$438.02

[angelicafire]

My job is to convince people to keep their cell phone service by changing it to fit their needs (or giving them free stuff, like phones or months of service). I had spent a week convincing this gal to keep her service, and it would be so great!

Well, I put her on a rate plan that wasn't compatible with where she currently lived (she lived in one place, and her area code was in another, and I didn't catch it). Needless to say, her next phone bill had a $438.02 charge on it. I ended up fixing it, but I'm pretty sure she about had a heart attack.

[Mr. Rude]

Well, at least it was fixable

[Cia]

How do you live in one place but your area code is in another? Sorry, but I live in a one area code state so that just doesn't make sense.

[LostMyMind]

Sometimes, you run out of phone numbers. So new "area" codes are added, well, we all know what phone companies do when they get a chance to add more fees. It happened where I live, we all used to be one big area code. Now there is 4 different ones, I've heard horror stories how bills got crazy for calling across the street.

[MadMike]

The customer also could have moved to a location with a different area code, but kept the same cell number. A friend of mine, who used to live up north about an hour and a half away and in a different area code, recently moved closer to where I live. Anytime I call her cell, I have to make sure I include the area code... or I would, if I didn't take the lazy way and select it from my address book.

[Ryu]

when i was in elementary, maybe middle school the neighborhood i lived in had some people with one area code and some with another, its possible it was due to moving but i dont know
i remember being able to just dial 7 digits then one day having to dial 10

[Banrion]

I could be wrong, since it has been years since I used a landline around here, but I believe in the Boston area, there are 3 area codes that are all considered local, and you have to dial the area code regardless all the time. My b/f said it was because they expanded the phone system by adding area codes, but they didn't add any new exchanges (the 2nd set of 3 digits). So in our town you could have someone with 123-456-7890 and someone with 234-456-7890 they could even belong to the same person/ entity. I have seen several business type trucks with their number listed under both area codes, yet the same number.

[Ljt09863]

this reminds me of the simpsons episode where the area code got changed because they ran out of numbers, and all the rich people kept the old one, and the poorer people got a new one. homer didn't know about it, even though they sent out flyers, and made them take a class, so when he tried calling somebody, he couldn't get through. so bart kept teasing him, and whenever something went wrong, bart would tell him to call somebody who could help, and it was always in the other area code, so homer kept going crazy.....ended up with the town splitting and homer becoming mayor and some other funny stuff happening.

[jnd4rusty]

Actually I remember when I was a young "pup" that we only had to dial only 5 numbers to reach anyone in my home town..of course that was when you were just dialing in town..out of town you had to use all seven numbers. The first three were 987 and you only had to dial 7 and then the last four numbers. It is not like that anymore as they now have two different prefixes. When I moved to Rapid I had a culture shock as my home town was only about 2000 people and I moved to one with around 50,000 at the time.

[friendofjimmyk]

How do you live in one place but your area code is in another? Sorry, but I live in a one area code state so that just doesn't make sense.

In Dallas area alone there are at least 4 area codes.

[Titi]

I'll have to go with the moving explaination on this one because my mother not only has a cell phone with a different area code it's for an area code in a different state. (She lives in NY and her cell phone is for PA).

When she moved she decided that it would harder for everyone to change her number to a new one so she just kept it. She's gets some confusion when she goes to renew her contract due to that so don't worry.

[Luna]

My husband works 8.3 miles from our home and it's considered long distance to call him.

When I first got my puter many years ago and was an internet newbie, we'd be online all day all night on dialup. The big area code thing happened in the state. No biggie, yay - more number to use with our same area code to dialup.

We received a bill for over $700 that month. My MIL almost had a heart attack and threw a righteous fit on Christmas Eve. Even though we were dialing up using our area code - our area code had been spilt up into parts and most were considered long distance even though the number was listed as being a couple towns away! When we called the phone company to sort it out - they basically laughed at us and made us feel stupid for not knowing the same area code would be long-distance.

MIL fought it and they reduced the bill by about $200, but we still had to pay over $500. That sucked.