Sunday, August 23, 2009

See below for rant. Cell phones this time....

This isn't my usual rant about cell phones, about people driving while chatting or texting. This is about the cell phone business, as close to outright deception and trickery as business can get.

Tamar and I have T-Mobile phones. We started by paying in front, so many minutes cost so many pennies. Worked out great, except that if you leave your metropolitan area and drive for an hour, you have no phone. Weirdly, coverage for pay-as-you-go plans is far worse than for monthly, on-going, this-is-a-holdup plans.

But you know all that. Probably. Here finally is the reason for my rant: The battery in my year-or-so-old phone, little used but never shut off, charged all night every night, is holding less and less charge by the day. It's on its way out.

T-Mobile doesn't sell batteries. T-Mobile, again, doesn't sell batteries. They don't feel the need. All their phones are powered by batteries but they don't sell them.

If you say you need a battery, they sell you a new phone (with a new battery in it) CHEAPER than a replacement battery - and they sign you up for two or three more years of their service.

Look on the T-Mobile web site. Look for replacement batteries. Click around there. Look, as I did, in Accessories. No goddamn batteries. Before you suggest it, yes I called Batteries Plus. No batteries for my phone model in stock. Come in and order one. Takes two weeks. Forty bucks.

To T-Mobile, the failure of your battery is not a loss, it's an opportunity! Why should they sell you a boring battery when you can buy a slim, powerful, omni-featured new phone? And more years of good service from T-Mobile? For less out-of-pocket today than a battery alone....

Are the cretins behind this con the same guys who give away printers and sell short-lived $100 ink cartridges?

My PHONE isn't broken, dammit. I don't need a new PHONE. Why is it okay for cell phone companies to mislead us and upsell us? If our local merchants did it, we'd never stand for it....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't rant. Buy the cheapie Tracfone. Run by some Mexican capitalist/mafia kingpin, these guys have the prepaid deal figured out--the only "virtual" phone company in the world that has this figured out according to a couple of articles I read recently. They connect by buying excess time/capacity from the big boyz of the cellular world so you can connect via whatever network is available. Spend $100 or so for a year of service and you get a pile o' units. Each year I renew I spend $100 and get 400+ more added to my account. I use the thing sparingly (carry on the bike and in the car at all times, but usually switched off unless I know my wife will be looking for me) and currently have more than 1000 units. I can't blab enough to use em up! I believe each unit is good for a minute of yakking, no matter where in the US you are. You can waltz into your local dept. store and choose the phone model you want, pay for it then go home and get on the 'net and set up your service. They annoy you with emails trying to sell you more time now and then but overall it's tough-to-beat if you don't use the thing much and don't want a monthly bill. $100 a year plus the cost of the phone takes care of you.

David S said...

Same issue with previous phones.

Best Buy has a good selection of batteries online. Here's a link for t-mobile phones.
http://bit.ly/heAHm

Sometimes the independent cell phone stores carry batteries.

gewilli said...

simple things like not charging your battery until it needs it, and not letting it go to warning empty, and not leaving it on the charger too long will extend the battery life dramatically.

James said...

Also let it run down all the way a couple times... say 2 times in a row, then recharge and see if it doesn't change the life of your battery.