Shame on the cell phone companies

i had verizon pre-pay before i got the contract and i liked that. it was $54/month including taxes. i barely used all my minutes and i still got pretty good service. i wanted the contract, though, so i can get better features. i LOVE the navigation on my phone. it is so accurate and it even recalculates a route if i take a wrong turn (because im a jackass that cant figure out which is my left, lol). and i text a LOT when im at work so i really love the unlimited feature. that includes ALL people. not limited to verizon customers. its great.

i heard motorola might be going out of business.

oooh conana, I need to send you my cell # so we can text each other, I have Verizon too w/unlimited texting!!!

I don't have a problem with my cell phone compnay either. I have Alltel. But I have a problem with most of the other companies, Sprint at the top of that list. They cost me $250 just to get the phone contract, $75 for the phone (it was on sale), $100 for the first months service. When I cancelled two years later I expected my $250 dollar deposit back. they told me that I wasn't getting anything b/c they used the deposit for the first three months bills. When I told them that I had paid them for those three months they said there was no record of me having ever paid my bill and have a nice day. Hung up on me. I went down there to show the receipts and they said sorry can't help you. So I was out $250. I threw the phone in the trash after taking a bat to it.

The other companies have horrible service. Dropped calls, bad reception, poor CSR, phones that are too expensive.

I will just stick with Alltel. At least when I have a call dropped I get the minute refunded and we have great CSR and Great reception.

"Did you ever notice that when you buy a new cell phone, you pay the sales tax on the original inflated retail price (“retail value” tax) of the phone – not on the discounted (or even free) final price of the phone? Why is that?"

They say only two things are for certain in life, death and taxes.

If given the choice between the two - (as much as I hate 'em) I'll take the taxes please.

Our old cell phone started having problems holding a charge, so on Nov. 6, 2007, we decided to take our phone service provider up on their offer of a free cell phone with the signing of a 36 month contract at a good price. On the whole this company has provided reasonably good service up to this point, but since we got our previous cell phone, the company has opened their own retail outlets to sell their products. A visit to their outlet in our town was a total waste of time. The clerk talked like a machine gun and if you asked her a question about a particular feature, she just went back and started her sales pitch at the beginning again. We left and went to another outlet in a nearby town. Here we were waited on by a clerk who I can only assume started the job that morning and had about enough training to know where to find a blank copy of the contract. She certainly didn't know how to fill it out and didn't have a clue about how to activate the phone. After about 20 minutes of wasted effort, another clerk finally came to the rescue. However a couple of days later we get a letter advising us that our contract was expiring Nov. 6, 2007 and inviting us to take one of their offers for continuing phone service. Our 36 month contact obviously had lasted 36 minutes. This company now doesn't have to farm out their service, their regular staff are screwing it up just fine. It took a couple of phone calls to the head office to straighten that one out.
But now comes the thing that made me really angry. While we were waiting for Miss Efficient to fumble about with our contract, I decided to pay the bill for our land line (also with the same company). Another clerk rang up the transaction for a $1.50 more than the amount of the bill. What!! She politely informed me that they charge a $1.50 service charge for paying your bill in the company's own store!!!! I told her that when I buy groceries in the grocery store, I don't pay a service charge and when I buy gas at the gas station I don't pay a service charge and when I pay my phone bill at the phone company's store, I had no intention of paying a service chage. She got really pissed off and told me I would have to pay service charges no matter where and how I paid it. I get my chegues free, don't pay any service charges at the bank so paying the bill by cheque would cost me an envelope (100 for 2.00 at the Dollar Store) and a 52 cent postage stamp. It probably costs the phone company far more in staff time, etc. to process my cheque that they receive by mail than to process the cash I was offering in their retail outlet. I'll continue to pay by cheque. Don't mess with a senior.

Well, I HAVE paid the tax on a "free" item in a supermarket when there is a "buy one, get one free" sale. Both items are rung up and taxed, then you are credited for the free item.

But, a $1.50 charge to pay the bill in the store? Yikes, I'd raise a stink. Here's what you do, go to the company's web site to the "about us" or the "Management" section if it's a public company. Write a letter to the CEO and ask why the company charges this fee. Be tactful, but let him or her know that charging this type of fee is a bad business practice. Again, be nice, not rude and see what happens.

I very rarely use a cel phone and am not a telephone addict. I have Tracfone just for emergencies when I am driving, out of the house or if someone needs to contact me urgently and I never text. I never had any major problems with it and only buy the minimum minutes every 90 days or so. It runs me less then $10 a month. Although they charge you minutes if you make or receive a call, local or long distance, it is a lot cheaper then my house phone (which charges me $6.00 a month and $0.05 a minute for long distance) which I also rarely use with all the Government (Federal, State and local) taxes, 911 fees, tty fees, access fees, etc., etc. , and, of course, State and local sales taxes. If I need to make an out of State or out of country telephone call, I use YAHOO. Computer to computer is free and computer to telephone is very cheap. Sound is excellent.