So I go to use my cell phone (which I've had for almost 2 years) this evening, and I find that the inside display (it's a flip phone - with a small outside display/screen and then a regular inside display screen) is all white. Outside display works fine, but nothing on the inside.

So I look at the phone choices online, figuring I'll just buy a new phone (I have no home phone.... we got rid of it years ago because we really didnt need it). I find a reasonable replacement that will be 50 bucks after the rebates. Try to buy it... no deal... have to call.

I call customer service. After going thru the usual 'press 1 for this and 2 for that' routine, I get Erica in new phone sales. 'Oh sorry' she says...'you need existing accounts'. So onto Jamie. She says.. .well your contract isnt eligible for an upgrade until Nov. 16th.. but let me talk to my manager. She says, oh we can override that no problem, and then you can purchase online. Great. Then she says, let me transfer you to the specialist and she will take care of you.

Specialist gets on the phone and tells me - oh no, we can't override that sort of thing. If you want a new phone, you have to pay full retail unless you wait for your upgrade eligible date (Nov. 16). So the 50 dollar phone would be 300 dollars, which is rediculous.

Now what........ I am just so pissed I had to write it down somewhere.

So, I just spent 2 hours taking apart my phone to see if anything would work to try to fix it. Of course, no luck there.

My last resort is to go to the store tomorrow and see if they will help me at all. Three lousy weeks before my upgrade date and this happens. I could just scream.

Thanx for listening.

Sounds like your current contract is almost up...maybe you could talk to a supervisor and suggest that if they're so unwilling to help you out you might be happier with another company. They are usually eager to keep their customers. I mean, c'mon, it's just a couple weeks early!
Good luck!

I agree. With only three weeks left tell them you are so dissatisfied with their service you are taking your business to another company. Bet they bend over backward to help and keep you as a customer.

If you have a local agent, try there. I have had them give me a loaner phone to get me through to when my contract is set for renewal. Of course you have to have a standing relationship with an agent to get things like these. Mine just recently loaned me a battery to get me to renewal.

Yeah, I'm going to try that as soon as the kids finish eating. We're going to head up to the mall and see if the store there will help.

It just really torqued me that we've been good (paying ) customers all this time, and I'm 21 days away from upgrade (when I was actually planning on getting a new phone anyway), and one person I talk to says oh yeah we can help you, and then the last person made it sound like I was asking for the Supreme Court to change my status.

And, of course, the last person says.... I'm going to make a notation on your account to reflect what I've told you (which was to either find someone else with an Alltel phone and borrow theirs or to go to the store and try to purchase a used phone)... which means if I tried to call back, anyone who MAY help me will see that and go .... Nope, sorry, this is what you were told.

It just also sucks that if I were to walk in off the street (being a non-Alltel customer) I could buy the phone I want for 50 bucks. But, I'm a good customer for a couple of years, plenty ready to commit to another 2 year contract, and I have to pay six times that amount for the same phone.

I really was happy with them up until this point. We'll see what happens today..... althought I'm not getting my hopes up.

I had to deal with something similar not that long ago. My cell phone died and my contract was still a couple of months out from being able to get a new phone. I knew I wouldn't be able to go 2 months without a phone so I went on Ebay to find a cheap phone to tie me over. Found one for $20. It wasn't a flashy phone, but it worked at that's all I cared about. Then when my contract was up I got a new phone and put the other phone up just in case. Maybe if the local place won't help you could try Ebay.

So I head on up to the mall.... takes me 20 minutes to find a parking spot (and I wasn't being picky... there were NO spots). I decided to go rent a double stroller for the kids (3 & 5yo boys) since the mall is so damn crowded. Seven bucks for a germ-encrusted, double-seater fire truck . Fabulous.

Then I decided to go return our broken Eve (from Wall-E) remote control toy that lasted all of 24 hours to the Disney store (mind you, this is the second piece of crap toy I've gotten from there that I've had to return in the last 2 months... I thought they had better quality stuff in there ). Anyhow... Disney store is full of screaming kids, parents, and a floor that you can barely see because of all the crap thrown on it. As I make my way to the counter, I knock over an entire display of about 5000 (not really sure how many, but it seemed like a lot) Disney Princess figurines that they had lovingly stacked in the middle of an aisle that was about 3 feet wide . I thought I could get around it with my almost true-to-scale sized fire truck stroller. So while everyone in the store became quiet for about 15 seconds to stare at my inept driving abilities, I tried to pile them back up when 3 "cast members" rushed over and basically told me to get away (in a nice, Mickey sort of way).

