My New Cell Phone!!!

So Cell One made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: $24.99 a month gets me 200 minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, no activation, free car charger and carrying case and a free phone. So I am the proud owner of an Ericsson DH616 phone. I opted to not get the $4 a month voicemail, as I am honest with myself and really don’t expect all that much incoming traffic. I got it for calling out, and so I can finally get rid of the infernal “I left a message at your work that I’d be late…” excuse.

Who else is cellular? Any suggestions?

Make sure your batteries are good. I don’t know what’s up with my batteries…I can have a full charge and when I need to use it I have low power. It’s no fun getting cut off in the middle of a conversation.

Bo

Alright, update time.

So I charge my battery like a good cell user, and drive home to the RiddleHomestead to visit the ParentsRiddles and SistersRiddles. Continue to play with the phone thoughout the night, but monitor the battery level, which says that it is fully charged. I turn if off before bed.

The next morning, I wake up and cheerfully attempt to turn the phone on to standby, and NOTHING. The indicator light comes on, but nothing. I think “geez, battery must be dead.” so I plug it into the charger. NOTHING. Bastard, says Swiddles.

So I call and leave a message for the cell company. (give you a hint, they are a national company, with the world “Cellular” and a number in their name) The guy calls me back and says, “Gee, we need to get you a new phone. Unfortunatly, we don’t have anymore of that one. But for $29.99 we can upgrade you.” I say “nope. Momma ain’t paying more for a phone.” (not really, but you get my drift.) He attemps a hard sell, didn’t you WANT an upgrade, yada yada yada. I am getting tired of this crap, and tell him that he can let me know when the new phones come in. I hang up angry.

At 3:00 in the morning, I wake up with one phrase circling the depths of my subconcious: bait and switch. It’s a classic bait and switch operation, and he’s trying it on me because he thinks I’m a dumb 20 year old chick who will just giggle and fork over her money. Boy, does he have another thing coming.

At noon today, when they are most likely to have the largest number of people in their office, I am going down. I am going to hand him the broken phone and say “Here are your options. Either you replace my phone with one of equal or greater quality, or you make it VERY worth my while to wait until the replacement phones come in, or you allow me to break my contract. I’m gonna be honest with you here, if I break my contract, I am probably not going to be happy at the hassle, and might contact the Better Business Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, and, oh yea, the Public Service Commision. And who knows, classes are over in a week, I’ll have time on my hands, I MIGHT even take an ad out in the paper to find out if you pulled this scam on anyone else and see if I can’t get a class action going. I’ll have time on my hands.” And stand back and flash him my 20 year old smile.

What say the Dopers? Will Swiddles play hardball? Will Swiddles suceed? Will she stop referring to herself in the third person?

Swiddles: Is that phone a digital or analogue cellular phone? If it’s not digital, they will try everything in their power to upgrade you. (It actually worked in my favor; the plan I upgraded to actually cost less than what we had.)

Something else: The older cell phones would have a car cord that plugged into the phone and the phone would run right off the 12VDC (it also charged the on-board battery). For some reason, the newer phones no longer do this. Now when you plug in the phone to the car cord, all it does is charge the battery. This means if you have a dead phone, you STILL can’t use it right away if you plug it in. Anyone know why they did this? (It was probably Them Damn Bilderbergers.)

I know I have work I HAVE to do, I just don’t WANT to do it…

Stick around, you’ll learn to procrastinate doing work for a long, long time. :slight_smile:

It’s analouge. I just got off the phone with my former roommate, who signed on to the same promotion, and learned she ended up cancelling her account after three weeks, and went to another company, with whom she is very happy. The other company is nearly all digital, and will be completely digital in a couple months, it’s $30 a month for 200 minutes, but I think I’ll do that. In fact, I think I’ll call them and explain the situation, and see if they’ll match the other company’s offer.

I hate Ericsson phones. I’ve had two and the most recent one fizzled on me shortly after the 1 year warranty had expired. I called my cell provider and they stated that Ericsson has been having problems with some of their models and I was instructed to Federal Express just the phone, minus battery and antenna, to Ericsson and they would replace it for free, and was told that there would be a 24-hour turnaround time. 24 hours turned into seven to 10 days when I called after three days to inquire as to the status of my replacement phone. That was two months ago and I still have not been sent a replacement phone, nor have I ever received a call or notice from Ericsson.

