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| My feelings, exactly. |
Seriously. I broke my new phone.
I wish I were making it up.
As you may recall, I was having a difficult time loading my contacts onto my new phone. Well, I contacted Cricket's online chat and they suggested I get a SIM adapter. Cool! I'm all over that. If it's between sitting for days on end, manually transferring my contacts and paying five bucks, that's a no-brainer. Anyway, I got home yesterday and my package with the SIM adapter was already waiting for me. It looked easy enough with the limited word-less instructions:
Put little SIM card onto big adapter.
Put big adapter with little SIM card into little metal pocket.
Got it!
At least it looked like I had, but when I went to turn it on again my phone said "Insert SIM card". Not a good sign since I had just finished doing that. I checked it and thought I would take it out and put it back in again (one of my three go-to tricks when it comes to fixing anything that involves electricity). Uh oh. Card not coming out. "Never fear! I have tweezers! Fixed!"
Only now my phone just says "Insert SIM" all the time and does nothing else.
At first I found it kind of humorous. Really? One full day? That's how long this phone is going to last? I was all grumpy and going through withdrawals because my new phone doesn't connect to my car and I can't listen to my audio books, and what about voice to text, and is there really no speakerphone? (And yes, I know that I sound like a spolied first world brat. That doesn't change the fact that I was really annoyed and frustrated! Raaawr!) The Universe was basically saying, "Oh, poor baby. You can't use your smartphone. Imagine if you had no phone... Poof! Taaadaaaa!"
Touche, Universe.
It is much suckier with no phone at all.
I have spent the last three hours (plus a couple last night) trying to figure out how to return the phone and find a replacement. Andres, my first Cricket friend I made, told me that I had to try out the SIM card in a different phone, but I told him I didn't have another flip phone I could try it out in. Well, too bad, I would have to take it into a Cricket store. A what? I have never even seen a Cricket store, and definitely not on Vashon.
Then I tried again and got Felix. He was much more helpful, but told me I needed to call the warranty people. I asked him if he knew what the warranty was and he proceeded to give me the definition of a warranty. I liked him though. Sweet guy. He told me I had been "awesome" and I appreciated that, especially since I was feeling super twitchy by this point.
Today, I called the warranty people and I talked to two very nice Cricket reps and after about an hour of being put on hold and calling back and waiting, I finally returned that $30 clamshell. V is for VICTORY!
There's only one problem remaining...
I still don't have a phone I can use.
If I try to buy a new one from Cricket, they make me pay a $25 upgrade fee and, believe me, there is no one on the web support chat that can override that. I can, however, buy a phone that is compatible from another retailer and just use that one.
I know you may find this surprising, but there aren't many choices out there when it comes to basic phones. It's tricky business. Who knew you had to find one that is unlocked and compatible with a gsw network instead of a cdma network, and it's better to get a 3g lte or 4 g lte... Friends, these are just letters to me! Oh, and it goes without saying that I have to do my research to find one with good reviews...
Universe to me: "Um yeah, don't press your luck".
I ended up with a $22 phone that is blue and black. I don't even know what brand it is. I have no idea if it will work with Cricket, but to tell you the truth after talking to six different reps, I will just be happy when I can text again. I am going to cross my fingers and leave it up to the Universe. (And no funny business this time, Universe!)
So much for all the free time this new smartphone-free lifestyle was going to award me.
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