Asurion Insurance Experience

In all the years (14 plus) that I have owned a cell phone or cell phones, this is the first time that I have had to replace a phone through an insurance claim.  I only have insurance on two of the four phones that are on my account, but I selected these two due to high cost of replacing one and the high risk of damage to the other.  The phone with high risk of being damaged was indeed the phone that needed to be replaced.  It it the phone that is in the possession of my daughter and it was damaged fairly early into the contract.  Replacing the phone without insurance would have cost a bundle, but with the Asurion coverage it was only $50.

I have to say that I was pleased with the experience.  I used Asurion’s online claim system to file my claim, which was approved quickly.  The phone was shipped by Asurion that day, although their choice of DHL should be reconsidered in my opinion (see earlier posts about DHL).

When the phone arrived, I simply followed the directions in the box for activating the phone and the phone was up and running.  The total amount of time that I invested into this phone replacement was about 20 minutes total.  I have no complaints about the service that I received from Asurion.

I will comment about insurance for cell phones.  Before you purchase this service you should investigate how much it is going to cost you to replace your cell phone.  On the Verizon system, the cost of the insurance is $5 per month or $60 per year.  Replacing the phone will cost you $50.  So if you break the phone on the 12th month of your contract, your total cost would be $110.  Generally, this is cheaper than replacing the phone by purchasing a new one.  Also keep in mind that once you reach the time at which you can do an upgrade, it is definitely not in your best interest to keep the insurance, because you can get a free or greatly reduced cost replacement directly from Verizon in this case.

Analog Cell Phone Service Causing Problems

The days of analog cell service are pretty much gone.  Verizon turned their analog service off in February and Alltel says that they will be done with analog in September.  Of course, Verizon and Alltel are in the process of merging.  As a result we have had several pissed off customers wanting to know what is going on with their phones.  Evidently they missed the 40 separate pieces of mail telling them about the end of analog service.

One customer today was particularly shitty about the whole thing.  She has an Alltel bag-phone from many years ago that “just quit working”.  She initially wanted to purchase a new cable for the bag-phone, yagi antenna combination that she was using.  As expected, she had no idea what kind of connectors were on the phone or the antenna.  After asking a few questions and getting very nasty answers, I was able to determine that the problem was not with the cable, but the analog phone she was using.  She went on the explain that the neighbors had no problems getting service.  For some reason she can’t get service.  We all know that the powers that be in the world have conspired against her to block her ability to make a phone call.

At one point in the conversation, she was insisting that she bought the Alltel phone at out store.  I told her that no one had ever offered Alltel or their predecessors at our store, but of course I was wrong.  Well at any rate their was nothing I could do as far as replacing an Alltel phone and I was definitely not interested in selling her service with our current carrier, so I recommended that she visit the Alltel dealer to see about replacing the phone with a digital one.  Boy, was I glad to see her leave the store.  People should not abuse the people that they are seeking information from, as it certainly does not motivate us to help when we are being treated like shit.

When to Stop Using Technology

I had a very rude customer yesterday who called me an idiot.  What caused this outburst?  The customer.  See I was tactfully trying to explain for the third time that they were the cause of their problem with their cell phone.  Seems that when you turn off “all sounds”, the DTMF tones are also turned off.  This causes the voice-mail system to think you are not pushing in the numbers for your PIN.  The end result is that the voice-mail system tells you your number is invalid and you can’t listen to any voice-mails.  The other problem was that when the customer pushed the number “7″ the “*” came up instead.  After four employees tried to replicate this error, we decided to go with my first observation, the customer pushed the wrong button.

My first solution after being called an idiot was to just call and have the customers account cancelled.  I still think that this would be the best solution overall.  The cell phone providers could come up with a premium service that accommodates these people.  People who should give up on any tech devices.  This service could be pay per call with a phone that only went out to this premium service.  The phone could have one button making it the simplest phone on the market.  You could have an emergency button, but I would leave it off.  There is no sense in emergency personnel trying to help these people when they push the wrong button.

I guess my main point here is that if you are incapable of following simple directions when it comes to technology then you should not be allowed to have it.  So you should voluntarily surrender it to the proper authority and quit bothering people who are not being paid to put up with you.

The iGo

There is something mysterious about the iGo vehicle and travel chargers.  People who often appear to be intelligent can NOT understand what they do.  If you have never heard of the iGo chargers, I will explain.  You have an main charging adapter, either 110V or 12V depending on your needs.  They make more “complicated” models, but I want to keep it “simple”.  They also make at least 100 different tips that fit into cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders, iPods, MP3 players; you get the idea.  Now you take the main charger, couple that with one of these tips and, presto, you have an entire charging unit.  The greatest thing about iGos is that you can buy a variety of different tips, put them in your vehicle, purse, etc. and you can charge every electronic gadget you have without bringing each individual charger.

Now, what happens when you explain this to people?  They look at you as if you just gave a dissertation on nuclear physics.  I kid you not, they just don’t get it.  Over and over again, this happens everyday.  Sometimes I wonder if I accidentally lapsed into a foreign language, but I know I didn’t because I only know a little Spanish.