The first thing you need to know about me is that I am a lot like my pet bulldog: When I get ahold of something, I do not let go. Change is hard for me, so my decision to change mobile-phone providers was not made lightly and was a big deal.
The second thing you need to know is that contrary to industry assertions, cloning is not dead. I know. I got cloned. I knew it when my bill for one month-a month when I had not been traveling and had been on vacation-was $768.80! I called my service provider’s customer service department. After waiting on hold for a LONG TIME, the customer service rep was not helpful. He said I should get a new invoice in the mail.
Eight days passed and no bill. I called customer service again. This time the customer service rep was very helpful. Checking through my calling patterns, the rep saw it was obvious I had been cloned-it is, after all, impossible to make calls from Jersey City, N.J., and Baltimore, Md., within nine minutes of each other. The customer service rep filled out a fraud template. (Why hadn’t the first rep done this? I told him I had been cloned.)
The rep then told me the fastest way to solve the problem was to change my phone number. I told him, “No way,” explaining that I used my phone all the time for business. Since I had had previous problems with this provider but had held on anyway (that bulldog thing), the only way I was going to change phone numbers was if I changed providers. (I didn’t mention this.) He then said I could buy a new phone but added he could not guarantee I would get reimbursed for it. I should talk to the fraud people about it, he said.
I bought a new phone but did not activate it-waiting instead for the fraud people to call. I figured they would call right away since from what the rep told me the fraudsters were using my phone A LOT and they were losing A LOT of money.
Eight more days passed, and no calls from the fraud department. On my way home, after receiving calls on my mobile phone all day, I attempted to make a call. I then was switched to the fraud department, and someone there informed me my service was turned off.
NO WARNING. NOTHING … JUST OFF.
The person said I could only restore my service by changing phone numbers or going to one of the carrier’s stores and talking to the manager about getting a re-conditioned phone. The company would not reimburse me for the phone I had bought the week before.
That was it. I decided to switch providers. I wish I could say that was the end of the story-that I had simply switched to a new provider. But alas, sometimes being a reporter has its benefits. It seems my first carrier’s executive offices had gotten wind that a reporter had not had a good experience, and now they suddenly were willing to send me a new phone. If they treated all their customers that way then I, like my bulldog, might still be hanging on … instead of switching providers.
