So my mom and my sister often pawn off tech issues onto me, just because it's quicker and easier if I handle it than if they learn how to do it themselves. I'm alright with that bit, but the one thing I hate is when I have to sit on the phone with customer support of any kind, let alone outsourced customer support. And the past few days, over my days off from work, I have gotten stuck with so much of it.

So I have Consumer Cellular. They've been phenomenal. Their prices are great, they have a large selection of phones (and you can bring your own if you have an unlocked one), international and roaming worked great when I was in Wales, their tech support is entirely US-based—I seriously do not know why they exclusively market themselves to seniors. They're a just plain great carrier and I'm glad to be with them.

Previously, I had Straight Talk, which is a branch of TracFone. I fucking hate Straight Talk. Every single time I have to call them up or try to set anything up through them, it's been agony. My mom and my sister also had Straight Talk, and with Consumer Cellular's recent deal where adding extra lines are free for the first month, they decided to make the switch. After all, their phones are unlocked, and it's just cheaper to use my service (unlimited talk and text + 5GB of high speed data) than it was to keep paying Straight Talk's ripoff rates.

Both phone had their own laundry list of issues—on the Straight Talk side. With Consumer Cellular, I buy the SIM, put it in the phone, and call them to activate the line and port the number over. Couldn't be simpler, outside of not knowing 100% what was needed to port a number over (if you're in the same boat, it's the account number, which in Straight Talk's case was the phone's IMEI, the porting PIN, and the ZIP code attached to the account). I even got the direct number of Consumer Cellular's porting and activation team from one of the representatives, so I didn't need to go through the phone labyrinth for the other number. That number is literally nowhere online, I looked it up. (877-590-1749—am I allowed to post that? Ah well.) That is power.

For Straight Talk? Well.

• The first call to them concerned "port protection" on my mom's number (which she's had since 2002?? Fucking props to her for managing to keep it for 21 years now). That was just the porting PIN, or so I thought, because Consumer Cellular still couldn't port the number.
• Turns out, the porting failed because Straight Talk didn't have our ZIP code attached to that account, hence Consumer Cellular repeatedly using the wrong one. The second call was to figure which ZIP code was attached to that account. Turns out, two, both in Miami-Dade, Florida. We have never lived in, been to, or entertained the thought of entering Florida.
• The third call, this time for my sister's phone, I figured I was prepared—I had called Straight Talk once, got the porting PIN, got the ZIP code (also in Florida), and indeed, Consumer Cellular ported her number first time. I switch the SIM cards, and—oops, the phone is carrier locked! Now, keep in mind, this phone was bought outright from Straight Talk and was under their service for two entire years—there was no reason for it to ever be carrier locked.
• The fourth call, the Indian guy said outright "Straight Talk cannot lock this phone". But they did! So he had to put in an unlock request (for a phone that cannot be locked), and that required me to give him a ton of my sister's information to verify. He said it would take two days, but once it was unlocked, I wouldn't need to call for anything else. He also said Straight Talk would email my sister once the phone was unlocked.
• The fifth call, I actually never got through to a representative. While I was on hold, I had the bright idea to look in the phone settings and found the carrier lock had been removed. Said email never arrived, hence me calling. Switched the SIMs, everything is now peachy, and I never, ever, have to call Straight Talk ever again.

The Pocono Parks page has been updated with a trip out yesterday to two (three, but one was too small to bother getting photos of) parks that the township refers to as a "park system". That was the good part of my days off; getting to see some nice leaf colors and explore a bit before it starts getting real cold out.