cell phone

Take Back the Beep Campaign

by Smithee on July 31, 2009

If you were to start adding a comment to this blog post, but we first made you wait fifteen seconds after pressing the “comment” button to make you hear some extraneous instructions, you’d be terribly frustrated. Now imagine if every Web site had the same problem, and imagine further that you were being charged for every second of time you spend online.

That’s basically the problem (well, one of the problems) with America’s big mobile phone companies. Anytime you want to leave a message for, say, a Verizon customer, you hear this:

At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5.

We’ve heard these messages so much that we could all do bang-on impressions of them. For the most part, I usually just roll my eyes and my sense of the phone company’s collective intelligence goes down one more notch.

But David Pogue, technology columnist for the New York Times, sees a more serious problem: mobile phone carriers are using this extra-fifteen-seconds-per-call in a disgusting attempt to get more money from each of us. These seconds count towards our airtime usage. If you’re paying as you go, you see the problem right away. And even if you have a monthly plan, just four messages a month means a minute that you shouldn’t be using up.

But Mr. Pogue has an idea for fixing this (not to mention shocking data on how big the problem is). He’s started the “Take Back the Beep” campaign, wherein you and I send e-mails to the four biggest mobile phone companies, politely demanding that they quit this at-least annoying and at-worst money-grabbing activity. From the article:

cell executives admitted to me, point-blank, that the voicemail instructions exist primarily to make you use up airtime, thereby maximizing ARPU (Average Revenue per User)

If Verizon’s 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year.

I’m heartened by stories that start out as a single complaint on Twitter, and end up getting a huge corporation’s attention, who is then obligated to rectify the matter. This should be even bigger than that. I took the time to send my complaint to AT&T. Won’t you?

Maybe if this is successful, we can then get mobile phone operators to admit that what we’re doing is just making phone calls, like we always used to do, and therefore, if you are the recipient of the call, you shouldn’t pay for it.

Take Back the Beep Campaign, David Pogue, The New York Times, July 30, 2009

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Do You Want RFID in Your Mobile Phone?

by Smithee on June 26, 2009

Håkan Djuphammar, VP of Systems Architecture for Ericsson, made a prediction recently that all new mobile phones sold after Summer 2010 would have two-way RFID chips in them that would allow them to act as a tag or a reader.

If what you just read sounds like technobabble, watch this short news excerpt to get up to speed. Even if you’re not interested in technology, you should learn about the possibilities and the dangers of RFID:

Back to the mobile phone: yes, it would be perfectly easy for all mobile phones on the planet to have an RFID tag/scanner in them. The possibilities for making use of RFID, like the numbering scheme itself, are practically endless. People in Asia use their mobile phones to buy drinks from vending machines all the time, and according to Djuphammar:

the chip might also be used by credit card companies to track the location of cardholders to cut down on fraud.

This was followed up on the Wired Magazine article about this story with a great user comment:

So, the myriad of privacy concerns aside, does this mean I won’t be able to use my credit card if I leave my phone at home?

RFID doesn’t inherently scare me. I already use one in the keyfob for my car when unlocking the door and starting the engine. It raises ethical concerns, and I think we should plan our next moves carefully. We don’t have a great history of moving carefully forward (people still drive without seatbelts all the time), which is one of the reasons I’m hoping you’ll educate yourself and your friends about this starting today.

If you have the means and the time, I highly recommend the book Everyware: the dawning age of ubiquitous computing, which not only details many possibilities for taking advantage of RFID, it also contains a great starting point for a positively ethical “post-PC” future (including some really neat new icons).

RFID-Enabled Phones Could Let Credit Card Companies Track Users, Kim Zetter, Wired Magazine, June 25, 2009

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Changed My Verizon Wireless Plan: Same Features for $30 Less

by Flexo on November 12, 2008

Earlier this year, I upgraded my only phone — I have no need for a land line — to a BlackBerry 8830 on Verizon Wireless. Now I receive my important email (in addition to some junk mail) where ever I happen to be. I accepted the fact that I would be paying for this service. In fact, my cell phone bill increased from about $50 to about $90 to pay for unlimited data, email, and a limited amount of voice minutes.

Unknown to me, Verizon began offering a less expensive option for BlackBerry owners a few months after I signed up for the plan. The new option has all of the same features except for enterprise-level email. I do not use this extra feature, so the new plan would provide me the same functionality for a lower price.

There’s one problem: Verizon didn’t contact me to let me know a new plan type was available. Why should they? If I switch to the new plan, I’d be sending them less money each month. I don’t read websites that focus on wireless services like HowardForums so I do not keep myself up-to-date with the latest industry news.

Here is how I discovered that I have been overspending. A Consumerism Commentary reader tipped me off to Validas, a website that scans your wireless phone bill and suggests opportunities for saving. Validas works with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and U.S. Cellular customers. Using the service once costs $5 but if you order multiple reports, the price drops. One report per month costs $20 for a year. If you order a package of 24 reports, they cost only $1 each.

You can preview your savings for free, but in order to receive details about the less expensive options, you will be required to pay for at least one report.

