re: "Black box"

They tend to be expensive to use by comparison with a land-line, and there are unresolved health concerns.

Sylvia.

On a sunny day (Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:20:29 +1100) it happened Sylvia Else wrote in :

The solution is: Use landline to call out for long conversations from home, only connect phone when making a call. Use cellphone for incoming calls, and also outgoing calls when not home.

Problem solved! :)

--

John Devereux

weeks.

Buy the one I cited. ...Jim Thompson

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More likely he fills in sucker forms with all his personal details to get $10 vouchers.

I don't often agree entirely with JT but on this occasion I will make an exception.

If you are ex-directory and you get cold called ask to speak to the supervisor and tear a suitably wide strip off them. If I get cold called and am in a bad mood I play them for as long as possible by putting them on hold for a few minutes while I "look" for my credit card. YMMV

Alternatively if your telco allows it reject all anonymous calls without CLID. My boiler service engineer does this and I have to remember to use the right escape codes as my home phone by default does not send CLID.

If you have the right sort of black box I cannot see why you are whining. RTFM !!!!! Or as a cheapskate you bought the wrong one.

Happy New Year everybody else.

Regards, Martin Brown

Not everywhere. It was cheaper for me to have two Verizon cell phones with the 750Min/Mo deal than one Verizon POTs line (note that Verizon Verizon). The cell phones came with "free" LD, too, saving a *lot* more. Prepaid can be a lot cheaper than that (as low as $.06/min).

POTS tariffs are controlled by PUCs and they often have an outdated, Robinhood, bent.

In an un-related incident, i got dunned for a bill that i had paid within 2 business days after receipt. Two months later i received the un-cashed check and more dunning letters. It took me 6 months and a high-powered lawyer to straighten that out. That was a long time ago when i had a few nickels to rub together..now i pick up pennies off the sidewalk.

Pray tell, (1) how does one use a cell phone for dial-up; (2) how does one get to use it at less than $30/month?

That costs a _lot_ more money than a simple land line.

Meaning you are going to pay me my cell phone costs?

weeks.

service

info).

1) do not like its kludgy "programming", and 2) it costs too much. Right now i have been enjoying (shh!) s i l e n c e due to the 3 new services.

• CANNOT work as they hang up immediately after i pick up.

• I now have 3 services that do a lot of what has been mentioned, and i have beem enjoying silence for 2 weeks so far (shh!).

I have unlimited local which is much less than six cents per minute, and i use a long distance calling card and pay well under two cents per minute. And i bet that 750Min/Mo deal required a N-month contract in the $200 range to get it started..am not counting the $$$ per month fees......

Sometimes events occur that the frontline staff are incapable of dealing with. I've tended to find that rather than arguing with them, or accepting repeated promises that it'll be fixed, it's much quicker, and less stressful, to start a relevant proceeding before a small claims tribunal of some sort (they exist in many jurisdictions). This is usually enough to escalate the problem to a level where someone is competent to address the problem, or at least has the authority to write off any alleged debt.

Sylvia.

On a sunny day (Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:37:58 -0800) it happened Robert Baer wrote in :

Get some law insurance, do not bother, send it to them. Law insurance is dirt cheap over here. What happens is that *they* will write a letter to who- or what ever it is that treated you wrong, that usually scares the sh*t out of those enough to seriously look at the facts. Worked for me in the past a couple of times. It has a side effect too, you get known as 'do not make problems with that person'. :-) Result: No more problems. No matter how much money they have for a lawyer, my insurance is one of the biggest in the country... Will eat them alive.

But you better know you are right.

On a sunny day (Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:41:15 -0800) it happened Robert Baer wrote in :

No way, if you use a prepayed cellphone. Incoming calls are free.

On a sunny day (Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:41:52 -0800) it happened Robert Baer wrote in :

You are so incredibly ignorant, do you *ever* think before you come up with these things? Oh, no, do not answere. LOL

You have to be *very* careful how they "write it off". You don't want it following you as a bad debt. You need them to admit that the debt has indeed been paid in full.

That in entirely dependent on your PUCs tariffs. My local calls were call unit based and the monthly charges were very high (LD was astronomical). The point is that POTs lines are not all the same, everywhere. I got rid of one POTS line for the cheaper cable modem when they became available and the other for a cell phone, which *was* cheaper than the local charges alone and got LD thrown in.

12 months, $0 startup, $30 or so for the phones, and less than $60/mo (fees included). I've renewed it three times (the second and third were for two years) It's about $5 more now but I've never paid anything other than phone "upgrades" up front. My contract has expired so they're constantly sending me renewal adverts. Since I don't use my phone much I'm thinking about a prepaid phone. AIUI, the Verizon network is a necessity here so was thinking about PagePlus.