Phone died

[ghostjmf]

Cellphone, of course. Exactly 1 day after I bit the bullet (not being able to commit just yet to glorious new expensive plan that comes with Android) & put $50.00, meaning 9+ more hours on it.

Local T-Mobile store is out of loaners. But after I beg they locate one, not far. I will get my free replacement in the mail "in 5 days" they said. After I call customer service, 'cause they can't do that for me. And then, after all that, they notice that my phone is out of warranty by 2 months. So no free replacement. They want $80.00 for a replacement for my $30.00 phone. But the CVS next door has $19.00 phones. Yes, but they're crappy phones. Also, I wanted a phone that worked similarly to what I have, but "this year's model" of my phone, for $50.00, is a drive away at yet another store, Staples (the local Staples kindly made that call for me). T-Mobile had said all I had to do, since my minutes were prepaid, was to buy the new phone & transfer the SIM card.

"Uh-uh" says the driven-to Staples. "We can't even sell you this phone, at the pre-paid-customer sale price we quoted you, without your PIN #." This PIN had been assigned by T-Mobile, not chosen by me, back when I bought the phone. It could be on my original paperwork, back at the house. Staples said they were not allowed to look it up, even though I could prove I was me. So I called the T-Mobile store (on a borrowed landline) & identified myself, & they looked it up.

And after all that, though my contacts are intact, my received text messages are jumbled, my sent messages are gone, my phone call histories are gone & all my photos are gone. Its back to the original T-Mobile store (Staples couldn't do it) to get a techie to try to retrieve the the photos. No can do. They did try. "We've never seen a display like this before" they said. It has to have the standard display, even if it doesn't send or receive calls, for photo retrieval to work.


I had not done anything to it. I'd turned it off, then turned it on again, which sometimes get gets me a signal instead of "searching". What I had gotten when I turned it back on was the weird display with a bunch of "F"s accross the top.


One thing that made me laugh was that the Staples person said, & I quote “We can’t sell you this phone at this price without your PIN #. WalMart would, of course. But we’re not allowed to”. They went on to say that this phone, full price, would be $180.00. At which point I almost dropped it. (When I told T-Mobile, back at their ranch, that they said they never use the PIN #s when doing setups of phones. But they do assign them when they sell the phones. Fortunately for me.)


I also got another price-wise surprise; they taxed me on the full price, even though I paid the pre-paid-customer/sale price. Apparently a new Mass law went into effect about a week ago that says sale items have to be taxed at full price.

[MarleysGh0st]

I'd offer you grumbles, but I think you've got that covered.

Apparently a new Mass law went into effect about a week ago that says sale items have to be taxed at full price.

Is that so? I'd be curious to hear their rationale for that.

[ghostjmf]

And in case anyone asks, T-Mobile doesn't even sell batteries these days. Just the phones, most of which cost at or above the price for a battery. But when I had the new phone running, I did take it apart & put the old SIM card & the new battery into the old phone, just to see what I got. Same crap display (I knew I probably wouldn't get actual phone service as Staples had officially taken it "out of service", I believe, when they transferred my minutes on the T-Mobile web site. The one that wants PIN #s that T-Mobile themselves don't use.). The techie at T-Mobile later said they had tried that too.

[ghostjmf]

ghostjmf wrote:

Apparently a new Mass law went into effect about a week ago that says sale items have to be taxed at full price.

Marley says:

Is that so? I'd be curious to hear their rationale for that.

It was news to me, but not the 1st time Staples had had to explain that this week, they said. It comes up on sales items; programmed in to their register. If anyone can tell me this is not the case, I can go back to them, but even though this was complete news to me, & I do live here (& listen for stuff like this), I can't believe they'd be making it up.

A few weeks ago Mass had one of those "tax holiday weekends" for items at or under $2,500.00. There was a lot of publicity for that; none for this new law.

[Estonut]

Apparently a new Mass law went into effect about a week ago that says sale items have to be taxed at full price.

Is that so? I'd be curious to hear their rationale for that.

