American in Spain

Going Dark - The Dark Days of Summer

August 10, 2015

Every year, during my two week August vacation, I run out of data on my mobile data plan. Last year, when I ran out, I called my provider to ask them to take more of my money in exchange for more data, and they said, "Sure, we can give you more data starting on September 1st!" I told them where to shove their policies. This year, I was smart, and I called them in July, a few days before my departure! I asked for more data, and they responded that they could give me THREE TIMES the megabits for the same price that I'm paying. Fucking thieves! I said, "Yes, please." I was then informed that they would need to send me a new sim card (my provider was purchased by Vodafone this past year). They said it would take 3-7 days to arrive. I was leaving before that, so I told them to send it to my vacation destination, not to my billing address. I also asked for the same upgrade for my wife.

The first day of mail delivery of the vacation, we received an envelope with my wife's new sim card. The following day, my neighbor back home said that some delivery person had taped a failed delivery notice to the lobby wall. Sure enough, they had sent my card to my house, not to me. After a long process of authorizing the neighbor to receive the envelop, it was too late to have it sent and to expect a reasonable delivery time. So I decided to just wait until I get home, and live with the slow (practically useless) data rate.

Then, I receive an SMS from Vodafone telling me that, since I clearly received the new card, they were going to cut off the service to my old card. So, because of THEIR error, I'm going to be incommunicado for 5-6 days, starting tonight at 2am. 😡

Epilogue

I actually had the thought, "Well, I might as well not carry this stupid phone around for The Dark Days," but then I realized that it is still an HD video camera, MP3 player, e-book reader, and portable video game console. Oh yeah.