February 08, 2008

More obsolescence

Back in June 2006 I bought a cellphone. It was a Nokia 1100, and it worked just fine for my purposes.

Fast forward to last night. I unplugged it from the charger and turned it on when I went back to the bedroom, and there was no display, just a backlit screen. I fiddled for a while, digging out the manual to see if there was a troubleshooting section (no), then gave up. I called the cellphone service provider (Tracfone) this morning and after much hemming and hawing the customer service rep told me the phone was "damaged," and since it was beyond warranty I'd have to replace it. After being assured I could transfer my remaining time to the new phone and retain the same phone number I hung up.

But shouldn't a phone which doesn't get very much use at all (one 10-second call every morning when Mom wakes up and maybe a dozen calls longer than a minute in 18 months) last longer than this? Or am I just a cockeyed optimist?

Posted by Linkmeister at February 8, 2008 08:20 AM | TrackBack
Comments

We took my wife's cell phone to the AT&T store to get a new battery. They looked at it, sniffed derisively and said, "Oh, that phone's a year old. We don't carry batteries for those." They acted like we had brought them something from 1927!

Posted by: Solonor at February 8, 2008 11:49 AM

When this kind of thing happened to my Nokia phone I took out the battery for a minute, popped it back in, and rebooted. Worked for me. Give it a try.

Posted by: Rob_in_Hawaii at February 8, 2008 04:07 PM

I tried that while on the phone with the Tracfone people, Rob, but it didn't work. I succumbed and went out and got a Motorola W370 for $50. Now I'm in the midst of recreating my phone book. :(

Posted by: Linkmeister at February 8, 2008 04:53 PM

After being assured I could transfer my remaining time to the new phone and retain the same phone number I hung up.

Last fall Tracfone sent me an email saying that my old Motorola analog phone was about to become obsolete, so they were going to send me a shiny new Nokia to replace it free of charge, and not to worry about transferring minutes and phone number. They sent me the phone, and got the minutes transferred the same day, but it took me nine calls to their customer service (which turns out to be in Belize), including them sending me a new SIM card to replace the original new SIM card, before I finally got the number transferred properly. Very frustrating.

If I hadn't been sitting on 500+ minutes, I'd likely have chucked it all and switched to Virgin.

Posted by: DXMachina at February 9, 2008 06:03 AM

Ouch. Far as I can tell, the number transfer worked fine, at least from the test I ran from my landline to the new phone. Better, they added an extra two months to my airtime and an extra 20 minutes of time. Of course, it took about 8 minutes to get the voicemail box set up.

Posted by: Linkmeister at February 9, 2008 08:16 AM

Yeah, I got the two months plus the 20 minutes, too, which sort of made up for the fact that my phone was mostly useless for almost two months.

I was really pretty disgusted. At one point someone down in Belize promised to send me a new SIM card, then never followed through. I waited for three weeks (I'd been told 5-10 business days) before calling back. Then it was another three weeks before it finally arrived. They exaggerated about that, too, because it never even shipped until the 12th day.

Thing is, a lot of people tell me that this kind of thing is the norm across the industry. Feh.

Posted by: DXMachina at February 9, 2008 08:55 AM

Shame on you for asking a question whose answer is so obvious. You're old enough to remember Mad magazine and its articles about planned obsolence. Old and young are so tuned into buying what corporations tell them to these days, though, that such satire would no longer have any effect.

I am typing this on my (relatively) new computer, which runs Microsoft Vista, by the way.
==============
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"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
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Posted by: Peter at February 11, 2008 09:26 PM

And how's Vista working out for you, Peter? ;)

Posted by: Linkmeister at February 12, 2008 07:41 AM