CREDO Mobile

 CREDO Mobile sucks.

 I want to get that out of the way first. CREDO Mobile sucks. This, I think, is a fairly recent turn of events since we've been CREDO Mobile customers for 14 years, or so they tell me. I think it's been more like 20 with a break in the middle, but whatever.

 Several months, maybe a year, ago (it's lost in the haze of being sick) CREDO "upgraded" it's network and required us all to get new phones. They even gave us the phones - Samsung Galaxy S10e... which I hated from the moment I got mine. It's crap. It's difficult for me to use. It doesn't give clear notifications and I have to fight with it to answer incoming calls. I can't emphasize enough how much I already hated this phone.

 A couple of weeks ago, I found a new reason to hate it. I haven't been getting my voicemails. This phone, rather than just telling me I have voicemail, has a Voicemail App. The App can only load 20 voicemails at a time (which it didn't tell me), so I needed to delete a bunch (which took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to do... OK, I'm not good with smart-phones. I'm nearly 50, deal with it!). Then I discovered that, even having cleared that, the App won't refresh reliably. It doesn't download new voicemails all the time, crashes often and doesn't notify me when new voicemails are available. 

 So, I did what any customer should do. I called customer support. 

 Now, I feel terrible for this next part. As much as two years ago, CREDO customer support answered their calls with "Hello, I'm [name] and I support [progressive cause... or Peace if you can't think of one]." They were also clearly located in the United States. Now, they answer with the generic "Hi, I'm [mumble so you can't hear my fake English name], can I have your name please" and are clearly located somewhere in Asia. I know, I have guilt about my self-identified racism... but the truth is, some kid in India who barely speaks English and is clearly reading off cue cards has a lot more trouble helping me. Yeah, the kid in Seattle doesn't know how to fix my phone either, but there was less of communication barrier and we got things figured out faster.

 Anyway I spent most of this week, when not at work, fighting with the CREDO call center. Major take-aways: 1) don't read me a stock apology - it just pisses me off. 2) don't tell me you're not reading me a stock apology when you are using exact the same words - word for word - as the last three people who read me the stock apology - it really pisses me off. 3) no I don't want to talk to a supervisor in 48 hours, I want to talk to one right the hell now! 4) CREDO Mobile sucks.

 ... and no, my voicemail still doesn't work.