More phone stuff
Oct. 28th, 2010 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterLast week, I picked up my TracFone and a 1-year card. I filled out the form on website to port my number over, and waited…and waited…
Finally, yesterday morning I called TracFone to find out what had happened, and spoke to someone with the sing-song accent of the subcontinent. And it turned out that I hadn't given my proper Boost Mobile account number to TracFone to port the number over, for the simple reason that…I couldn't find it anywhere on the "My Account" page on Boost Mobile's website.
Finally, I had to call in to Boost, twice, and navigate my way through an interminable voice menu that didn't recognize that "0" means "get me a live person, dammit." And then I got another operator from India, who informed me that the account number wasn't mentioned on the webpage because it's "privileged information," but she was kind enough to give it to me.
Then I called TracFone again and spoke to another rep from guess-where and gave over the new information. This rep told me to call back in 24 hours to check the status of the order. But as it happened I didn't need to. This morning (well, afternoon but morning to me) I checked my phone's display, and it was active. But it hadn't registered the minutes card I put in.
So I went in and put it in again, making sure to add the special coupon code from a booklet that came with the phone that was supposed to get me 200 extra minutes. It ended up getting me 300 (on top of the phone's automatic minute-doubling bonus feature which gave me 400 more on top of the original 400), and counting the 10 minutes and 66 days that came with the phone I subsequently had 1,110 minutes for 431 days of service. Not bad for $100—about 1.5 times what I used to pay in a single month for phone service. I won't have to pay again for over a year—or for however long it takes me to run out of minutes, at least.
Tomorrow I go in for a medical study to BioKinetic. I didn't quite call in soon enough so I'm just a first alternate. But they usually do end up needing at least one alternate—and on the bright side, even if they don't need me I'll still get paid $75, almost as much as I'm losing by taking an unpaid day off to do the study this week.
Fingers crossed that I make it in.
Finally, yesterday morning I called TracFone to find out what had happened, and spoke to someone with the sing-song accent of the subcontinent. And it turned out that I hadn't given my proper Boost Mobile account number to TracFone to port the number over, for the simple reason that…I couldn't find it anywhere on the "My Account" page on Boost Mobile's website.
Finally, I had to call in to Boost, twice, and navigate my way through an interminable voice menu that didn't recognize that "0" means "get me a live person, dammit." And then I got another operator from India, who informed me that the account number wasn't mentioned on the webpage because it's "privileged information," but she was kind enough to give it to me.
Then I called TracFone again and spoke to another rep from guess-where and gave over the new information. This rep told me to call back in 24 hours to check the status of the order. But as it happened I didn't need to. This morning (well, afternoon but morning to me) I checked my phone's display, and it was active. But it hadn't registered the minutes card I put in.
So I went in and put it in again, making sure to add the special coupon code from a booklet that came with the phone that was supposed to get me 200 extra minutes. It ended up getting me 300 (on top of the phone's automatic minute-doubling bonus feature which gave me 400 more on top of the original 400), and counting the 10 minutes and 66 days that came with the phone I subsequently had 1,110 minutes for 431 days of service. Not bad for $100—about 1.5 times what I used to pay in a single month for phone service. I won't have to pay again for over a year—or for however long it takes me to run out of minutes, at least.
Tomorrow I go in for a medical study to BioKinetic. I didn't quite call in soon enough so I'm just a first alternate. But they usually do end up needing at least one alternate—and on the bright side, even if they don't need me I'll still get paid $75, almost as much as I'm losing by taking an unpaid day off to do the study this week.
Fingers crossed that I make it in.
