Long time since storytime.

March 6th, 2008

I have been needing to write here for quite some time.  I have stories about my cell phone company calling the cops on me, a story about going to El Paso instead of Los Angeles one weekend.  I also have a funny story about Salt Lake City and the aftermath in Reno.  Never ending work and the family keeps me on my toes full time.  That’s my story and I am sticking with it.

Ok, Alltel and their revenge.  In October I bought a smart phone and signed a 2 year contract for a smart phone plan.  I wanted the phone, not the plan.  They told me I had 30 days to change my mind if I didn’t like it.  Well, I did like the phone but my first months bill came to over $900 so I decided to back out of the contract and the phone.  I was out of town for most of that time so as soon as I got back, I went to the local Alltel store and tried to give it back.  The manager was out so they told me I needed his help with this, in the meantime, here.  Try this Blackberry.  I went home with it.  Was out of town for a couple days and when I got back (less than 7 days later) I went back to the store and said “no, I don’t want this either”  I was told too much time had passed and I was stuck with the blackberry and the plan.  I was not happy and decided to fight back.  I kept calling managers and supervisors until I finally found a guy who agreed with me.  I have been a customer of Alltel since ‘99 and I should be able to get what I wanted.  When he asked me what that was I told him I wanted a regular phone with a regular plan.  No contracts, just a regular customer.  I said I would even pay full price for my new regular phone. He sent it to me, overnight so I would have it for my trip to San Diego the next day.  I went to the store on my way out of town to get the numbers transferred to my new phone.  They informed me that they could not do that because they didn’t have the software.  I accepted that. I would have to look at the blackberry for the number then manually punch it in on the new phone.  I didn’t really want to do it to over 350 contacts, however I could deal with it for a week until I could find an alternative way of dealing with it.  That wasn’t ok with the guys in the store.  They were obviously unhappy that I ended up getting my way so they thought they would turn the screw a little bit (or a lot)  They said they were going to keep the blackberry because it was Alltel property.  I had arranged with the corporate guy to send the phone back to him and I had that in writing.  I didn’t have the letter with me, as I was on my way to San Diego.  I told them the deal and they insisted they were keeping the phone and my only copy of my 350 contacts.  I assured them they were not keeping the phone adding that all the little boys in the store put together weren’t man enough to stop me from walking out the door with the phone. When I grabbed it off the counter they tried to take it out of my hand.  I felt showed great restraint in not popping someone then.  They told me if I left the store with that phone, they would call the police and tell them of my “theft” of the phone.  I walked, saying “go ahead”  About 150 miles west, in the middle of the desert, I get a call from a Gilbert city policeman asking for my side of the story.  He acted like a worn out father of 4 who was tired of his kids squabbling.  I told him and he said “don’t go back into that store”  I agreed and assured him I had no intention of going back into any Alltel store except to give them all the phones and to cancel my service with them. That is exactly what I did as soon as I got back to town.  I am now a happy customer of AT&T and think it was the best move I had made in a long time. 

More stories later. That was longer that I expected.  I will keep an eye on comments in case there are any questions.  funny, though, isn’t it?

Thanks for listening.

Merlin

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