I'll admit it to anyone - I am not into mobile communication. Computers yes, mobiles, no.
Many moons ago my daughter gave me one of her old mobiles. It was simplicity itself and I had no great problem in using it. When I retired to Ireland my son and daughter-in-law helped me choose a similar simple phone - with this one you could take pictures and make videos but that was about all. Again it served my purpose. But it did get a bit of a battering - I let it fall on the pavement a few times and there was a scratch on the display. So last Saturday I bought a new phone, an android! I wanted to keep my existing number and I also had some credit left (I'm a pay-as-you-go person) so I checked with the girl on the service desk of the store (it is a big store in UK and Ireland and the name starts with T...) and she said yes, of course, you just take the SIM card from your old phone and put it in this new one.
Hah!! When I got home and sat down with my shiny new purchase, I discovered that the SIM in my old phone was too big for the android. Eeek. I checked on Google and this is apparently a normal sort of problem. Cutting to size was advised. I didn't fancy doing that myself but there is a shop in town which specialises in unlocking phones, repairing pcs, etc. I popped down to him, thinking this would be a matter of 10 minutes. But no, he said, he couldn't do that. Go back to the provider. He wouldn't advise cutting the SIM to size.
So I went back to the provider who has a website. I chatted online to someone who told me to get a SIM card to fit my android at the T... store and then my data could be transferred. Eh?? I already had a SIM which fit the android, it came with it, after all! Somewhat mystified I did as I was told and the girl at the store (very helpful) sold me a small SIM, opened my android and said "oh, you already have a SIM that fits". Doesn't anyone ever listen any more?? Never mind, she said, call the service desk and they'll change the number and transfer your account.
So now I have a new SIM card which cost me 5 Euros, which I'm not sure I needed, and when my patience and nerves have recovered, I will ring the customer help line. On the website it just says that I could move my phone number to the new phone but does not say if I could take my contacts and credit with me. And there's me thinking I'm out of touch with the wonderful world of mobiles. No one gave me a straight answer to my questions. I might as well have been talking to a robot each time and when I "pressed" the key word "SIM" and "keep number" I got a standard response but no one actually heard what I was asking.
In addition, when I had a look at my a shiny new android I felt I was being put in charge of a space station. There are so many buttons and apps on the screen, you have to register here, there and everywhere. Talk about lost!! All I want to do is send and receive text messages, be able to make and receive calls, take some photos now and again - oh and maybe, just maybe use Twitter. Is that too much to ask? Hello - is there anyone out there?
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