About six days after Fed Ex’ing the Ericsson, I bought a Nokia, which I love. It stays charged forever and it has games I can play, which comes in handy sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate or sitting at a really long red light.

Good Luck if you have to deal with the Ericsson manufacturers directly. Oh, and if you do, can you ask them where my replacement phone is?

This’ll probably get edited, but if you’re bored, send an email to my phone!

mailto:7148159367@mobile.att.net

But keep it short!

A girl

I have a Nokia phone - it’s Digital and Analog so I always get a signal. I spend about $60 - $80 a month for it. I use it all the time - it’s the only way I can connect with friends - most of them have cell phones, too. My service is really good (AT&T).

I have a plan that makes all calls free on weeknights and weekends.

I don’t know anyone with an Ericksson phone. The Motorola ones are nice and cool looking, but the buttons are really small. The Sprint ones are funtionally nice, but they aren’t very stylish.

Give 'em hell Swiddles!

I wonder if “www.Cellular-some-number-Sucks.com” is already taken.

Am I the only person unimportant enough to not need to be hooked up to the matrix 24/7?

I am about as unconnected as one can get. I guess I’m just as unimportant as you are. :smiley:

SwimmingRiddles:

Don’t know where you are living, but but they don’t even let you into New York City unless you show them your cell phone. :wink:

I am a cell phone junky and my phone goes with me everywhere. But I am a techchick, I have to be in communication all the time.

My cell phone is a digital/analog Qualcomm 2700. Using one number service, I give out one number and one number only, I dig it. If I needed to, I can give out my cell number and it will still ring over on my home phone.

Oh, and this is a “refurbished” phone. Same warranty and cost me half of a new phone…look into that if you can.

The latest accessory is my hands free connection (I call it my Headless Phone) the ear piece is also the microphone and according to people I have talked to while on it, it sounds pretty good.

Oh Riddles, cell phone companies can be ruthless. Don’t back down, give em hell! Keep us updated.

Inky and Missy,

I have noticed that, while important people carry cell phones, only the really important ones ignore them when they ring.

I sell a lot of phones, and IMHO, Ericcson is the worst of the bunch. It would be worth the extra $30 or so to upgrade to almost ANY other manufacturer. Nokia has had the least problems that I have documented, followed by Qualcomm and then Motorola.

Well, I’ve done it. I am the proud momma of a Audiovox CDM 4000 Digital/Analog phone with tons of bells and whistles. With rebate: $30. Sweet! I’ve even received my first Doper call on it!

Bell Atlantic was awesome, they explained everything. 300 minutes, $30 a month. Free voicemail/caller ID/call waiting. For the first two months, I get to try out voice activated dialing.

Many thanks to all for the imput, Ericcson can stick their phones where there is limited tower strength. Now I need to go see how I look talking on it. :rolleyes:

I’ve been cellular for at least five or six years, went through two Motorola analog phones (good) and am now on my second digital (Nokia was bad, Qualcom 820 is good, we’ll see about the Samsung 850). I started with the old USWest cellular which became Airtouch and just recently merged into Verizon. It’s a nice convenence as I have voice mail and text messaging so I don’t have to carry a pager. Just today I found out that work is going to supply me with a phone. The good part is it’s the same provider so I stay on the same calling plan and keep my number. I was getting 900 minutes of outgoing long distance plus messaging for $45 a month but now I don’t have to pay for it :smiley: I’m soliciting suggestions for how to squander the saved money.

Digital phones are the way to go, analogs suck.
Trust me I have a degree in Electronics.

Please turn your phone off in a movie theater/resturant/… or I will have to kick ass.

Don’t talk and drive please. I saw a woman get in a serious accident (she was behind me, hit a pothole then overcorrected and hit the embankment and caused a 10 car pileup) because she was jabberin in the phone while driving. Please hang up and drive.