In November, I made the regrettable mistake of trying out WalMart’s Straight Talk Wireless A $30 plan for 1000 minutes sounded like a great deal. Unfortunately, this is most certainly a case of “you get what you pay for.”
I started out by heading to WalMart and buying my phone (you can only use a phone purchased specifically through their service) and the phone service card. Then I set about activating it. My first issue was with the fact that the company does not tell you that it is a prepaid phone plan. Yes, they say “no contracts,” (by which they mean no time commitments although you are still required to agree to a contract) but there are certain month to month plans through actual cell phone companies that don’t have time commitments either.
Personally, I hate the idea of a pre-paid 30 day contract because that means if you forget to pay your bill by even one day, you lose service immediately. I had to subscribe to their auto-pay system to ensure I wouldn’t lose service, which also meant that I risked forgetting the bill was coming and over drafting my bank account at the end of every month.
Then came the terrible customer service. When I registered, my T-Mobile phone number was supposed to transfer over to my new phone…but it didn’t. Instead, my phone number stopped working, but I could still somehow make calls from my new Straight Talk phone. When I called the outsourced customer support, they used my phone number as the account number, which meant that they couldn’t find my account. When they finally did look it up using a bunch of wonky work arounds, they finally got my phone to receive incoming calls, but the internet still didn’t work on the device, which was supposed to be included in the plan. I ignored this problem because I didn’t really need the internet, but I still find it odd that no one could help me to get the internet working, nor did they even care.
Later on, I couldn’t access my account on their website because you can only log in with your phone number. I called support again (went through the complex work around to get them to find my account without the phone number) and found out the number was still somehow not in their system. Until the number was in their system, I couldn’t get online with my account –even though I had originally signed up to the service online using that phone number!
Within a month, I found out that I still had a few months left on my T-Mobile contract and I wasn’t particularly impressed with Straight Talk, so I opted to switch back. Enter nightmare ordeal #2. To keep my old number (which was fairly important since I just sent out a bunch of resumes with the number on it), I had to have Straight Talk release my number. Big problem.
Remember how they couldn’t transfer my number at first? Yeah, it turns out they never actually fixed that. Somehow my phone number was sitting in limbo and although I made and received calls, they never actually activated the number. So in order to get my number back, they had to release it, but they couldn’t find it in the system to do so.
The representative at the T-Mobile store spent an hour on the phone with them trying to get them to figure this out and fix the problem and eventually I was instructed to “call back next week and we should have it fixed.” So I did, and the woman who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about, even when I told her from the beginning, “I need to speak to your elevated level of customer service.” Finally, after the eighth explanation, she says “ok, let me put you through to the elevated level of customer service.” When I got through to someone who actually knew what they were talking about, they told me “call again next week.” A week later, the phone number just transferred on its own.
After the whole experience, I decided to sell my Straight Talk phone because I had no intention of ever working with the company again. So I put it on Craigslist, thinking the people could just activate it and that will be the end of it. Unfortunately, Straight Talk won’t activate it for someone else without all of my personal info, so the strangers I sold it to had to keep calling me back, asking for my old address, my mother’s maiden name and my birthday. If I had known that selling my phone could have opened me up to identity theft, I would have just sent the phone to the recycler.
Every single step of the way my experience with Straight Talk was horrendous. I hope that sharing my story will at least dissuade a few people from trying their service, at least until they improve things dramatically.
On a 5 point scale, they get a .
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Category Bad Company Experiences, Reviews | Tags: cell phones,straight talk,straigt talk,walmart,wireless companies | 17 Comments
BJ’s, A Bit Pricey, Quite A Bit Delicious
March 10, 2010 by ruetheday
It’s been years since I stopped by BJ’s in La Mesa, but I always knew they had a great happy hour, so we headed out there yesterday to see if it was still around. As luck would have it, the restaurant’s happy hour hasn’t changed a bit. All of their mini pizzas are half price, drinks are a dollar off and appetizers are two dollars off. Of course, the prices for everything are on the expensive side, so this just means everything is reasonable instead of over-inflated.
We went ahead and ordered the piranha nachos as an appetizer and I ordered their Irish Root Beer. The nachos were good, but a few chips were burned and their salsa has always been a bit strange. The smokey chipotle flavor is just a bit off when paired with the sweetness of the rest of the flavors. Unfortunately, you can’t have nachos without salsa, so we just tried to go light on the salsa. While the chili, cheese, olives, sour cream, tomatoes and other toppings were tasty, I think I’d skip this $9.25 appetizer ($7.25 during happy hour) in the future, unless they get a new salsa.
As for my drink, the Irish Root Beer was pure heaven. With the restaurant’s own root beer, Baileys, BOLS butterscotch schnapps and Jameson whiskey, it was the perfect blend of sweet and bitter. Over all, it had a taste of a root beer float, but the sweet bite of the Jameson made it all the more delightful. At $7.75 per glass ($6.75 during happy hour) it’s a little on the pricey side, but the size and flavor made it worth the expense.
For dinner, we went for the mini pizzas. BJ’s specialties are its beers and pizzas, so I knew we’d be in for a treat no matter what we ordered, so we went for the exotic and tried the Mediterranean, with Kalmata olives, grilled chicken, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, pesto, feta cheese, peperchinis and garlic, and the bacon cheeseburger, with ground beef, red onions, bacon, pickles, tomatoes, cheddar cheese and thousand island dressing.
Both of the pizzas were tasty, but the Mediterranean had quite a few less toppings than one would expect, although the taste was still an excellent blend of all the ingredients. The cheeseburger pizza was a treat for the tongue as the flavors of the pickles and dressing were unexpected, but entirely pleasant. I would highly recommend either pizza, particularly for the price of $5 each during the happy hour special.
I ended up with enough left overs to have lunch the next day, which meant I was too stuffed to try the pizzokie, which looked quite tasty. But, to correct that omission in our meal, I’ll be making home made pizzokies later and then sharing the recipe with you all soon.
If you get the chance to stop by BJ’s, give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.
I’d give the restaurant a out of 5 right now, but if they reduced their prices a bit and got a better salsa, that could easily become a 5 out of 5.
Category Reviews | Tags: beer,bj's,food,pizza,Reviews | No Comments
Sun Tacos: Changed Name=Changed Quality
March 7, 2010 by ruetheday
If you live in La Mesa, you may very well have enjoyed the little taco shop on Baltimore that was once known as Buenos Dias. Unfortunately, although the shop is still owned by the same people, the name change to Sun Tacos, which does not sound nearly as delightful to the ear, reflects a drop in both value and price.
While the menu options are the exact same, even the trademark Buenos Dias burrito with potatoes, beans and eggs, the prices have risen as much as a dollar per item. You can even see the old prices shining through the menu board, mocking you for having spent more than you really should have.
For me though, the real disappointment was the food. While the restaurant was once one of the rare taco shops that wasn’t too greasy and cooked everything to perfection, the food has taken a nosedive. The carne asada was chewy; the beans, flavorless and greasy; the tortillas, stale; and, worst of all the potatoes in my once-beloved Buenos Dias burrito were crunchy and undercooked.
If you had once enjoyed the restaurant, it’s best to leave your memories the way they were and simply avoid the location at all costs.
Category Guide To San Diego | Tags: buenas dias,mexican food,restaurants,Reviews,san diego,taco shops | No Comments