Can We Screw You Now?

Aside from the major oil companies, if there was ever a corporation that was in need of some good old fashioned trust-busting, it is Verizon. Their stranglehold on the cellular phone market is evident in their predatory practices and piss-poor customer service. In my opinion, the only reason for using them is the quality of their coverage, particularly in rural areas, which I occasionally find myself in. I will spare you the details of the 6 month war I fought, after using their Sleazy-Move feature and getting involuntarily/illegally slammed into a new 2-year contract. Let it suffice to say that I eventually won, but only after becoming an expert in the terms of their contracts and threatening to sue them. The bottom line is that I despise dealing with them, because you have to become an expert in every aspect of the product you are purchasing to avoid getting screwed.

Saturday night, partially primarily on the advice of some of you, I bought a Motorola Razr v3c from the Verizon store in Timonium. I dealt with an employee named Chris. I don't know if he was a manager, but I can say that he was quite the douchebag. In short, he acted like he was doing me a favor by taking my money and grew irritated when I asked to see the contract terms and shot down his lame upselling attempts. To Chris' s chagrin, I managed to avoid most of Verizon's attempts to pad the bill with extra "services." One thing that really burns my ass is that Verizon disables the phone's Bluetooth and USB file transfer capabilities to force customers to pay either $0.25/picture download or a $10/month unlimited text/picture messaging fee. The other thing is a 3' flame. While the latter the can be considered a necessary evil, I found the former to be entirely unacceptable. So, on Sunday I spent 4 hours figuring out how to re-enable the USB/Bluetooth file transfer capabilities of the phone.

I also bought an accessory pack which consisted of a belt clip, vehicle charger, and a Jabra Bluetooth headset. I was surprised at the lack of public acceptance that these headsets have received. I can't say that I really understand this, since this technology has been around for awhile and allows a cell phone to be used more unobtrusively than ever. Nevertheless, every time I used the headset to communicate in public, people either gave me dirty looks or made snide comments. I guess some people just don't recognize hipness when they see it: