Cell phone blues (a rant & a question)

[Marseeya]

I'm mad at just about everybody over this! First of all myself. When I got cell phone service for DS and me this past summer, I didn't get insurance on the phones. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (that's me hitting myself)

Wouldn't you know, DS beat the crap out of his phone and now I'm faced with having it repaired or replacing it. (that's me hitting DS) It's $189. Why is he so rough on things?

I took it to the cell phone provider and it took two different employees to tell me it was broken. DUH! They told me they don't handle repairs anymore, so I'd have to contact Nokia.

I've been trying to contact Nokia since Monday and I'll wait on the phone for 1/2 hour before getting cut off! I've looked all over their website, but there's nothing on there I can use! I want to get it fixed, but I'm not willing to pay all that much, so we decided to go ahead and replace the phone and get the dang insurance on it. I won't be able to get insurance now after we get it fixed.

I'm not happy about this, but since it's my fault I didn't get insurance, I'm going to pay for the phone and make DS pay for what would have been covered by insurance out of his allowance.

Anyone else have problems with Nokia??? I'm so not happy with them right now because of their lack of customer service.

 

[Christine]

I know this doesn't answer your question, but did you buy this phone? I don't understand why people buy a phone or pay a lot for them when the service providers essentially give you a phone with every 2-year contract. If I had to pay $100's of dollars for a cell phone, I just wouldn't have one.

 

[WIcruizer]

$189? There are a ton of flip phones out there for under $50. You can even get used ones in great condition on Ebay for $20. If that happened with my DD, I would tell her I'll replace it for $50. If she wants something fancier, she can pay for it. At any rate, I wouldn't bother with the insurance. I haven't seen the rates, but I bet it's high and there could be all kinds of exclusions.

 

[vacanut]

well I just ran over DH's cell phone last week. It hasn't been 2 years so we did have to buy a new one, but there are all price ranges.

I wouldn't bother with the insurance.

 

[Marseeya]

I know this doesn't answer your question, but did you buy this phone? I don't understand why people buy a phone or pay a lot for them when the service providers essentially give you a phone with every 2-year contract. If I had to pay $100's of dollars for a cell phone, I just wouldn't have one.

I bought it for something like $30 when I signed up for the contract, but that's only for new customers. The least expensive phone through this provider is $99, and it doesn't get good reception in our town. We don't have many choices in phones with this provider and it's the only provider available to us right now because of where I have to drive to school in WV... the only other provider in our town doesn't have coverage in that part of WV.

 

[Marseeya]

$189? There are a ton of flip phones out there for under $50. You can even get used ones in great condition on Ebay for $20. If that happened with my DD, I would tell her I'll replace it for $50. If she wants something fancier, she can pay for it. At any rate, I wouldn't bother with the insurance. I haven't seen the rates, but I bet it's high and there could be all kinds of exclusions.

I'm not sure how most providers work, but with this one (cellular one) you can only use the phones they sell. They range from $99 (which doesn't have good reception in our town) to near $300.

The insurance is $5 a month and the beaten phone would have been covered. That's why I'm kicking myself over it!

 

[Regina]

Most cell phone companies will give you a new phone if you renew/extend your contract. (Worked for CellularOne a few years ago.)

Since you only have yours for a few months, you may not have this option, but it's something to keep in mind in the future.

 

[Marseeya]

well I just ran over DH's cell phone last week. It hasn't been 2 years so we did have to buy a new one, but there are all price ranges.

I wouldn't bother with the insurance.

How did that happen???

 

[Marseeya]

Most cell phone companies will give you a new phone if you renew/extend your contract. (Worked for CellularOne a few years ago.)

Since you only have yours for a few months, you may not have this option, but it's something to keep in mind in the future.

Thanks! This is Cellular one, but they do things differently than they did when I had service with them before. I'll ask them about that when I go in.

 

[Sandy V.]

How old is your son? If you just got the phone this summer and his is already "trashed", I would consider having him pay for part of the cost of replacement, or "work it off" around the house.

 

[WIcruizer]

Are you sure? That's the most absurd policy if that's the case. I used to have Cell One years ago and that wasn't the case. Maybe they're just trying to push you into their own over priced phones, but it's not required?

Read your contract and see if this is the case. Then I would call Cell One corporate (not the local provider) and get clarification.

 

[Chicago526]

I'd make my son pay for the phone since he's the one that trashed it. If for some reason he HAD to have a phone right away and didn't have savings to pay for it up front, then I'd buy him a cheapo phone and make him pay back the full $189 for the original phone.

But that's just me!

 

[vacanut]

How did that happen???

Unfortunately DH wasn't attached to phone, he survived!

 

[PlaneJoy1]

Look on ebay. My husband dropped his phone in the toilet (yuck!) and it was ruined! So I searched on ebay and found one that was a year old and paid ~$40 or so for it. Worked fine!

 

[Marseeya]

I just looked on e-bay and saw several phones for cellular one! What does that mean, and what do you do with them? Do you take them to cellular one for them to put a code in? What does it mean when it says it's an "unlocked" phone?

I don't see his particular phone, but I see some really nice ones on there.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[canwegosoon]

I think your son should pay for a new phone.

 

[Annie68]

I just bought a used cell phone on Ebay, they have some great deals! I called my cell phone company (Verizon) to check that the particular brand was acceptable & working in my area, then when my phone arrived I was able to activate it using the web page on line. There is a special number on the inside of the battery pack, and ESN number, that you have to give them to have it activated. The only warning they gave me before buying a phone on Ebay was that some of the phones could be stolen. I made sure to buy from a "long timer", someone with a lot of + responses/no negatives. The one thing I did notice is that a lot of people bid on these things at the last minute of the sale, if you see one you want then be sure to be on line watching it carefullyat the end! We were very satisfied & would do it again if needed.

 

[Marseeya]

Oh, regarding the comments about my son paying for the phone! LOL, that's a tad bit complicated.

For one, we haven't given him his allowance in quite a while because of a very tight bugdet due to DH's job making screwups on paycheck. DS has been very understanding of this and hasn't complained much. So, we basically owe him over $100 in back allowances that we were going to be giving him today.

There's that.

There's also my liability in not getting insurance. I feel that I should have done that.

So basically we've given DS a couple of options with paying for the phone. He HAS to pay something for being so careless with it. I feel that I have to pay something for not having insurance. So DH came up with, DS will have to pay the amount the insurance would have cost and we'll cover the rest. Since he doesn't have any money right now, we gave him the choice of taking it out of the allowance we owe him or using it as part of his Christmas gifts.

We're also talking about making him pay the $5 a month for insurance as well.

 

[MUFFYCAT]

My DD phone died 6 months before the contract was up. I bought one E-Bay for about $50.00. She thought it was ugly and hated it those few months.
At least she learned her lesson on how to take care of her things.

 

[Annie68]

I know what you are going through. My DD lost her phone earlier this year, it was such a hassle. Someone was using it (stole it), we had to file a police report & everything . She felt terrible, I told her we all learn from our mistakes! We had her number changed, and the new number sat "in limbo" over the summer months, until we bought her the phone on ebay. She is so careful with it now!