WWTBAM Bored

More acting like this is my blog:

For a couple of months my tablet has been reporting that I don't have a sim card, then immediately saying "oh I found it". Without sim card, you don't get T-Mobile 4G. I am supposed to be getting 200MB/month free just for having that sim card.


Whoever owns the free wifi generator in my neighborhood has apparently turned it off. Either that, or it died on them & they can't get it turned back on. So I've been using more of that 200MB free connectivity I actually am paying for, by virtue of having bought the sim card back in February, but hadn't used it up yet this current 30-day period. I'd used 85MB in 5 days though, so know without free wifi at home I was going to either have to buy my own hotspot or ante up for T-Mobile's 3GB/30days for $30.00.


But you can't ante up remotely if you can't even get the tablet to connect to T-Mobile, which as of Saturday it wasn't doing at all. It had gone out pretty resolutely on Friday, then came back to life. But Saturday, no more.


All the stuff I could look up when I could get connectivity, via free wifi at good old Dunkin Doughnuts while waiting for the T-Mobile store to open up, suggested popping the sim card out & then in (I had already thought of that, based on how that works when the memory card disappears from registering on my phone, a diff device) but the advice warned me I'd have to do a reboot. As the tab was originally set up by T-Mobile store person who didn't let me take notes on what they were doing, I didn't really relish some out-of-date website running me through a reboot scheme designed for some different tablet.

Not to mention I'd have to get somewhere with internet & a printer to print out these bad instructions 1st, as you can't read reboot instructions from a tablet which isn't working yet.


So store finally opens & T-Mobile person wants the "phone # of my tablet". Which is something they assign devices, such as my tablet, that aren't phones, because they're a phone company at heart. Or maybe just "because". Without it, they couldn't look me up, because "we only keep records 3 months". Fortunately, I had original bills, so I had it.


They pop out old sim card without even testing it for anything. I ask them why it died & they're not interested. Apparently, a less than 9 month life is not unexpected in sim-card-land. Be warned. They pop in new one. Without charging me. I buy the $30/30 days lump of 3G from them, & they pop in new new sim card. This was because I'd reminded them the last time I'd bought connectivity from them (back when I believed the tablet's account of how much connectivity I was using instead of ferreting out T-Mobile's own record; turns out I didn't need the extra) the tablet continued eating up connectivity from my free 200MB & I never got to even use the 1G/1 week for $10.00 I'd paid for.


So what they've done now will apparently have me draining the $30 connectivity 1st. We'll see.


Maybe free wifi will miraculously reappear. Maybe I'll decide to buy a hot-spot. One thing I never thought to check out, on my 1st go-round about this, is whether they are battery powered.


I am afraid of running up a bill on one of the portable hot-spots, which on-line woeful persons tell me can happen if you fall asleep with your device on. So maybe I'll keep buying connectivity in monthly or weekly lumps from T-Mobile.


Meanwhile, this non-free connectivity is being drained far faster that the free 200MB ever was; I used max of 3MB/day, before the wifi disappeared. But I'm not doing anything differently. However, 9MB is gone-gone already today.

T-Mobile store person said the reboot was "a soft reboot" which I could have done, but they still didn't show me what they were doing. I can't find any of my settings (such as GPS turned off, & tablet set not to update apps unless connected to wifi) to have been changed.


They didn't charge me for either new sim card.


And they assigned my non-phone tablet a new "phone #". I cannot fathom why.

I went back to T-Mobile to find out why the bought connectivity was being drained at alarming rates. 85MB in a day & a half. Store person couldn't find anything wrong. They went over all the stuff I had already gone over, & found no draining activities. I expected to be using around 9MB/day when not near a wifi hot spot, as I had been on the free 200MB/month allotment. Instead, 85MB in a day & 1/2.


I also started getting a very weird message, the minute the bought connectivity kicked in. Message, from T-Mobile, informed me that as the owner of # such-&-such, I had voided TMO's terms of usage by running a hot spot in excess of the 7G they allowed, & they were cutting my whole plan back to 1G. The # they cite was not the # assigned to me by TMO. Needless to say, I hadn't been doing any of that stuff.

Store person couldn't figure out why I was getting this message, & said their records showed I still had a 3G/month allotment.


I suggested maybe all could be fixed if they gave me another sim card, as maybe the one they gave me had magically linked me to the person generating this illegal usage. They said "but then you'll have to pay another $30 for data; we can't transfer it".

Store person suggested I call their customer service line about both problems. I had not much hope, as people on the phone at hot lines are usually just placeholders.


Hot Line person looked up my stuff. They asked me my pin #; I gave them the one I know I had selected, in store, back when I 1st bought tablet, to replace the "1234" pin assigned. They said "that's not your pin". I gave them the alternate pin I use. Wasn't "it" either.

Hot Line person says "so you have an Apple such-&-such" & I said "no, I have an Alcatel One Touch Pop 7". They had me look up some important # off the tablet, & managed to verify that this was indeed the tablet I was talking about. While they weren't allowed to tell me what this alien pin # was, they did change it back to my very own pin # for me.


I am still holding my breath (this was yesterday; need oxygen!) but the data suckage seems to have stopped.


I don't really think I got hacked. It happened at too coincidental a time, if I did; I think store person who initially gave me new sim, & who set up the bought connectivity, somehow connected me to this other, crooked person's account.


Good luck on them getting their problems fixed. I hope I have mine fixed.

You probably had someone clone your SIM and was using it in their iPad. Or T-Mobile somehow assigned both of you the same number.

I had asked Store Person if they could get me a new new #; they said I'd have to pay another $30 for data if they did that. I will wait til the data is used up for that. If suckage resumes, that won't take long.


Since the pin # change I've used maybe 10MB; not great, but not suckage-rate (87MB).