SifuPhil
R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
Okay, so I don't like phones very much. Call it a phobia or just a strong dislike, but I've never been much for them - I much prefer doing my business by email or even (Buddha forbid!) postal mail.
But lately, with all the new things I'm trying to market my writing, I'm finding that I have to have a valid phone number if only to serve as what these places call "verification" - to prove that I'm a human, I suppose.
Now, I already have several cell phones (no land lines) that I've accumulated over the years, most of which would cause your typical modern teenager to roll on the floor laughing if they were ever presented with them. The latest model I have is an LG800G which I purchased for use with a Trac-Phone pay-as-you-go plan.
Yeah, I know - it looks like the kind of phone an out-of-work clown would be carrying in his over-sized patch-pockets, but it did the job when I needed it to - mainly ordering pizza.
So now I get a brainstorm that fits right in with my frugal nature: instead of buying yet another new phone and paying all those one-time set-up fees, I figure I'll be cute and figure out how to use this existing phone with a new service.
Ish Kabibble.
First I tried signing up for a service called K7, which offers a free "virtual" phone number for receiving calls. Oh, I got the free number and activated the service alright, but it turns out that none of the places that I want to work with recognize it as a "real" number.
Strike one.
I move on to Google, my Great God Google, where they have something called "Google Voice". I always thought that Google's voice would sound something like HAL being a bad boy in 2001: A Space Odyssey -
It turns out that Google Voice is a step up in the complication factor, which fact I discovered when I applied for a free number -
I asked for a number, and Google asked me for my phone number.
I asked again, and again Google refused to give me one until I gave IT one. I was starting to feel like the guy who goes to the sacrificial party without a virgin.
What we had there was failure to communicate.
Eventually, after an hour or so, I got Goog to agree to give me a call at my virtual number. I watched my screen as a little box appeared that counted the elapsed time of Goog trying to call me and expecting me to pick up and tell it my Verification Number.
Yeah, THAT worked.
Thinking I just didn't understand exactly what Google Voice was, I cast about for another idea ... ah, television! I recalled the Consumer Cellular commercials, where the two seniors are driving around the country in their motor-home and doing exciting things together, like going to yard sales and drinking Ensure ... they talked about a cell phone plan that was only $10 a month!
Excited beyond all possible expectation I went to their website and saw that my monthly $10 would buy me exactly ZERO minutes under their "Consumer Casual" plan. And here I thought I was just casual enough to qualify.
Turns out that that monthly charge just gets you in the door - you have to pay the obscene amount of TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PER MINUTE for every call you make IN ADDITION TO the $10. They told me "most customers on this plan use 20 cell-phone minutes or less a month" - well, yeah, that makes sense, and that would be me. I just wanted the stinkin' thing to RECEIVE calls, not MAKE them. But no, they charge whether you're coming or going.
They also wanted to sell me another phone! THEIR cheapest one looked like MY cheapest one's Grandpa, and they wanted $35 bucks for it, for something that would retail on eBay for MAYBE $2.75.
But then I found a loophole - you could use an existing phone!!! For FREE!!! Trembling with anticipation I scrolled down to find the list of useable phones since, as they told me, "Your phone should either be a Consumer Cellular phone, a phone previously used with AT&T, or an unlocked GSM phone".
Huh?
None of my phones were purchased from Consumer Cellular, I don't THINK I ever had AT&T cell phone service, and I was COMPLETELY in the dark over that GSM stuff - I thought that's what they put on my Moo Goo Gai Pan down at the ol' Hong King Kong Buffet.
I used their Help section, read their FAQ until my eyes bled, but no go - all I figured out was that they would send me a new SIM card that might or might not work with my phone. They were even nice enough to NOT charge me anything until I made my first call.
But then they wanted my credit card for - yep, you guessed it - "verification", my new favorite four-letter word. Since I don't keep a balance on it I had forgotten that there was in fact $0.00 on the card at that moment. But CC was nice enough to remind me of that fact within 5 seconds, and suggested that I give them my whole Social Security number so they could check that I wasn't on Homeland Security's hit-list.
Even though I don't have a working phone, I'm pretty sure they heard my response.
So now I transferred a wee bit o' cash onto the card which, because this is the Information Age and the Age of Digital Wonders, will take 3-4 working days to show up. I'll try them again. Meanwhile, I'm fighting off a flood of emails from K7 and Google Voice, asking me why am I not answering my phone.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! :aargh:
But lately, with all the new things I'm trying to market my writing, I'm finding that I have to have a valid phone number if only to serve as what these places call "verification" - to prove that I'm a human, I suppose.
