Stolen Phone

One of our cell phones was stolen over the weekend. I found out at 5 o'clock this morning and called our phone service provider immediately. The lady I spoke with suspended the phone number and informed me any charges to the phone prior to the time I'd called in to report it stolen would be our responsibility.

I was wracking my brain trying to think of how I could get an old phone, and thought about my sister and my MIL. But it was still too early in the morning to call either of them. Then I remembered my employer participates in a cell phone recycling program and people donate their old phones to us. We usually make from $1.00 to $4.00 on each phone turned in. So I thought I'd go through the current box of donations and see if there was a phone I could borrow for a few weeks. There was. Only it didn't come with the phone charger. It uses the same charger my phone uses, which was convenient, but my phone charger was at home. So I decided to ask some of my coworkers if they had a charger with them. I asked our janitor first, who actually lives across the street from our job. Her charger was the exact one I needed to use. I got the phone charged up and put my SIM card into it, to see if it worked and all the numbers dialed, etc.

Next step, buy a new SIM card. They cost $20. I went to the nearest phone store and explained our situation, and said I'd be buying a new phone in a few weeks, but just wanted to buy a SIM card for now. The guy takes my information, goes and gets a SIM card, puts it in and says, "There you go, you're all set." I said, "Thanks!" turned and caught myself, realizing I hadn't paid. I told him I hadn't paid and he said, "Oh, no charge." PTL.

So I got that all taken care of. Later on today I decided to call and see if any long distance phone calls had been made. So the representative looks and says no phone calls have been placed on the phone since Friday. I sighed a breath of relief... then she says, "However, yesterday they downloaded 14 ring tones and 7 games which cost $97." OUCH!! Then she says she is going to refund those charges as a courtesy to me. She said she could only reimburse the ring tones and I'd have to talk to someone else about the games, but she said just explain our situation and she couldn't make any promises but hopefully they could help me out. The next guy I talked to was more than happy to take the charges off. Wow. I was so thankful. Both of them told me that is the new thing that people are doing now, who steal phones. They download ringtones and games to try to drive up the bill as fast as they can to make trouble for the owner of the phone.

So a potential $120 more debt today, down to nothing. I feel very blessed and thankful to God for this blessing today.

Until next time.