We've had the same cell phone service since the boys were pre-tweens. Genius chose it for us, because it had unlimited internet usage and texting. The company is SPRINT, and it has worked well enough for us. They changed the unlimited policy, but anybody already on it was grandfathered in. For that reason, The Pony is still on our bill, though he pays his part every month.
A while back, SPRINT was bought by T-MOBILE. We had to get a new SIM or something for our phones. Our service seems to have declined, though to hear the commercials tell it, we have better coverage now. For a couple months, I've been getting emails that our bill will look different, now that it comes from T-MOBILE and not SPRINT.
I was none too fond of the SPRINT bill anyway. They sent it in an envelope that had to be carefully unfolded, then used to remail the payment. It was time-consuming. The bill itself was two pages of itemizations, and a stub to mail back with payment. Concise and to the point.
The new T-MOBILE bill came Saturday. The good news is that there's no reusable envelope to deal with. The bad news is everything else!
This new bill came in a giant 8.5 x 11 envelope! Inside were 10 pages of itemizations!!! Showing every text and phone call over the month. Even texts to a number I don't recognize! AND there's a little envelope to mail back the payment stub.
So... we go from conserving paper to the point of deconstructing one envelope to send back in return, to receiving a giant envelope containing a small envelope to return payment. And from two pages of itemizations to 10!
I can't see any benefit in this new billing scheme. None at all for T-MOBILE. While slightly more convenient for ME, it destroys the environment 8-fold!
The biggest offenders of our "paperless" society is banks and hospitals. Our bank is well aware that we get the statements on-line and prefer to NOT get a paper one. Medical facilities must waste the most paper in all the world, though, despite having on-line chart for the patients to peruse.
ReplyDeleteI don't get any bills for my phone, it's a prepaid plan, I just buy a recharge voucher once a month and use the phone as much as I like, but I don't access the internet on it (I can if I want to), it's just too small and I have the laptop for that anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'd be worried about the phone number you don't recognise. I suggest calling it to find out who it belongs to.
Kathy,
ReplyDeleteI agree! My bank statement is "just" 2 or 3 pages. But those insurance statements are WAY too papery.
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River,
I don't use the internet on my phone, either. Except to play Wordle once a day. Farmer H uses his to look up prices of things for his SUS2.
That phone number was bothering me. I spent about 30 minutes searching for it online. No luck. The times didn't make a lot of sense to me. I finally went through all my contacts, and discovered that number belongs to SIS! I don't recognize her cell number, because it doesn't come up with a local exchange. They got the number when ex-mayor was working in another city. But now I know! I'm not texting her very often, just before our casino trips. And I just select her name, without looking at her number.