In order to analyze my bill, I first had to visit Verizon’s online billing website to download a PDF version of my bill. I then logged into Validas and uploaded my bill.

After uploading my bill, Validas analyzed my usage from the last month and presented suggestions for saving money. The website informed me that I could save $30. My current service includes a nationwide BlackBerry plan that includes email, web, 450 anytime minutes, unlimited night and weekend voice minutes, unlimited anytime Verizon-to-Verizon voice minutes, unlimited Verizon-to-Verizon text messages, and 500 additional text messages. Validas suggested I switch to a voice plan that includes the same service except the BlackBerry service is an extra, added onto a 300 anytime minutes plan.

Validas couldn’t provide the details about the new BlackBerry add-on, so I quickly researched the “EMAIL & WEB -BLACKBERRY $29.99″ service. As I mentioned above, this cheaper option doesn’t include enterprise email. I do not use this feature, so I was happy to drop it to save $30.

I should also disclose that my employer offers a 19% discount for all Verizon Wireless plans, and Validas was able to take this discount into account.

I visited Verizon Wireless to change my plan to start saving $30 per month immediately. This change did not affect my contract. Even though I was switching to a lower-cost plan, Verizon did not require that I extend my contract for two years.

Next I visited BillShrink, a service similar to Validas, but free. BillShrink does not require a PDF version of my statement, but in order for the analysis to begin, I needed to provide my cell phone number and my login password for verizonwireless.com. After running my usage pattern through thousands of options across all wireless carriers, BillShrink suggested I could save $50 per month by switching to a 200 anytime minute plan (which also did not seem to exist on Verizon’s website).

Unfortunately, BillShrink did not take my BlackBerry into account. I could obviously save more money by dropping my BlackBerry and re-activating my old phone, but since I plan to stick with my current phone until my contract is complete, Validas provided the results that were more appropriate.

For me, the $5 spent to have my bill analyzed by Validas paid for itself six times over in one month or 90 times over for the remainder of my contract. It also made me realize that I need to pay more attention to the plans offered by my wireless provider so I don’t miss out on any price reductions. Verizon isn’t going to make any effort to let me know that I can save money by switching my plan.

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Tracking My Verizon Wireless Rebate Online

by Flexo on April 4, 2008

I’m not a fan of rebates, particularly the kind of rebate for which you must pay full price for a product up front with the promise of cash back if you remember to mail in your receipt and a portion of the product’s packaging in time. I’m not a fan because I’m generally unorganized, at least historically.

I’m not a fan also because many people are like me. Rebates are great marketing tools, convincing customers that they are getting a better deal. The company offering a rebate on a product gets the benefit of advertising a lower price as well as the benefit of charging all customers full price. They are well aware that many customers will not jump through all the hoops necessary — or even just remember to do so — to receive cash back. By the time this cash arrives for the lucky customers, the price of the product has been lowered.

As of January, I had the same cell phone for almost three years. I had completed the terms of my latest two-year contract with Verizon Wireless and was delaying the purchase of a new phone for as long as possible.

My biggest problem — a complaint shared by my girlfriend — is the phone’s battery couldn’t hold a full charge after three years. When using a Bluetooth headset, the battery drains in less than an hour. I could have simply purchased a new battery for the phone, but I decided to take the opportunity to pick a new phone that would offer me helpful features e-mail, mobile web, and a functional keyboard. I decided on the BlackBerry 8830, and I’m very satisfied with the purchase.

The current price is $399 with a 2-year contract, minus a $100 online discount (or just $299 in the stores). Additionally, whether purchasing in the store or online, Verizon is also offering a $100 rebate. This is the same offer that was presented to me a few months ago when I was shopping for my new phone. Somehow, and I’m not quite sure how, I managed to convince the salesperson to give me another $100 off. Perhaps because I spent a lot of time in the store and they probably just wanted to get rid of me, they sold me the phone for $199 with eligibility for the $100 rebate.

True to form, I almost missed the deadline to send in my rebate form, receipt, and serial number cut from the box. Here’s the problem. When you take the phone home, you have fourteen days to make sure the phone works properly before returning it. This prevents you from destroying the packaging and sending in the rebate right away (though I imagine some people do, anyway). The box get put away and the rebate is forgotten.

Almost. As March came to a close, I realized I was approaching the deadline for mailing my rebate form and qualifying for my $100 back. I managed to submit the materials in the nick of time. It’s entirely possible that they would extend the deadline, but it’s not with $100 to find out.

As I mentioned before, I’m not very trusting when it comes to rebates. Many times, rebate offers are simply scams. First, the customer must jump through hoops, second, materials are often “lost in the mail,” and third, loopholes which allow the company to reject rebate requests are frequent. Verizon Wireless seems to have a better approach to the process. According to the Verizon Wireless Rebate Center, my rebate paperwork was received yesterday, and I qualify.

The website doesn’t tell me when I will be receiving my rebate, but if I can believe the salesperson (would this qualify me as naive?), I should receive my check within two weeks.

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