Captain’s Log Supplemental – Still no Phone

So I went to the store for a new SIMM. The person I dealt with at the store seemed completely confused. She did give me a new SIMM and warned me not to turn the phone on until I called to activate it, because I didn’t want to “burn out the SIMM”…whatever that means.

So by the time I got home and got Loren settled, it was noon when I called to activate my phone. This was now my third call to activate my phone. Now, after I put all my data into the automated system, it told me:

“We are unable to find your account based on the information you provided. Press 1 to re-enter your information or 0 to speak with a customer service representative.”

So I pressed 1 and put in my cell number and my billing zip again and got the same message. So I moved on to an actual person.

A 25 minute conversation later (with lots of holding while the rep "rebooted his system"), I was told to turn on my phone but that it would take 2 hours for my activation to “move through the switch”…whatever that means. The rep promised to call me back at 4 PM my time (which is 3.5 hours after I turned on the phone) to see if I had service.

He also told me it “might be quicker than 2 hours” and that once I got service I needed to “turn the phone off and then back on”.

So here I am, 18 hours after I first turned on my phone so it would “auto-activate”, and I am still without service.

Why is Cingular still in business? Is it because everyone is locked into 2-year contracts that they cannot get out of? I am considering looking into what would be involved in a class-action lawsuit against all the mobile phone companies to eliminate this practice of long contracts with expensive buy-out options. I’m sure I could find an attorney in NYC who would want to take this on. The price of the phones will go up, but maybe the f****** companies would treat their customers better if every single one of them could jump ship at any time.