doronjosama: (Default)
doronjosama ([personal profile] doronjosama) wrote2006-09-27 07:27 pm

Take That, Phone Company!

So, for the last few years, we haven't had long distance service. Southwestern Bell/SBC/AT&T/whatever they call themselves today charged such ridiculous fees for it and we kept getting our long distance service changed without our explicit permission (we got "slammed" like three times... yeesh), so we opted to simply NOT HAVE IT. The phone companies were always completely baffled by this whenever they tried to call and get us to sign up for it, but we had calling cards, which worked fine. And, with the internet, we don't really have to call that many people long distance. Well, our plain old vanilla phone bill has been creeping up on the dollar-meter over the last two years. Apparently, when you refuse to play the long distance service game, the phone company finds other ways to charge you. And charge us they did. Our monthly phone bill for plain old vanilla local service, with caller ID, an unlisted number (which they listed *anyway*, despite repeated calls to customer service to keep it unlisted), call waiting with caller ID on that (I hate being surprised on the phone), and nothing else was running us about $45-50 a month. When we first got the service, it was about $30 a month.

Our phone service has also been *horrible* this last month, as someone in the building has gotten fresh DSL or something, so often, in the evenings, we'll have our end of phone conversations disrupted by LOUD SCREECHING RHYTHMIC STATIC. The people on the other end of the line can't hear it, only we can. We have been told there is nothing wrong with the lines. Uh, what?

Enough was enough today. When I went in to pay the cable/internet bill, I signed us up for digital phone. Because we already get the high speed internet (essential for business) and we have a digital cable box (essential for sanity, since we so rarely leave the house), we got a huge discount package, so we will get to keep our same phone number and be getting local service, caller ID, call waiting with caller ID, AND unlimited long distance service for only $2 more than we were already paying for the cable/internet. This will also save us about $43-48 per month. The cable guy comes on the tenth to fix everything up for us.

IN YOUR FACE, AT&T.

Got another question for you.

[identity profile] hecatemahadevi.livejournal.com 2006-09-28 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm determined to make someone buy me WoW (it's only $20 on Amazon, but if I buy it, I'll jinx myself and not like it). I don't have a credit card, however, and charging the monthly fees to my debit card is not the best of ideas. How and where do you purchase prepaid timecards?

Re: Got another question for you.

[identity profile] doronjosama.livejournal.com 2006-09-28 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
I buy them at the local video game store. ^_^ EB Games or GameStop (since they are now the same company) should carry them, but they also have them at Best Buy, Circuit City and those kinds of places.

For Xmas last year, I ended up getting like three game time cards from folks who didn't know what else to get me, and it was *awesome*. ^_^

Re: Got another question for you.

[identity profile] willworks.livejournal.com 2006-09-28 07:59 pm (UTC)(link)
You can also get the timecards on Amazon or at Wal-Mart.