Now, I already have several cell phones (no land lines) that I've accumulated over the years, most of which would cause your typical modern teenager to roll on the floor laughing if they were ever presented with them. The latest model I have is an LG800G which I purchased for use with a Trac-Phone pay-as-you-go plan.
Yeah, I know - it looks like the kind of phone an out-of-work clown would be carrying in his over-sized patch-pockets, but it did the job when I needed it to - mainly ordering pizza.
So now I get a brainstorm that fits right in with my frugal nature: instead of buying yet another new phone and paying all those one-time set-up fees, I figure I'll be cute and figure out how to use this existing phone with a new service.
Ish Kabibble.
First I tried signing up for a service called K7, which offers a free "virtual" phone number for receiving calls. Oh, I got the free number and activated the service alright, but it turns out that none of the places that I want to work with recognize it as a "real" number.
Strike one.
I move on to Google, my Great God Google, where they have something called "Google Voice". I always thought that Google's voice would sound something like HAL being a bad boy in 2001: A Space Odyssey -
It turns out that Google Voice is a step up in the complication factor, which fact I discovered when I applied for a free number -
"I'm sorry, Phil, I can't do that."
"Why can't you, Google?"
"It would go against my programming... "
"Why can't you, Google?"
"It would go against my programming... "
I asked for a number, and Google asked me for my phone number.
I asked again, and again Google refused to give me one until I gave IT one. I was starting to feel like the guy who goes to the sacrificial party without a virgin.
What we had there was failure to communicate.
Eventually, after an hour or so, I got Goog to agree to give me a call at my virtual number. I watched my screen as a little box appeared that counted the elapsed time of Goog trying to call me and expecting me to pick up and tell it my Verification Number.
Yeah, THAT worked.
Thinking I just didn't understand exactly what Google Voice was, I cast about for another idea ... ah, television! I recalled the Consumer Cellular commercials, where the two seniors are driving around the country in their motor-home and doing exciting things together, like going to yard sales and drinking Ensure ... they talked about a cell phone plan that was only $10 a month!
Excited beyond all possible expectation I went to their website and saw that my monthly $10 would buy me exactly ZERO minutes under their "Consumer Casual" plan. And here I thought I was just casual enough to qualify.
Turns out that that monthly charge just gets you in the door - you have to pay the obscene amount of TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PER MINUTE for every call you make IN ADDITION TO the $10. They told me "most customers on this plan use 20 cell-phone minutes or less a month" - well, yeah, that makes sense, and that would be me. I just wanted the stinkin' thing to RECEIVE calls, not MAKE them. But no, they charge whether you're coming or going.
They also wanted to sell me another phone! THEIR cheapest one looked like MY cheapest one's Grandpa, and they wanted $35 bucks for it, for something that would retail on eBay for MAYBE $2.75.
But then I found a loophole - you could use an existing phone!!! For FREE!!! Trembling with anticipation I scrolled down to find the list of useable phones since, as they told me, "Your phone should either be a Consumer Cellular phone, a phone previously used with AT&T, or an unlocked GSM phone".
Huh?
None of my phones were purchased from Consumer Cellular, I don't THINK I ever had AT&T cell phone service, and I was COMPLETELY in the dark over that GSM stuff - I thought that's what they put on my Moo Goo Gai Pan down at the ol' Hong King Kong Buffet.
I used their Help section, read their FAQ until my eyes bled, but no go - all I figured out was that they would send me a new SIM card that might or might not work with my phone. They were even nice enough to NOT charge me anything until I made my first call.
But then they wanted my credit card for - yep, you guessed it - "verification", my new favorite four-letter word. Since I don't keep a balance on it I had forgotten that there was in fact $0.00 on the card at that moment. But CC was nice enough to remind me of that fact within 5 seconds, and suggested that I give them my whole Social Security number so they could check that I wasn't on Homeland Security's hit-list.
Even though I don't have a working phone, I'm pretty sure they heard my response.
So now I transferred a wee bit o' cash onto the card which, because this is the Information Age and the Age of Digital Wonders, will take 3-4 working days to show up. I'll try them again. Meanwhile, I'm fighting off a flood of emails from K7 and Google Voice, asking me why am I not answering my phone.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! :aargh:
