Cell disconnect

Thursday, September 9th 2010

My phone was disconnected this week.  It was the plan I have had for YEARS.  About a year and a half ago, I added Bret's line onto my account to try to save us some money.  Despite everyone telling me to cancel his phone, I left it on because he was paying half the bill.  This month when the bill was due, I text messaged him as usual.  A week later he still hadn't paid anything.  I received the text message about the bill being overdue.  I forwarded it to him.  I assumed he'd take care of it when he could and didn't want to be a pest.  Last week I got the "Your phone is going to be disconnected" message.  Hmmm.  I forwarded it to him.  He FINALLY replied.  "I lost my job, I'm broke, I have no where to live, I am moving with family in Texas."  Would have been nice to know BEFORE my phone got shut off!

There was much crying my eyes out trying to figure out how I was going to keep in touch with Dayna, how I was going to call for doctor's appointments, how I was going to make calls to find permanent housing (I'm still required to make contacts to find either section 8 or low-income housing), and basically just stay connected since I am an hour away from family and don't have the money to just jump in the car and pay tolls to go check up with people, and I don't expect them to just show up on my door (only two people do that - Dad when he has a car, and Aunt Marie :-).

I called Marty.  He told me about his phone plan, said he can get an old phone from a friend and buy a SIM card for $5 and get me going for 20 bucks. 

I called Dad, he had another idea.  He told me to call T-Mobile and see about adding a line to his account.  Yay Dad!  So my phone got shut off, I made a surprise visit to Dad.  We got in the car and went to the T-Mobile store.  He was due for an upgrade, he got a new phone (and is still figuring out how to use it, he finally found the volume button 9/20/10).  I told the girl I was looking for a phone with a keyboard and text capabilities.  Dad said to get text messaging, I was grateful.  I got a Samsung Gravity. 

Then Dad told the girl he wanted one of those things to hook the computer up to the internet.  Hence how I am online now!  Voila, le WebConnect Rocket!  The girl scanned a few things, told me it was a piece of cake, installs itself, good to go.  I ported my old Sprint phone number so my phone won't work until tomorrow, but the Rocket is ready to go.

The Rocket was not ready to go.  I got home, it installed itself like she said it would, but it said it was running on my cell number.  :-/  Weird.  Next day, phone says "Emergency Calls Only."  :-/  Weird.  This isn't good.

No phone, no internet, no phone book...into the car I go for an hour drive to Hazlet where I know there's a T-Mobile store (we were just in it yesterday), $2 in tolls...  The girl put the wrong SIM card in the Web Connect.  The other girl switched the SIM cards, said I should be good to go, phone worked, wonderful!  Off I went.

The WebConnect still wasn't working.  This is ridiculous.

Saturday, September 11th I went back to the T-Mobile store.  He gave me a new SIM card, said since Dad wasn't with me he couldn't do anything, but I can call up customer care and have them activate it.  Customer Care is apparently closed on Sundays.  It was late Saturday when I got the card so I waited until Sunday.  Monday morning I tried again, a pulse!  Sympathy, but not the brightest light bulb in the bunch.  Need Dad's social or a password to do anything.  Called Dad.  Got the magic digits.  Called Customer Care back, asked for tech support, a pulse attached to a brain!  The SIM card was activated and the WebConnect is now working!