Tag: conclusion

My Net10 Phone Works

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell PhoneLeave a comment

Two weeks ago I bitched that my Net10 phone was rubbish and I would like to give an update on that issue.

Last year I bought my Net10 cell phone because my old T-Mobile phone had been disconnected for a long time because I just never used it.  It was an old phone I bought in 2002 and it wasn’t working anyway so I just let my service lapse.  I bought my new Net10 phone so that I could ride my bicycle for exercise without worrying about not having the ability to call 911 if I had to.

On December 1st Darrin bought me a $25 phone card for my phone.  I normally buy the $20 cards because they only have 200 minutes and the $25 card is a monthly plan with 750 minutes that don’t roll over.  I don’t use my phone enough to need that many minutes, but it was a nice gift and I accepted it.  I just assumed that I would keep the $25 plan so I wouldn’t have to worry about buying a card every month, I could just let Net10 charge me automatically with the plan.  Bad idea.

On January 1st, Net10 was supposed to charge my debit card, but they didn’t and I was unaware until January 3rd.  I went to make a phone call and my service was deactivated.  I went to the Net10 website and clicked reactivate which brought me to the menu to buy time.  I started up the $15 plan which is 200 minutes that don’t roll over.  I figured, if I am going to do a plan, I might as well go with the cheapest since I don’t use my phone that often, but that didn’t work because my phone never activated.

I called Net10 and told them what happened and they told me to wait 1 to 24 hours for it to activate, but it never did so I called them on the 5th.  They walked me through the process of reactivating the phone by going into the code entry mode.  I punched all these numbers in and did everything the guy told me to.  We were on the phone for a little over an hour and he came to the conclusion that my phone was the issue.  He sent me a new phone and told me that it will come with an envelope to send my phone back to them.  I wasn’t happy about that because I lost all of the games that I had bought for my phone.

I had to wait until Monday when the FedEx guy delivered my new phone.  I activated it, but I thought I must have done it wrong because it didn’t activate.  I waited an hour but nothing so I called them and they told me to wait 1 to 24 hours.  If after 24 hours it doesn’t come on then call them back, and I did.  They told me to wait an hour and if it isn’t working call back, which I did and the woman told me to wait another hour and I said no, I want my phone on NOW!  Not in 1 hour, not in 24 hours, I want it on NOW!  She walked me through the code entry bull again and it changed my phone number.  Now all of a sudden my phone number was gone, but she told me it was ok, it will go back to my phone number, but it didn’t so she told me that I needed a new SIM card.  UGH!

I had to wait for my new SIM card to arrive, when it came I called Net10 to activate it and they told me 1 hour.  I called back in an hour saying it’s not working, so they said 1 hour.  What the hell is up with them and 1 hour?  I was sick to my stomach and Darrin had called and said he wanted to go to dinner.  I didn’t want to go because I was too upset to eat, but he wanted to go so we went.

Saturday I called them as soon as I got up and I was on hold for 2 1/2 hours.  I got so tired of waiting so I just hung up and watched Grimm on Hulu since I missed it because we went out to eat.  I called them back and was lucky that I only had to wait 10 minutes.  I spoke to a guy for 90 minutes and he kept telling me that I need to buy a new phone card.  I kept explaining to him that I paid $15 and that was all I was willing to pay because why the hell should I keep buying phone cards if my phone isn’t working?  He tried my debit card and despite the fact that my bank had $400 in it, the card declined so I gave him my master card number and that also declined.  He told me that I need to call the bank and I told him absolutely not.  2 different cards from 2 different banks are not going to just decline when I know both accounts have money in them.  The problem isn’t me, it’s you.  He wanted to hang up on me because he didn’t know what to do and I told him to connect me with a supervisor.

I talked to a supervisor for at least 30 minutes and she couldn’t figure it out so she connected me with a tech person.  Um… aren’t they all supposed to be tech people?  I talked to him for another 30 minutes and he told me that there was an error with my account.  He told me he was going to personally try to fix it and if he does by that night he would call me, if not he would call me the next day.

