I Hate the Phone Company

My cell phone is one of those where you pre-pay for your minutes. I don't use it very much, so this has been a more cost effective means of having this neccessary evil. I have been with Tracfone for over a year now and it ends up costing me about $10 a month. Recently the antenna broke, so I ordered a new phone. Not bad so far, now comes the gripe.

I get the phone in the mail and charge it up like a good Lil Timmy. Since I am impatient and don't want the hassle I know will ensue if I call The Phone Company, I forego trying to transfer my old number and let the almighty SYSTEM assign me a new one for the new phone. Still not bad, gripe still forthcoming.

My new phone number is a long distance call from my home phone!! WTF?? When you activate the phone they even ask you your zip code!! I thought maybe this could just be some weird Canby thing (they have their own phone company), so I had my sister in Portland call me to test this. Nope, its a long distance call for her too. BTW- this is the beginning of the gripe..

Well, this is unacceptable.

So Saturday I got a couple sodas and some snacks to prepare for my "Customer Service" call to The Phone Company. I was put through to a very nice, very heavily accented woman named Amy who was very good at reading the script that The Phone Company provides her. Since my current number was unacceptable I thought I'd try to get my old number switched over to the new phone. She was able to transfer the leftover minutes, but not the number. Then she assigns me a new number and says that will solve the problem. Great! Except of course, the new number has the same prefix as the last new number, so it is still long distance. So now not only is my old new number long distance, it no longer is attached to my phone. Good thing I sent out that email letting all the important people know about the number, eh?

Now it is Monday. I call The Phone Company back and explain that I still need a number that IS NOT long distance from the Portland/Metro area (this would be my new new new number, for those keeping track). We tried Canby, Milwaukie, and Portland zip codes, the SYSTEM kept spitting out the same 881 prefix. Today I am talking to Tanya, and she tells me that there are other prefixes available, but she has no control over what the SYSTEM assigns. Now I have to wait at least another day, or until the SYSTEM runs out of 881 phone numbers and goes on to another prefix, which may or may not be local to the Portland area. So in the meantime, Tanya was kind enough to assign me a temporary new new new number until this happens.

So call me, 'kay?