Friday, December 02, 2005

Stuff Portrait Friday - CSI

According to Kristine over at Random and Odd, this week's SPF is CSI related. We are to show:

-the weapon
-the victim
-the crime scene
BONUS: the motive

I could have gone so many ways with this one. I am sure many of y'all anticipated seeing pictures of the ex-wife maimed and tortured with ripped up child support checks coming out of her dull lifeless mouth, but no. She is not the center of my wrath for once. Let me set the scene.

We have used Cingular for our cell needs for a while now. Well, really I did back when they were AT&T. This has been my experience with them up until yesterday when we jumped the Cingular ship and went to Verizon.

The weapon - my new Verizon phone that, get this people, keeps a signal and does not drop calls repeatedly. I know, unheard of. After the hurricane, the towers were down all over and it took some time to get everything back up and running. Completely understandable, but I continued to experience problems with having calls go through and dropping calls for weeks on end when other people seemed to be having less and less cell problems. Hmmmmmmm..... Now let me interject here that my husband was less than sympathetic. Because his cell phone was acting just fine, it clearly must be all me. I have no patience. I am over-reacting. I am blowing it all out of proportion. Let's go with NO. He changed his tune right quick when I could not get through to him when his father was in the hospital. I had to text message him to call me. I could not make the call. Then let's go to the day that he was on the phone with his boss and he dropped the call several times and then paid phone tag with said boss. Suddenly I was not so crazy. Amazing how that shit works.

The victim - my Cingular contract. I hope I cost somebody a commission somewhere. I am not a person to fuck with. I don't expect anyone to jump through hoops. I don't want free shit. I just want what I am paying for. They sure as shit did not give me a break on my bill when the Hurricane hit and my cell was useless. My bills are paid immediately upon receipt. Therefore, I don't think that assuming I can use my phone in an emergency is being unreasonable. Am I wrong here?

The crime scene. This is the best I could do of a Verizon store. I forgot to take a picture last night while we were there swapping our numbers over.

BONUS: Motive. This is what pushed me right the fuck off the proverbial edge. These are my rebate cards. When we spent a small fortune getting our Cingular phones, we were entitled to rebates totalling $130. OK, pretty damn cool, right? WRONG. Of course, like all rebates we had to shit twice, give blood, jump rope and do our taxes simultaneously in order to get the money back. We did all that and waited our seven weeks. This is what we got. Cards. We had to activate said cards in order to use them. Two of them have $50 on them; one has $30. OK, a tad annoying but fine. Until I tried to use them at 2 separate stores and was told they did not take them. At the second store, I paid for my purchases with my debit card and was so pissed that I think I made my 6'3" husband a tad afraid. I was that pissed. So after making me purchase a "Cingular compatible" phone because my old AT&T phone (THAT WORKED) was not good enough, paying out the ass for 2 new phones, waiting for my rebates and then not being able to use the money all on top of the constant dropped calls and network failure and network busy messages I get repeatedly all make up my motive.

Did y'all play????

Elizabeth at 8:51 AM

12comments

12 Comments

at 9:28 AM Kate Giovinco Photography said...: I would be so frickin pissed as well.

I played!
at 9:45 AM Kami said...: I still have my $50 Cingular rebate card.

"We have to call and make sure it has a balance."

I ain't doing that shit with a line of people behind me.
at 9:45 AM Peanutt said...: I have Nextel and can't wait until July when I can chuck them at the freakin' wall!!!!! Verizon is the choice I am going with as well! Had them many, many moons ago when they were almost one of the first, wish I would have never gotten rid of them! NEXTEL SUCKS!!!!
I loved your SPF! I played too!
at 9:49 AM Kelly said...: Yep, I hate jumping through rebates hoops!

I played!
at 9:49 AM TheStolenOlive said...: Welcome to Verizon. I also have jumped ship from AT&T, the worst by far of all the companies out there.

And your story reminds me a lot about how and why I jumped the SprintPCS ship.

Flashback...

Late September 2001. I'm driving on 610 (main loop freeway of Houston). This was 3 months after Tropical Storm Allison flooded Houston and two weeks after 9-11.

My call drops, not once but three times within 40 miles. I call customer service and ask them one question...

"How does a man in a plane 10,000+ feet in the air call to tell his family bye, and how do victims call for help under 110-stories of rubble... and I can't get service on the 610Loop?"

I don't think SprintPCS ever recovered from the disaster that was Allison.

I played...
at 9:56 AM Tammy said...: What an ordeal. I would have been pissed too. We have Cingular and are currently jumping through our asses over a broken and then lost phone. UGH!

I played.
at 10:23 AM Danielle said...: when it comes to signals verizon is all that and cingular sucks assk, their service, their technical support i deal with all the time for the blackberries and they are just clueless
at 10:28 AM hemlock said...: OOOOOOoooooohhhhh! Cell phone providers suck.

Why does it need to be so complicated?
at 11:23 AM Nap Queen said...: I had AT&T (now part of Cingular) and I HATED, HATED, HATED them. Glad you rectified the situation! I played!
at 3:06 PM Random and Odd said...: Oh I am SOOOOOOOOO fired up right now.

My ex use to be a big wig at AT&T wireless and I LOVED the customer service.

Since Cingular bought them out I CRY everytime I have to call for assistance.
AND HAVING TO REPLACE THE FUCKING PHONES WITH PHONES THAT LOOK JUST LIKE THE OLD ONES PISSED ME OFFFFFFF!!

Oh, SFG...you got me fired up!
at 5:34 PM Katie said...: Girl, you SPF was awesome! I am so excited to go home and do mine! I haven't totally figured out what I am going to do yet, but I am thinking. I also hate cell phone providers. I have T-Mobile and for the most part, here in Houston it is fine. But when I go home to Pennsylvania they don't have T-Mobile but this weird, hick-country provider called "Conestoga". I am sorry, but any cell phone provider named after an Oregon Trail farm wagon obviously doesn't work for shit. I can not even check my voicemail there! And when I called TMobile about it later, they were like "Sorry, nothing we can do". Talk about customer service!
at 6:04 PM Book Bums said...: My husband feels the same way about rebates...but has never put it as eloquently as you did. LOVE it...lol!

Sidenote: my verification word is "peeee"...now I gotta goooo...