Cell Phone Woes

Do you all remember back to when I dropped my cell phone – a Palm Centro – in my cup of coffee?  Well, after much grieving I was able to replace it – thanks to my mom’s desire to never upgrade her phone.  Since she didn’t want to upgrade, she ordered me a new phone with her credit.

Well, poor Eric’s phone has a cracked screen.  He used it in the morning yesterday, put it in our room to charge and then that afternoon found it had a big crack in it.  As it is a touch screen (a Palm Treo I think?) – well, that doesn’t work any more.

He’s been spending all his free time trying to figure out what to do.  Should he downgrade his phone to something simple and start carrying a calendar again – circa 1980s? – or try to find an affordable refurbished Palm.  Well, affordable is relative – it’s way cheaper than new, but still outside our budget.

And, in the midst of this he found out we were out of minutes this month! Yikes!  So, he also changed our phone plan.

Let me backup a bit….when I activated my new Palm Centro, I was told I HAD to get a data plan. That it was now required for all smart phones.  Add $30 to our monthly bill.  Higher bills right now – not a good idea!

So, when he changed our phone plan – double the minutes for the same cost!! – he asked them to delete the data plan.  While I’ll miss the ability to check my email anywhere and other fun activities (Google Maps, Twitter, Facebook, my bank account) – it just isn’t worth the cost in this economy.

They made the new phone plan retroactive.  Yeah – we have more minutes for this month!  But BOO because they were going to charge me for the data I had used all month on my phone.  I had unlimited access, so I was using it where ever I wanted, whenever I wanted!  Fun, right?  Well, not when they told us it totaled up to $450!!!!

Melissa at Verizon saved the day by suggesting we pay $30 for this month’s data package and have it canceled next month instead of last! Whew!   So, while $30/mo isn’t great….it’s a WHOLE lot better than $450!!