Can you hear me now? ...NO!

I want new cell phones but I can't get them. Actually I shouldn't say I can't get them. I am not willing to pay for them. I have a very old cell phone plan. It gives me 400 any time minutes to share with my daughter. I pay $29.99 for my phone and hers is an extra $9.99 charge. There is no cell phone plan that even remotely comes close to this. And the number of minutes don't really matter, the average usage for both of our phones is 15 minutes a month. So realistically I am paying an outrageous amount of money for little cell phone time.

My daughter's phone doesn't work anymore and mine is just old and ugly. My obsession with the color pink brings the new Razr phones onto my radar screen. I want one. I also want my daughter to have a phone. Her diabetes is always a concern and I like to know that I can find her when I need to. There's less worry when I know she's just a phone call away. So at the very least I need to get her a phone.

As I reviewed the available phones my carrier has to offer, I made the decision that since I am not under contract, I would be willing to sign a two-year agreement if I could keep my present plan just to get a good deal on the price of new phones. My daughter and I trekked down to Verizon on Saturday morning to make the deal. She picked out the phone she wanted and I picked mine. The pink Razr was $79 and her Samsung was $29. A reasonable amount to pay under a two-year deal.

When the sales rep looked up my account he discovered that there was nothing he could do for us. He said he could only make deals on the phones with contracts that start at $35 a month. In fact he said that share plans today start at $79 a month. Quite a bit more than my plan. He gave me a number to call and said they could get us the phones we wanted.

Today I called the number. I love the little tip he gave me. He said, "When you get the automated voice just press *00 and that will bypass the system and get me directly to a customer service representative. " It worked like a charm. I wonder if I can get that to work for any automated system. I will have to test that theory.

The customer service rep I called was quoting right from the book. He called up my account and told him that I wanted new phones and no change in my plan. I gave him the brand names and style numbers for the two new phones. He quoted me prices in the $400 range. And I mean for each phone. Not total for two, each phone!

I said, "That's insane. And considering my phone usage I see no reason to upgrade my plan."

He apologized and said he could not help. I asked him why the rep at the store told me to call him. He suggested that the rep did not want to be the bearer of bad news. So there was nothing they could do to help me.

This is when the rep says, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Hmmm....right out of the book.

My response, "But you didn't help me yet. What do you mean anything else?"

He said, "I know, and I am sorry."

Thanks for nothing.

He offered me refurbished phones but not in the styles that I requested because they are too new. When I asked more questions about refurbished phones he blew me off. Must have been an option that they didn't really want to waste time on. Now I have to decide. Do I cancel her phone since hers doesn't work at all? Do I get her a refurbished phone and just keep mine? Do I cancel the entire plan? I just don't know what to do. Part of me thinks it's all a waste of money anyway and another part of me thinks I shouldn't give up this great deal because I'm never going to get it back. I just don't know.....