Lesson learned

Don't buy anyone a cell phone for Christmas. Trust me on this, it's really not worth it. At least not 50% of the time.

On my cell phone plan, I have the option of adding up to 5 lines for $9.99 a month each. My parents were already on my old plan, so I already knew that I would be getting them two new phones for Christmas when I redid my plan. Since I knew that my sister and brother-in-law didn't have cell phones, and that it would probably for them to have them. So I asked my sister before Christmas if she would like me to buy her and Brandon (my brother-in-law) a cell phone, and add them to my plan so they wouldn't have to pay full price for an account of their own. She was quite excited by the prospect, and explained that she never really got a cell phone because she didn't want to go through the whole setting up of an account and etc, so this was perfect. So now I'm excited, because for a change I actually thought up a good gift idea. I told her that the phones would be only $9.99 a month plus all the surcharges that the government fucks us in the ass with, so plan on about $45-$50 a month for both phones. She was like, "Cool."

So Christmas has come and gone, and I got my first cell phone bill of my new account. $228.38. I'm of course a bit puzzled by this, and I start reading through everything to find out why the bill is so much. The first problem was that the media basic packages, which were an extra $9.99 a month for each phone. When I set up the account, I was under the impression that was only $9.99 for all five phones. So, that's a rectifiable issue, and I'm canceling those packages. Next, there's an unknown $9.99 charge on my brother-in-law's phone that is dated BEFORE I EVEN BOUGHT THE MOTHER FUCKER. So, tomorrow I need to call Cingular and have them credit me for that bogus surcharge. Next, there were activation fees on my sister and brother-in-law's phones, which I forgot to mention to my sister. But these are of course only a one-time charge, and won't be on next month's bill at all.

That, however, doesn't change the fact that my sister owes $93.01 for her two phones this month. Needless to say, she no longer thinks of it as a great gift idea. I didn't realize that I had to also play the part of the customer service person who keeps the clients happy. On top of that, on every phone except mine, the voicemail prompt wasn't working. Three SIM cards later, we finally got that issue resolved. It hasn't been a pleasant experience for me, especially considering that NONE of the these problems are with MY phone!