This morning I woke up and tried my phone and it was still not working.  I went to the Net10 website and saw that the new and old phone were in my account so I called that direct number and was connected immediately.  I asked them if I bought a new phone card and entered it, would my phone work?  They said sure, go for it, so I did and it didn’t.  I called back and gave the guy the whole story from the beginning and he walked me through the code entry mode BS again with 3 different codes.  I gave him my phone card code and viola, time appeared on my new phone.

My phone works and I have 30 days with 200 minutes.  That $15 card that I got never got put on my phone, but at this point I don’t really give a crap, I just want my phone to work and that’s all that matters.  My phone number is different, but I didn’t really give the number to too many people so it doesn’t matter.  All that matters is that my phone works and I will never do the plans again, I will just have to buy phone cards every month and deal with that.

I know what people are going to say, drop Net10… blah blah blah.  Look, I was already told on Google Plus that I should just drop Net10 and go with a reputable phone company, but what people don’t realize is, I can’t afford to pay a reputable phone company for their expensive prepaid service.  I hardly ever use my phone so I can’t afford to spend $50 or $100 a month for a phone I never use.  I can’t really afford $20 either, but that is the only way to keep my phone active.  As long as I keep up with buying phone cards, then I will be fine with what I have.

Now that is solved so I can go back to worrying about other things.

 

My Final Decision – Nook

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Nook, Products I LikeLeave a comment

I’ve made my final decision about which e-book reader I want to buy. I said in my last post about waffling that I really wanted the Kindle because it’s the iPod of the e-book reader world but then last night I found out that Calibre will convert many e-book file formats to the .epub file format.

I’ve literally spent the entire day today trying to figure that program out and came to the conclusion that .epub is the best file for the Nook. When I tried converting my ebooks to .pdb file format (which is Nooks familiar format), the table of contents were always screwed up. It worked but it wouldn’t just say chapter 1, it would have the word Calibre with the chapter title.

The .epub file format works so much better and it’s the first choice in Calibre when you are converting a file so it makes it that much easier.

Of course Calibre probably won’t work with DRM books, the books I buy from Rainbow eBooks don’t have that restriction on them (yet). Although if a book I buy from them is already in the .epub file format then I won’t have to convert any of their books for the Nook. I can just buy,download, upload and read.

Although the book “Fell” did come in epub but it didn’t work on the Nook for PC program. So there is a good chance that I will still have to convert other file formats for the Nook.

And yes, I know, I can do the same thing with the Kindle but I think I’m going to get the Nook WiFi despite the fact that it’s $10 more than the Kindle and if I buy it at Barnes and Noble, chances are I’m gonna pay even more with taxes. The issue that I’m having with the Kindle is how it’s sold out lol. I don’t want to buy a Kindle if I can’t get it for another month. I also don’t want to buy something that I can’t return to the store.

There are a few features of the Nook that I like and don’t care for. For example you can replace the battery, it has an Expandable micro SD slot. I’ve seen in a video how slow the color screen is when sliding your finger to find a book, that is a bit irritating to me but I think I can get past that. The lend feature won’t do me any good but on the other hand who knows what might happen in the future. The very fact that we can walk into a B&N and I can bring a Nook with me and be able to read a book for free for 1 hour is appealing.

The main thing is that I can convert my existing e-books to the .epub format that I can read on a Nook and be able to use the dictionary, look up words, highlight and annotate. That’s all I wanted. That’s all I needed.

If I do get one, I’m going to buy 1 copy of the Los Angeles Times so that Darrin can see if he likes reading it on the Nook. If he does then I’ll get him the monthly subscription.  I’m tired of having to pick up his newspapers lol.  I don’t read so much that I will monopolize it from him, although I can’t say that he won’t monopolize it from me lol.  If that is the case I will suggest he buy himself one with his credit card.

I think I was wrong when I said that the Kindle is the iPod of the e-book world because it’s not sold in stores, it’s only online.  My Dell DJ was only online and they screwed me over on that because I can’t take it to any store to have it fixed but the Nook has a store.  So I think the Nook is really the iPod of e-books.