Never accept a cell phone shop!

Well, hello. Yes, we are alive here at the Daily Moos. Michael suggested that we might consider changing our name to the Monthly Moos, considering that it has been months since my last post. I feel no remorse and no need to resolve to blog more often. My efforts need to go more towards daily personal study, playing with my boys, keeping the apartment clean, planning meals, eliminating Mount Washmore from the bedroom corner (neatly sorted into boxes and laundry bins, I must insert), practicing violin, recruiting more students, caring for my Primary kids and the Primary board, and the like. Yet, here I am. Thanks for being here with me.

Yesterday I received a menacing bill threatening to go to collections if I didn't pay up. This was completely absurd, but I was nervous. Back in November, on a mystery shop assignment, I bought a cell phone and then returned it about a week later without ever using it. The company was supposed to take care of these non-refundable activation charges. And they had. Several times. Anyway, when I got the bill, I dialed up the cell phone automated customer service line and discovered that my balance was $00.01. Yes, they were threatening to send me to collections over $00.01. "Must be a mistake, " I thought. "It's not even worth making a credit card payment of $00.01 because they pay more in fees to the credit card company then they collect from me."

Then, last night, as we were happily finishing our chicken pot pie around 7:30 pm, the phone rang. My husband answered, looked concerned, punched a number on the phone keypad, and didn't say a word. "What? Who is it?" I pestered him, in a respectfully (tic) quiet voice. I hate not knowing who is on the phone. It was an automated phone call from the cell phone company, threatening again to send us to collections over our past due balance. One measly cent was the balance.

Long story short, we eventually talked to a real live person, who apologized profusely for the inconvenience of the phone call, for the worry it must have caused us, and who took 20 minutes to assure us that after the next billing cycle, the remaining one cent of our balance would be zeroed out and we should call them in the middle of February to confirm that.

Moral of the story: never accept a cell phone shop.