Well, that was productive

The other day I decided to check and see if my cell phone bill, which I've been struggling to pay, having to make payment arrangements the last couple or so months, could be lowered in any way.  I had a tablet that was long-since paid off but still had a mobile internet line attached to it, for example, and I never use it anymore, and even if I did want to, I have WiFi now.

I went to the T-Mobile store on Richmond Road on Saturday and explained what I wanted to the associate.  He reviewed my account and confirmed that if I dropped the mobile internet and switched to the newer One Unlimited (which, like my last plan, had data, voice, and text unlimited, but also has the taxes included and the hotspot is unlimited at 3G speeds rather than a cap of 5 GB at 4G).  I wanted to make sure I could still get onto the internet via my phone on my laptop, but it's not as crucial now that I have WiFi at home.  And the speeds aren't crucial, as I just browse on the hotspot, not stream or anything, and I've been judicious about using it since it wasn't unlimited.  So I actually prefer the unlimited everything.

So with the switch, dropping my voicemail to text feature (which frankly hasn't been working well lately--I'll just listen to them like most people) but keeping my insurance, my name ID, and my instalment plan for my device (of which I got a stupendous credit, so that's just something like $3.00 a month for the device, a screen protector, and a case), but without going on AutoPay (it would save me $5 a month, but I don't want it to come out for the time being, since I've been struggling to keep any money in my account), she gave me the quote.  I asked if my work discount applied still, and it doesn't (it was about 12%), but she applied an Insider discount since I've officially been a T-Mobile customer since 2011 (I was a prepaid customer from about 2000), and that was 20%.  All told I went from $107 a month to about $80.86.  Not bad, even though at one point I got cut off in the transfer to her department and then also had to wait awhile due to her department getting a lot of calls.  But still, it was worth it.  The representatives at the store and on the phone I dealt with were very helpful, when I got cut off, I was immediately called back, and no one tried to convince me to do anything I didn't want to.  I've always had great service with them, customer service and phone service.  Usually, you would have to wait until the end of the billing cycle to change, too, but I'm only two days in so she was able to make it effective immediately.  Yay!  That was the main reason we didn't do it in the store the other day--the mobile internet drop had to be done over the phone, and he was afraid that if he switched the plans it would prorate so I was paying for both plans, or roughly a month and a half, in the first month.

Anyway, I'm happy.  I've had a very good experience overall with T-Mobile.  In the 18 years, that I've been on their service, I've experienced one very localised and short outage period.  They've expanded their voice and data coverage immensely, of late.  I really have no complaints.  Compare that to a friend who tried to pay his husband's Verizon bill to save him a trip and was given the third degree, being asked questions even the husband didn't know the answers to, and he wasn't trying to access the stupid thing, just give them the money for it.  All he should have had to do was give the mobile number and hand over payment.  He doesn't have a cell phone himself, he was just trying to make things better for his spouse.  It did not go well.  I'm so glad T-Mobile isn't like that.  Yes, to make changes to my account there's a PIN.  But anyone, to my knowledge, could pay my bill without being hasseled. :)