Pay-as-you-go-go

Never has a more apt name been coined for the time of cell phone you can now easily pick-up at any store practically. The Pay-As-You-Go phone. And pay you will. This month for inexplicable reasons my credit "expired" 5 days before it was scheduled too. I'm really looking forward to the customer service call that I'm going to have to take place but it may give me some insight into what the phone company actually knows about users on the Pay-as-you-go plan. Can they tell whether it was a clerical error? Did I actually spend my credit rather than it expiring early? And how will they know? I used to have a contract phone. It was a pretty good deal. A bunch of texts and minutes and I'd get a free upgrade every time I renewed my contract. Things seem to have changed recently though with the contract phone. Apparently now you have to sign yourself up for life in order to get a contract. A year was obviously too short a time for the money hungry phone companies, now they want your commitment for 18 months, two years. What will happen when that is not enough? Pledging your cell phone allegiance at birth?

At least with my phone I don't have to go through that contract business. I do have to put credit on about twice a month though. Mainly because AT&T like to send me "free" text messages that actually cost me a dollar if I hadn't used my phone that day. Thanks AT&T. What I find interesting is the automated service for recharging my phone, or paying bills from most companies actually. Have a listen. Next time you use one of those phone services and you enter in your card number, expiration date and maybe the zip code the phone will go silent then it sounds like you can hear someone actually typing in your information. Why is that? Have they just recorded someone typing or is it live? I may try screaming for help down my phone as I hear the noise to test it.

Thank you NEW Cingular

I guess when a big company take over another fairly big company things can go two ways. Things will get a lot better, or things will get a lot worse, plus all of the existing problems remain. Since AT&T took over my Cingular service I really hadn't seen much difference. Same calling plan, same price, some expiry of my minutes. Today, however, they crapped on me by increasing the text rate to .15c per message sent and received. I was shocked when I was told I would be paying ANY amount of money to receive a text. "What do you mean?" I said "I pay when someone else texts me, which is completely out of my control, and THEY have already paid to send the message, and I don't even get a choice NOT to receive the text??". Crazyness. When I wasn't charged to receive texts I'd feel no guilt about sending them, and hence sent twice as much so I don't really see much logic in this. Just another way for them to squeeze 5c out of me when I need to let Ms. AllClick know I'm running late. Maybe I'll call AT&T and ask them to screen my texts. I'll tell them I got a text that I didn't want and so would like a refund. I think I better read their small print.