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Precious no more

I have called my iPhone - My Precious (inspired by Golum aka Sméagol from Lord of the Rings).

This evening I wanted to throw My Precious against the wall - oh technology.

I went to the AT&T store to pick up a new case for Precious and pay my bill while I was there. I was already crabby by the time the slower than molasses, texting, chit-chatting with colleagues while I stood there waiting sales-girl got to me.

"I'd like to pay my bill while I am here."

"Um, o.k." she replied. Then brought up my account, "Your balance is $380.34"

I almost choked, "My account isn't past due, how can that be my plan is $79.00/month?"

"Um, let me see." It seriously took her over 5 minutes to maneuver through my account. "Well it looks like you had like a ton of charges for data transfers. Like over $250 worth."

I went around the counter and looked at my account - Yep it was true. No good.

Evidently when I went to Winnipeg I "accepted" a prompt that asked whether I would like to accept international roaming charges. Again, no good.

Guess all of the flashy little widgets on the phone e.g. email and Internet constantly search for information, while my phone was charging. As I was sleeping like a baby in the hotel's Sleep Number bed My Precious downloaded $203.96 of data between 1:33 a.m. and 4:02 a.m.

Oh, there was another $32 downloaded while I was en route on the sardine can plane to Mpls. So much for the Airplane Safe mode - Good Gravy.

I feel so stupid, guess I could have turned off the syncing - where to accomplish this task I still do not know because I got so crabby I had to leave the store - sans new case. I about lost it when I asked the 18 year old "manager" how I could avoid this in the future - translation "Show me how to turn data transfer off". He told me to "Just leave your phone in the United States" like I was an idiot.

I spoke with James at 1-800-AT&T and I think he felt bad for clueless me and was kind enough to credit my account half of the charges, so the damage is not as great, but still there nonetheless.
I tell you my story friends to save you from undue pain, shock, questioning of technical savvy and basically embarrassing yourself in your local AT&T store.

My Precious...

My Butt.

Comments

Chris said…
I don't mean to laugh at your expence, but that man that is funny! Not funny what happened, I have had similar things happen to me, but funny how you wrote about your experience. Thanks for sharing, as painful as that was.
bobbione8y said…
oh boy. i had enough problems just learning to use my new cheap verizon phone a few months back. and to think i actually was mad that i couldn't get one of these. i would have lost a fortune!

funny, they don't tell you stuff like that in their sexy ads....
carey said…
Doh. I bet the Home Office was impressed. I hate admitting stuff like this to The Husband. But I'm glad you told us, I needed a good laugh.
carey said…
Doh. I bet the Home Office was impressed. I hate admitting stuff like this to The Husband. But I'm glad you told us, I needed a good laugh.
Karen said…
Dude. I leave for a week and you come back to life. What's up with that? It was a treat to sit and read through multiple Susan posts, even if you had to suffer through a week of being driven insane for our entertainment. Thanks for not choking your little muses. Uh, you didn't choke them, did you?
Susan said…
No one was hurt over Spring Break - Thing 1 sat on Thing 2 a few times, but little guy is getting scrappy.

Glad I could entertain everyone - this blogging thing really is cheap therapy.
Karen said…
I second the therapy comment. Therapy to write and therapy to read.

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