I don't know about sale prices, but for coupon purchases, it's been a law here in CA for quite some time. The only store who practices it, however, is Costco. About 10 years ago, I bought a DVD Box Set there that had a price of $99.99, but Costco had a passbook coupon for $50 off. Our tax rate was 7.75% and this was my only purchase that day. It stuck out like a sore thumb when I noticed $7.75 in tax on my $49.99 purchase. I called them to report what I assumed was a computer glitch, but they insisted it was correct (and legal). I researched it and found out they were correct.

[ghostjmf]

It actually rang up at $149.XX (receipt's at home), less $100.00 discount. So I "only" had to pay tax on $149.XX, not $180.00. Small victory.

About the only advantage to this whole debacle is that while this phone has absolutely crap standard wallpaper (& standard ringtones, but at least one, the one I have chosen of course, is "real telephone" ring), it easily allows you to make a photo taken with the phone your wallpaper. So currently TuckerMonster is my wallpaper. I have told him, though, that much as I love him, I'd rather have donated the $60.00 to his future upkeep than to immortalizing him on my phone.

I now get to dither at my leisure about buying a notebook/laptop, which is what I really wanted over an Android anyway; something with a real keyboard (Android's is virtual, I believe; too small to really type on, & even if you could, you'd be sending all the letters your fingers touched at once).

[littlebeast13]

It actually rang up at $149.XX (receipt's at home), less $100.00 discount. So I "only" had to pay tax on $149.XX, not $180.00. Small victory.

About the only advantage to this whole debacle is that while this phone has absolutely crap standard wallpaper (& standard ringtones, but at least one, the one I have chosen of course, is "real telephone" ring), it easily allows you to make a photo taken with the phone your wallpaper. So currently TuckerMonster is my wallpaper. I have told him, though, that much as I love him, I'd rather have donated the $60.00 to his future upkeep than to immortalizing him on my phone.

ES requires no upkeep expenses, and he looks cute on a cell phone....

lb13

[christie1111]

Found it!

[ghostjmf]

And oh-yeah, the port for the car charger & headphones is different in this year's model than last year's, so my charger & phones won't work. I paid for the charger last year; the headphones were free, with the phone. I have used both of them exactly never, but it was a comfort having them, "just in case", especially the charger. This year I'd have to buy both new. May shell out for the charger. Still deciding. I've so far been able to charge a dying phone the normal way, i.e. via a wall outlet somewhere I'm staying/visiting, but that's not always going to be the case.

It turns out this phone can take movies as well as stills. The minute I told TuckerMonster he was going to be in a movie, he stood still.

It also takes far better night-time pictures than day-time; go figure.

One thing no-one was ever able to get to work on my now-dead phone was where you're able to call up voice-mail from a different phone (& avoid getting charged for the call that that way). Supposedly your initial password, from an other-than-itself phone, is the last 4 digits of your phone #. But it wasn't, & despite supposed attempts by T-Mobile customer service to fix this, they never could get me a password that worked.

New phone’s teeny-tiny book (the real book is on-line somewhere) fixes this with one swoop: “To reset the voicemail password to the last four digits of your phone number:

1. From the Home screen, enter #793#.

2. Press the green SEND key."

Done. It worked; I checked it. Now I can go into the voice-mail menu & change the darn password, since now I know what it actually is.

For anyone else with a Samsung phone (I don’t know if this stuff is universal, Samsung stuff, or T-Mobile stuff, but here goes): If the icon that is supposed to get you to “how many minutes do I have left on my prepaid plan” isn’t working, as mine wasn’t lately, punch in “#999#” & get your report.

There’s a lot of these codes, & they probably are universal for cell phones; the Staples person I discussed them with (same person who wouldn't look up my PIN for me) said there’s lots when I mentioned that the kind person at my local Staples, same person who located this phone at drive-to Staples, had shown me this one a few weeks ago. I don’t think less-kind Staples person would have memorized the codes for a zillion different brands, since they sell a zillion different brands, not just T-Mobile.