little to no warning of impending death and won’t be replaced with another Tassimo.

So drink your coffee and smile…I can have my single cup of latte, cappuccino, regular coffee, or decaf at night without resorting to instant.  On the mornings when we are in a hurry,  I can have a cup of coffee fast, rather than waiting for our very cheap ($9.95) drip coffee maker to cycle through and dribble our coffee into the pot.  (It too gets bottled filtered water, and has been slow since its purchase about 30 days ago.)  And someday, I’ll own a Keurig, which is cheaper initially, a bit slower to brew (but still pretty fast), uses cheaper K-cups with a wider variety of coffees available, can use a My K-cup with my Folgers Black Silk or fresh ground coffee, is considered more reliable by consumer reviews, and produces only a slightly inferior cup of coffee.  My mom is actually buying the mini version of the Keurig machine, which takes up very little counter space (important in a travel trailer but her regular  kitchen is still fairly small too.)  Since she will have a few months (at least) headstart on me with her new machine, I’ll get the nitty gritty from a regular user that I personally know, rather than just faceless reports from people who may not follow up their initial review later on in their ownership of the machine.  That’s important to me too.  I want to know how well small appliances satisfy at the 3 month, six month, one year, or longer marks.  Many times, like with the Tassimo, I am initially THRILLED, only to have things go south later on and my opinion changes without me updating a review I had put somewhere earlier in the process.  I probably review as many as fifty items in a month, ranging from books to appliances to products to restaurants.  Remembering to change something means that something very unusual happened–like being furious about customer service that made no customer service almost preferable or something that has performed so far above normal expectations that you feel over the moon about its performance–like a helmet that actually saves your life during an accident.

I have actually written to companies to thank them for a superior product that performs each and every time without variation.  I believe in positive reinforcement, whether its for a child, a dog, or a company.  I made sure  to compliment a manager at a Kentucky Fried Chicken last week–that restaurant  sparkled with cleanliness, each and every employee had a smile, and every employee appeared to be genuinely concerned about their job performance.  That indicated to me that the manager was excellent and far above the norm in motivating her employees and ensuring everyone performed well.  I have NEVER been in a fast food restaurant that was better run!  (If you are ever traveling I-10 through Mississippi near the Alabama border, try KFC off of Exit 69 [Highway 63] south of the interstate on the east side of the divided highway.   Even the buffet is above the norm in quality, cleanliness, frequency of change-outs on the food, etc.)  I’m actually going to suggest we try KFC for our next group meeting for Get Ready Go, and had inquired about the feasibility of doing so with the manager.  At only $5 per person, it makes for a very inexpensive location, and this particular one can easily accommodate a group of 12-15 people, whereas we found the KFC on Highway 90 in Pascagoula (Denny Ave) to be unsuitable to have a group meet there.  Compared to the other KFC just a short distance away on Highway 63 in Moss Point, it’s a noisy dive with indifferent employees.

So when you encounter good service, good employees, good products, etc.–don’t forget to tell them so!  Encouraging quality service & products means more than just griping when it isn’t the way it should be.  It means compliments, tips, letters of appreciation, future purchases, good word-of-mouth advertising, and excellent reviews.  For every negative review and complaint, I try to make sure I have at least two of the other kind, just so I don’t become a grumbling unpleasant customer who is always unhappy.  Fortunately, I’m frequently blessed with reasons to smile, and really rarely deal with the kind of service I have received in the past from Tassimo, Microsoft, Sprint, etc.

Tassimo customer service round 2 plus Slovenia, China, Asia, Mexico and more!

I had decided to keep my Tassimo machine.  When it comes down to it, I do really LOVE the coffee it makes.  I know its expensive, and on my current budget crunch, it’s a true luxury item, but I still adore it.  So, having the new cleaning disk in hand, courtesy of the Tassimo company as a peace offering after the fiasco of trying to order one…I plugged it in, and proceeded to try to use it so that my machine was restored to a functional state.

Uh oh.

It recognized the bar code, knew it was about to clean the machine…and then informed me that it was time to consult the owner’s manual.  It was a nightmarish scene, all too reminiscent of the complaints I had read in blogs and reviews when I was so furious with their customer service department over the attempt to order from Tassimo Direct.

It meant I had to call customer service at Tassimo again.  It meant I had to run that gauntlet of inefficiency again, inspiring me to a state of aggravation that usually only Microsoft and Sprint grant me.

It took me two hours of dread to get up the nerve to punch the number into my telephone.  I then was eventually connected to Jay after a confusing few minutes with the automatic interface and button pushing test.  I almost failed the button pushing test…cell phones, when equipped with QUERTY keyboards, are not particularly friendly to the button pushing tests.  Apparently, the sounds they make are not exactly what a standard push button phone makes…but I managed to make my selections.  Apparently, whoever set up the automated section didn’t believe they would have a problem with the machines themselves, so it was sort of guess as to which of the 3 choices it would be.  I opted to select for the  “shipped to my house” option, since the machine had arrived from Amazon.com.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that Jay (or a clone of him) was the second customer service representative on the first encounter that had me so furious…but today’s call went much smoother.  I’m convinced that either their customer service is located off-shore or they have hired immigrants only, as Jay seemed to have a great deal of difficulty with the simple chain of events that lead up to the decision to declare the machine non-functional.  We went over the series of events several times before he grasped how it went: I put in the cleaning disk, it recognized it and said it was about to start cleaning, I pushed the start button, it says to consult the owner’s manual.  I realize that it was a jump in understanding to realize that yes, it was reading the bar code because it recognized that it was about to clean the machine.  I know that customer service agents have to be very precise and go to the beginning…but this machine was shipped to me last October, so obviously I should have used it before today.  I also realize that this machine has probably not worked correctly since last spring, since it had had virtually zero use this summer during all of our chaos and busy days.  It had another reprieve for the last two months since I thought the issue was that it needed cleaning, not that it was defective.

Oh well.

Aggravation aside, the 12 month warranty period has not expired until next month.  Jay informed me that they were sending a new machine and that it should arrive in about 2 weeks.  I wonder…will the warranty automatically cover this new one for a year or will my coverage end a week after the replacement machine arrives?

But, according to Jay, it is unusual for machines to fail.  Reviews say otherwise, so I’m not going to get real hopeful.  I did notice something…my defective machine was manufactured in Slovenia.  Since it was not a country covered in my school days’ geography classes, logic tells me that this country must be in Eastern Europe and part of the former Soviet Union, since all of that was colored red on the maps and left mysteriously unnamed.  Further questions about its location and history informed me that it was part of the former Yugoslavian republic.  I found that intriguing in itself, as I was unaware of their status in the current manufacturing field in terms of the world economy.  Its kind of funny in a way…I’m usually more aware of imported products I use.  I know my favorite little low-tech stovetop expresso pot comes from Italy.  My “French” rolling pin comes from the Phillipines.  A lot of things come from China and other Asian countries.  Other products are assembled in Mexico from USA made components.  Part of me wonders…what on earth is made in the USA?  Here on the Gulf Coast, it was never a major manufacturing area, but even so…scores of empty warehouses and factories stand with weeds growing in their fenced in lots, unused.  The neighborhoods surrounding them are often poverty stricken with old cars, sagging porches, and tired faces.  They are filled with people who would be more than happy to have a job with a company that treated them fairly and offered the health insurance that everyone is up in arms over.  It’s kind of sad to know that those jobs are no longer to be found in the USA, as more and more companies opt to move their operations and customer service overseas and south.  The largest employer in the USA is now the government, and part of me wonders how long before they outsource their services too.

Imagine…calling Vietnam to register for food stamps in the USA, right after registering for job services with a representative in Bosnia, while using a telephone made in Ecuador on a telephone system operated by a company in Korea after driving to your local job service office in your Japanese car fueled by gasoline from Iraq to discover that on the door, written on paper made in South Africa, by a marker made in Poland…was a note saying the office was closed and to contact them through their website or telephone number.

First Google, now it’s Sprint? Cell phone and Data card woes

First it was Google, but now it’s Sprint.  I got a letter from Sprint, and for a change it wasn’t a reminder that I’d forgotten to pay the bill.  Of course, it also wasn’t a Gee-You-have been-with-us-so-long-here-is-a-free-anything letter either.  Instead it was a letter informing me that I had gone over the limits of 5 gb with 30o mb of roaming per month.  This was confusing, as I had a very old data card contract with no 5 gb limit, but rather unlimited data.  So, I log into my account online, and it still says I have unlimited, and it is quite obvious that I have exceeded a 5 gb limit.  There is nothing at all to tell me how much roaming data I’ve had, but I really don’t travel that much and shouldn’t be using roaming.

So, I put a call into the number listed on the letter.  Big mistake for a last-business-of-the-day decision.  First, I get some girl who must have had marbles in her mouth and been afraid of her microphone on her headset.  I’m only able to catch about half of what she’s saying, and that makes a combination of irritated-at-mumbling & I’m-afraid-I’m-going-deaf.  So, I ask her to speak up.  Barely can hear her then, but boy oh boy, could I hear the music on hold!  I about screamed in agony, as I was wearing a headset too, and the music was loud enough to wake the dead.  This girl tells me that Sprint can change my contract anytime, and that my notice it was being changed was this letter, and if I continued to use over 5 gb of data per month SPRINT WAS GOING TO CANCEL MY CONTRACT.  I don’t get this.  If Sprint doesn’t like upholding a contract they made with me nearly 4 years ago and which I was recently asked to renew for another 2 years for a $70 discount on my bill, that’s okay.  I have no recourse.  I’m supposed to just take it with a smile.  However, if I should decide that I don’t like the contract, and I break it, I have to pay an early termination fee?  Whoa!  That is NOT FAIR!!!! We have been putting up with consumer contracts for way too long that have all of the balls in the courts of corporations, and we have been allowing corporations to run our lives!  Who would sign a contract  like that in their regular business dealings?

So, apparently, I am stuck with a company that is imminently going to cancel my contract because I’m not bound by the same ridiculously low ceiling as new contracts.  They don’t offer an unlimited contract anymore, and they don’t even offer a 10 gb contract.  I’m sort of stuck, because I can’t switch companies because I’m bound by a contract to Sprint, who apparently, at some future point, probably without notice, is going to terminate my contract & services.  As far as abiding by a 5 gb limit, it’s pretty tough with Sprint.  They don’t offer hot spots, so its not like I can stop by Bookstore A or Coffeeshop X and kill some time while I’m transferring a few files.  They aren’t the fastest company in terms of data either, and they aren’t the one with the best coverage.  The ONLY reason I stayed with them was the fact that I had a very attractive contract with unlimited data, and a reasonably attractive telephone package with unlimited data/calls that is going to become a whole lot less attractive when I have to get another company for my data card, since it isn’t the cheapest plan with the best coverage available in the USA.  I don’t know how many times I’ve stood there with an unusable cell phone while my daughter stood smirking beside me, with a full signal on her Verizon telephone.  If I wanted a cheap cell phone plan with unlimited minutes and scant service areas, Boost offers all of that for a mere $50 prepaid, no contract required.

What a depressing day!  All I want is stuff that works, and a bill that makes sense without trickery and false promises.  For everyone out there, look out.  Apparently your cell phone company is able to change the rules after the contract is signed, something that we sure can’t do to the cell phone company.  It’s not like I can say, “Your service sucked this month, and it sucked last month, and do you know how many times my calls got dropped that weekend in Florida?  I’ve decided that you are not worth $180 a month, you are really only worth $50 a month, so from now on, that’s all I’m going to pay you.”

So now who?  Who is a really reliable cell phone company with reasonable rates and real data plans for data cards that can be increased to cover over 5 gb months without charging me through the nose?  Who has coverage in most of the country, not just along interstates and near urban areas?  Sprint has better coverage along the coasts than the mid-section of the country, but I have to admit, if you got off-the-beaten-path, it got downright spotty even here in Louisiana and Mississippi.  The Florida panhandle was a hopeless case unless you were right on I-10 or the beach strip too.  Come to think of it, it was pretty awful in NE Texas.  I didn’t have service at all anywhere in Missouri or Iowa or Minnesota when I traveled through there.  Service was in and out when I went through Tennessee.  It did work when I visited the Washington DC area though!

Dang it, and I just renewed the stupid contract out of some misguided loyalty to a company that obviously has decided that I have to play their game even when they are going to change the rules!   I didn’t want the complications of changing cell phone companies, even though Greg is a long term Verizon company user, as is the majority of my family.  I’d have all free-Verizon-to-Verizon calls (and so would they) if I switched to Verizon, but no, stubborn me stayed with Sprint because I had an unlimited data card plan with Sprint, which Verizon didn’t offer.

If I had needed a headache, I could have just banged my head on the wall!