It Should Have Been Easy!

Yesterday I decided to finally throw off some of my old ways and move into the modern era with a smart phone. I have not bought a new phone since I had to replace my phone with a new flip phone four years ago after the old flip phone fell into the cats water dish on the boat. And since I did not use my phone much, I went with a basic voice plan. Since then, I have found myself doing some texting(extra cost) and longing to have a way of accessing the Internet and email without carrying the net book and finding a WI FI hotspot.


Last week at Costco, while I was waiting for the new tires to be mounted on the Mustang, I went into the Mobile Phone Kiosk and talked to the staff there. They briefed me on the various plans and what phones were the best deals at the time. The upgraded data plans were a lot cheaper than I thought they would be and a massive at checkout rebate was being offered on the phones.


Yesterday I went in and started the process. The salesman brought up my information on the computer. After reviewing the data, he says "Oh, it says here that you got a new phone last year and you are not eligible for an up grade until next year".  I immediately knew what happened. Last August, my phone bill came in VERY high. A little research and it looked like someone had bought some equipment on my account. Furthermore, my address got changed to Cleveland Ohio. I called the cell phone provider and reported the fraudulent charges and after a couple of hours on the phone got them reversed. So. I left Costco, drove home and got on the phone to the cell phone people. Conversation went like this:


Tech: Yes, we agree with what you are saying and we did reverse the charges, but for some reason it still says that you bought and Iphone5 in August and that became the upgrade date.


Me: Can you fix that so I can upgrade to a new phone?


Tech: Yes, give me a couple minutes.


Tech: OK, I fixed the upgrade date to today.


Me: Good, so now I can go buy my new phone as an upgrade?


Tech: Yes!


So I went back to Costco and started getting set up for a new phone. This time the salesman stops and says "I have never seen this before". He tells me that in my records that a flag has popped up requesting that additional proof of identity and address has to be faxed in before they can approve a phone upgrade: drivers license and utility bill, vehicle registration(from Washington State) or some other documentation that I cannot remember. So now, I walk out to the car get the registration and he faxes the info to the provider. After a few minutes, the flag is removed and we completed the sale of the phone.


I think I will like my new smart phone(it is smarter than I am) and it will surely take me a while to start realizing it's potential. But it literally took most of the day to get this completed. It should have been easy!