There is not a person on this planet who impresses me to the point that I would change my phone plan because they were either an owner of that particular service, or they were lending their name to it. I think Ryan Reynolds may actually be the owner or part owner of the Mint Mobile services; which is OK, but that's not why I changed. I have other reasons. (Just so you know, the only one who could impress me enough to change would be a greater celebrity, maybe Faith the Dog. I would switch to be closer to her...she's my girl.)
So, this morning I woke up after not having a phone for about a month and decided to switch carriers. The reason I didn't have service was my own stubbornness. I had paid for my phone and my service throughout the year, but then sometime in November, I got a notice from U.S. Cellular saying I owed $187.87 on my phone (an iPhone 12 Pro Max) and that I was behind in my service contract. I knew I wasn't. I checked with my bank, got my statements, circled the recurring withdrawals, and pointed this out to U.S. Cellular to NO avail.
When I refused to pay more, they cut my service. I get it. I really do, but I was right, and I didn't mind being inconvenienced for that. My daughter had her phone, so if I needed to place a call or have anyone call me, they could do so using her number. She only texts. The last time she placed a call was for food to be delivered and if I'm honest, she probably used an app for that as well. No one actually calls anyone - - except me. I still call people.
After refusing to pay, I let the year run out, and I got my last statement from the bank and again proved to U.S. Cellular that I didn't owe anything. I spent time on the phone with their customer service, and found out they had been charging me $28.19 a month for over a YEAR for an iPad I had not even turned on in over 15 months. I had canceled the service, they didn't do their due diligence, and WHAM...I get hit with them saying I owe them when in reality, they owed me!! There you go!! Booyah!
Well, I woke up and thought OK, I can do one of two things. I can continue with U.S. Cellular, or I can switch. The plans at U.S. Cellular didn't match what I liked; so I looked into other carriers. The one that struck my fancy was Mint Mobile. They have a special going on; you can get any plan for $15/month for three months with no switch or activation fee. After the three months, the cost reverts to whatever plan you really want, and you move forward, but you do pay three, six, or twelve months in advance. That's their little hangup.
It only took nearly two hours, but hey, what's time when you really come down to the wire? I am so non-techy I needed 100% assistance with the downloading, the switching, the settings, the ins and the outs. I decided not to keep my old number because a few weirdoes had it and were spamming me and trying to get me to sell their products. I was blocking their robo-calls constantly, and Mint Mobile had a really cool feature for blocking such calls!! Woot.
Anyway, after speaking with three or four of their customer service people who were absolutely helpful and informative, I now have a new number, and my friends couldn't be happier. They were getting tired of messaging me on Facebook Messenger. I am the texting/calling Queen and they missed me. They literally said (some of them) that they missed me. They missed me!! Can you believe it? Well, that's so nice. If I die today I know I will be missed.
Three things I learned through the whole switching phones process: I know what an IMEI number is, and I know how to find it. You dial *#06# on your device, and your IMEI numbers pop up. The customer service people need this to see what phone you own and who the carrier is. I learned to find out if my phone is unlocked or not. I didn't know. I really had no idea. You go to Setting/General/Cellular Carrier and look. I think that's right. If not, Google it. My phone had no restrictions. I really thought U.S. Cellular would have restricted it since they thought I owed them for it. This proves I didn't.
The other thing I learned was how to use the back of an earring to open the little trap door for the SIM card on the left side of the phone. You can't use silver earrings. You must use stainless steel, gold, or platinum. Silver will bend. I learned that. I finally got it open with a gold earring and I popped out the SIM card so they could "install" the eSim card and we could move forward. I saved the physical SIM card just in case. I have a thing about throwing out tech...I get nervous about that sort of thing.
There we go! I have a new Mint Mobile line, that uses all T-Mobile towers, and I don't have to pay anything for 3 solid months. I think I'll do the 3-month thing in the future. I don't use more than 3.8 GB so the 5GB plan is good for me. It's $25 a month, so $75 for three months. Not bad. I was paying $37.45 at U.S. Cellular for 3 GB and it would run over now and again, so I think this is gonna be good. Change is good. I'm 100% behind this one. I only had to bite my tongue three or four times in the process; so that's a plus right there. I wrote to all my contacts to let them know I had a new number. I also changed my signature on my email and changed the resume contacts. It was a DAY!!!
IYKYK....I am NOT techy. This was a good thing for me to try and achieve without the assistance of a kid - - or almost, Laura did have to show me where my "bars" were. She's cool like that. I didn't even know I had bars. I had bars.
Photo Credit: MintMobile.com
No comments:
Post a Comment