Not a good thing.
It had my Drivers Licenses, My Residency Card, couple of credit cards and an ATM card. It also had some miscellaneous cards which were not that important.
So, the first thing I did was to call the credit card companies that I could remember and cancelled my cards.
No problem.
I wasn't even thinking of the hassle I was going to have in getting a new Drivers License and Residency Card.
Out of mind, I would handle one thing after awhile.
So about a month later my Telcel cell phone quit working. I don't get too many calls on it, I usually ignore the text messages because they are always some commercial interest or Telcel trying to upgrade me to something I don't need.
After a few days, I needed to use my phone and figured I would see why I couldn't make any calls.
Seems that it was turned off for non payment of the monthly bill.
Crap....
I forgot to get a hold of Telcel and give them my new Amex card since that was the one that they had on file for my phone.
Shouldn't be a problem, I'll give them a call and simply give them my new card number.
So, I call and talk to someone who says that they will transfer me, because the billing is handled by another office.
No problem.
After about 15 minutes I didn't want to wait any longer and hung up.
Figuring that my wife was going to get involved in this project sooner later, because there would possible be something that I might misunderstand and agree to some plan upgrade jacking the bill I got her on the project.
So she had to start from scratch.
In the meantime my phone is dead for outgoing calls, but I am getting texts from Telcel telling me that I need to dial their number and clear the bill up
.
So, while we were out and about, I told my wife, let's just stop by at an OXXO store and pay the bill so they turn the phone on.
Sure why not, she has an Amigo phone which she reloads every month or so at the store so why not just pay the bill on my phone.
Not so easy.
The system won't take the cash payment because the account is in suspension. So we call them on the phone when we get home.
No problem just give us the new card number and we'll take care of it.
Ok, that was easy.
They tell us the service will come back later on in the day.
Next day, still no service.
We call and after getting transferred a few times they tell us that they cannot accept the new card because there is an outstanding balance on the account using the old card.
Ok, just use the new card to put that on and pay it.
Sorry, our system will no allow that.
You have to go to a Telcel office and take care of it.
So.....
We arrive at the Telcel office a few days later and explain the whole situation. We pay the bill and are sent back to the window.
Seems that we have passed out contract time and we need a new contract. Ok, let's do that.
After all that paperwork again, we go to the cashiers window and pay that bill and return to the window.
"Your phone will be working in a few hours," she said.
Next day, still nothing. So we call, well it should be on,
They assure us that everything is taken care of and that the phone will be operational.
This continues for another few days until I finally decide that this is enough of dealing with Telcel, I talk to a friend of mine and he tells me that he has been trying to cancel a number that he no longer uses for over 9 months and still they are billing him, and not stopping the billing.
He says, that he went to Nextel last week and switched all his remaining family phones and is happy.
So, the next trip in town I get a Nextel phone. I was in and out of the office in about 20 minutes, I have been paying the bill via a credit card via the phone and my phone actually covers the ranch 100 times better because their antenna tower I can see from my back kitchen door.
So, about a month goes by and I get an internet notification that Telcel has originated a bill, 30 days later onto my Amex card.
I call Amex and have the charge declined.
Now I wonder how long this is going to happen.
Well, it happened again , so again we call Amex, tell them to decline the charge.
Now, the good news.
After all this, I found my wallet underneath some stuff in my closet. It must have slipped out while I was hanging my pants or something.
All that hassle, my fault.
I can blame old age, so that people will be easy on me. My own hassle creation.
On the positive side, I love the Nextel phone, I get more data, the coverage is better and it's a few pesos cheaper than the old Telcel phone we had since we started building the house years ago. And I got a new number so all those solicitations are not happening anymore.
And every couple of years we had to go to the Telcel office and redo the contract, the procedure usually too about half and hour if things were moving smoothly. My whole transaction at Nextel took about 15 minutes.
So, if you are trying to call me on my cell phone number and you get an recording, it's because I no longer have a Telcel phone. I didn't want to move my number since most of my calls were bogus anyway. So, I do have a new phone number for those people getting a recording...
No comments:
Post a Comment