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I replaced my iPhone with a Droid phone about six months ago. The old handset sat on my desk gathering dust until my roommate expressed an interest in buying it. He already had an AT&T account with a Go-Phone he'd bought a year before, and had been keeping it running with occasional infusions of cash.
He bought the iPhone handset, because I owed him about a zillion dollars, and had his number transferred. I cleared the phone and handed it to him, along with the instruction manual and charging cables and all the various accoutrements I'd gathered since buying it in 2009. I did warn him, lavishly, that since he was buying a 3GS, some of the options were unavailable - there was a reason I traded up, after all. No problem, he said.
Until he tried to use the browser.
The phone worked fine. He could send and receive calls. And, he could use the Internet within spitting distance of WiFi. Nothing else worked. I asked him if he had a data plan. He said yeah, he'd transferred his account over from his old Go-Phone.
...Not a Go-Phone account. A data plan.
He insisted that there were forty dollars in that Go-Phone account and that AT&T was perfectly happy to credit it to the new phone. Therefore, ergo ipso facto, the phone was "charged up" and should work.
I tried to point out that he wasn't going to generate any data with an account from a burner phone. He'd bought minutes, not megabytes. He kept insisting that the money he'd spent should have paid for data.
We went to Boston to do some tourist stuff. He spent about two not-fun hours in the Commons poking at his phone trying to get it to work. At one point, I took it from him to have a look and see what he was trying to do. He had the browser open. The error message actually said "To use this browser to view the Internet, sign up for a data plan with your cell phone service provider."
I handed it back to him. "Get. A. Data. Plan."
By now, he was convinced that the phone was hopelessly broken and that I'd ripped him off. A couple of days later, we were in an AT&T store. The clerk ran some tests, checked my roommate's account, and said, "Your account doesn't have a data plan."
"A data plan?" said my roommate. "What's that?"
I saw double for a couple of minutes. Still, my roommate went back and forth with the clerk a couple of times, insisting that there was something wrong with the phone, because he'd paid his money and it should work.
I'm not sure why he had amnesia regarding data plans, either. He was with me last time I went phone shopping, watching me try to balance the cost of a new phone against various exhorbitant data plans. When I bought the new phone, a robust data plan was a major concern.
Still, something seemed to sink in, or at least he was more readily accepting, because he left the AT&T store with a big smile and a working phone. I walked out silently behind him, black smoke coming out of my ears.
He loves his new six-year-old iPhone GS, at least.
He bought the iPhone handset, because I owed him about a zillion dollars, and had his number transferred. I cleared the phone and handed it to him, along with the instruction manual and charging cables and all the various accoutrements I'd gathered since buying it in 2009. I did warn him, lavishly, that since he was buying a 3GS, some of the options were unavailable - there was a reason I traded up, after all. No problem, he said.
Until he tried to use the browser.
The phone worked fine. He could send and receive calls. And, he could use the Internet within spitting distance of WiFi. Nothing else worked. I asked him if he had a data plan. He said yeah, he'd transferred his account over from his old Go-Phone.
...Not a Go-Phone account. A data plan.
He insisted that there were forty dollars in that Go-Phone account and that AT&T was perfectly happy to credit it to the new phone. Therefore, ergo ipso facto, the phone was "charged up" and should work.
I tried to point out that he wasn't going to generate any data with an account from a burner phone. He'd bought minutes, not megabytes. He kept insisting that the money he'd spent should have paid for data.
We went to Boston to do some tourist stuff. He spent about two not-fun hours in the Commons poking at his phone trying to get it to work. At one point, I took it from him to have a look and see what he was trying to do. He had the browser open. The error message actually said "To use this browser to view the Internet, sign up for a data plan with your cell phone service provider."
I handed it back to him. "Get. A. Data. Plan."
By now, he was convinced that the phone was hopelessly broken and that I'd ripped him off. A couple of days later, we were in an AT&T store. The clerk ran some tests, checked my roommate's account, and said, "Your account doesn't have a data plan."
"A data plan?" said my roommate. "What's that?"
I saw double for a couple of minutes. Still, my roommate went back and forth with the clerk a couple of times, insisting that there was something wrong with the phone, because he'd paid his money and it should work.
I'm not sure why he had amnesia regarding data plans, either. He was with me last time I went phone shopping, watching me try to balance the cost of a new phone against various exhorbitant data plans. When I bought the new phone, a robust data plan was a major concern.
Still, something seemed to sink in, or at least he was more readily accepting, because he left the AT&T store with a big smile and a working phone. I walked out silently behind him, black smoke coming out of my ears.
He loves his new six-year-old iPhone GS, at least.
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