I make my return and head to the phone store (clipping one lady's poor ankles in my attempt for a fast getaway ).

Finally get to the Alltel store...... 4 people working, 12 customers standing around. I start digging around in my purse for something to keep the kids quiet. Half a bag of Scooby-Doo gummies and some tic-tacs.... that'll buy me some time .

Surprisingly...didn't have to wait very long. I explain my sob-story to 'Alex', (with my mental list of then asking for a loaner, and/or talking to a supervisor, and if that didnt work letting them know that I wouldn't be renewing my contract) and she says... 'well, we can give you a loaner phone for 15 days, and then you just need to come back and re-check it out because we only loan for 15 days at a time' (I'm 20 days away from my upgrade day).

Perfect..... why didn't anyone offer me that on the phone? She switched my phone book over and I was good to go within about 15 minutes.

Thank you all for the suggestions... definitely helpful as always.

Oh... and then we returned our germ-mobile to the 'docking station', and we get a dollar back. Hooray!

itsmylife, you have better luck than I had with my phone. I live in Louisiana where it is very humid and my battery on my phone went bad because of moisture. My upgrade was not due until February and the person who wrote up my phone service on the phone did not include phone insurance, so I would have to purchase a phone at full price. I complained that this was the first time that I have had a phone that insurance was not applied to my bill and it was the person who signed me up that did not include it. I had no way of knowing because the bill is bundled with other bills, so no details are given. Well, after my dh and I complained, I still had to purchase a new phone and believe me I made sure I got insurance. Why would they make phones that have moisture problems? My dh's phone has the same problem, but he is waiting out the contract.

Moisture?? Geez, so they couldnt sell that phone to anyone in Seattle or Portland or anywhere where it rains a lot. That's rediculous. It almost sounds like a manufacturing defect of some sort. But I'm sure pleading your case with them would be just as effective as pleading with the phone company.

It's just insane how they treat people.

I mistakenly said battery, but in fact there is a moisture pad on the phone itself that shows if the phone has gotten wet. We could not just replace the battery, it was the phone itself that had a moisture problem.

My husband's cell phone did something similar about a month ago. The display went totally white and we had to replace it. Luckily the contract was up and we were eligible to upgrade. In spite of this, we would have had to pay about $150 per phone to replace the phones with comparable ones despite signing up for a two year contract.

We came back home (without new phones) and my husband found the same exact models online. One was free and the other was less than $50. And the website that we bought them from was the same cell phone carrier whose store we were at earlier in the day. I'm still pretty ticked off about the whole incident - I don't understand how ordering online from the same company could really be worth $250.

We have Alltel and we are able to upgrade our contract 3 months before the contract is up. When is your contract up with them? Or do you not want to renew with that particular company.

We had trouble with Sprint before and every time we talked with someone they would tell us something different. I spent a year arguing with them every month until our contract was up! It is very frusterating dealing with these companies because I don't think they train their employees.

I learned to write down their names and employee numbers and the date and time I had the conversations. Good luck!

Taxnerd..... 150 bucks per phone?!? Man, that seems like a lot...and the phone was similar to the one you had? I swear these places get you coming and going.

The phone I want to get when I'm eligible in 19 days now... is 49.99 on the Alltel website... and thats after 250 bucks in rebates..... we'll see what happens.

Navywifetrat..... yeah, our contract is up in February... but we're eligible for the upgrade in a few weeks (the 90 day thing). We've been super satisfied with Alltel so far (mostly because of zero dropped calls). When I had called to see if they would let us do the upgrade a few weeks early, I made it clear that we were plenty ready and willing to resign for another 2 years. That's part of why I was so pissed... it wasn't like I was saying 'hey give me a cheap phone, and now I'm leaving the company'... we like them and we want to stay, but when the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing, and we get the 'oh no, we can't do that' schtick, when the person right before this one says... 'oh that's no problem, we can do that for you'... it just really gets my goat.